Sport | Triathlon |
Event | Midlands Ultra Sprint Race |
Date | 29 November 2015 |
Where | Midmar Dam, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa |
Distance | 25.6 Km |
Finishing Time | 01:25:01 |
Race Number | 520 |
Result | 24/203 |
Top % | 12% |
Pace | 3:19 m/km |
Speed | 18.07 km/h |
Comments | View Comments |
If there was a race when everything went well (and beyond) it was this.
The water in the Midmar was strangely cold (18.5 degress) so we were allowed to wear wetsuits. For great swimmers, it does not make a difference (they would have done the 600m in their speedos anyway), but for me it was an early needed help. WIth the wetsuit I managed to come out of the water not in the last group, and almost 9 minutes faster than last year!
The cycle though was were things went crazy. Don't be fooled by the overall position, gender or category. My time was actuall slighlty slower than last year's, but the pack that was leading took a wrong turn and, instead of u-turning, they went on a 6-7km detour, which made possible for me to recover more than 100 positions by simply staying on course! At the end in the final 5km panoramic lap by the Midmar Dam, I just passed few tired competitors and managed to keep an exceptional (for me) 24th position!
I finished around 9 minutes faster than last year (mostly in swimming, lost some time in T1 since I got stuck getting out the wetsuit), and Lindsey was so surprised that she missed my arrival by 5 minutes, since I did way too well...
It was a nice way to finish a heavy November of sport.
Some pictures from the race: (the rest are here)