Milton Keynes Winter Duathlon (March) - 2nd Over-all
Addidas Breakfast run (March) 3rd Over-all
Swindon Elite Duathlon (April) 5th Over-all
My first outing as an Elite in a draft legal race was at the Swindon Duathlon, with European places at stake it was always going to be a tough race and the high quality field meant it would be fast from the gun. I hung in on the run up until the last 2k’s and lost about 45 seconds to the chase pack (with a lone athlete off the front posting a formidable 10k time). Confident in my ability to make up the ground on the bike a set about chasing them all down. A very tough, undulating multi-lapped course coupled with very strong winds meant the bike leg was not a good one for solo riding but after 6 of the 8 laps I’d caught up the chase pack and had only a few minutes to weight until we caught the lone leader.
Coming into T2 in 2nd place, it quickly discovered that my stomach wasn’t happy with the amount of effort I’d put in on the bike and soon fell back into 5th place as I struggled to keep moving. A very painful 5k resulted in me hanging onto 5th however, but still disappointed in losing such a strong position. Many lessons learnt though from my first Elite, drafting race.
Powerman Elite European Champs (April) 20th Over-all
Stratford Triathlon (May) 1st Over-all
I had planned to use this as a final hard intense session before the European Duathlon Champs the following week. A disappointing swim left me again with much to do on the bike and 5 k run at the countries biggest pool based Triathlon. Thankfully a solid bike and run left me feeling in fairly good form for Hungary and with me 1st win of 2005.
European Elite Duathlon Champs (May) 68th Over-all
Racing with the Elites at International Level came as a big shock, but with very important lessons learned. I went through the 1st 2.5k in under 8 minutes (sub 32 minute 10k pace) and still found myself in 78th place… to my shock Leaving T1 I was 3 minutes down on the leaders and 2 minutes down on the chase pack. Once again I was faced with using the bike leg to make up ground and by the 4th of 6 laps I’d caught up the chase pack and had pulled back the gap to the leaders to under a minute. However, race tactics would prove to scupper any further progression as all of the Italians, Spanish and Germans in this group refused to work on the bike. I chose not to use only my energy to pull them along and sat up hoping to save my legs for the final run. Unfortunately this led to the lead pack of nearly 50 pulling out of reach and restoring their initial lead. The final 5 k saw me pull in few more athletes, but the leaders were 2 minutes up the road as I started my 5k and any hope of a good placing was long gone. Once again more lessons were learnt, in this case that I needed to get faster on the first 10k and that I should race my own race and not be dictated to by others.
Weymouth Middle Distance Triathlon (May) 1st Over-all
Intended as a steady long training day this turned out to be a very nice first Half Ironman distance race for me. Harry Wiltshire left the water 6 minutes up on me, but over the course of an undulating 90k bike and a very hilly run I managed to pull this back and then put a further 2 minutes into him before crossing the line for the win. Using a nice new Bontrager Disc Wheel for the first time made a huge difference and undoubtedly led to my fastest bike and run splits feeling as comfortable as they did. With Windsor now on the horizon I was feeling in good shape.
Windsor (June) DNF
What I had planned to be a big day, turned out to be a huge disappointment. Having recently taken delivery of my new Sigma Nemesis with Shimano 10 speed, and training rides seeing me comfortably beat my race bike split from the year before, I was confident that I could perform on the day and hopefully turn a few heads. Sadly it wasn’t to be and I had one of those unexplainable days where it all just goes wrong. The swim start was fast (as I expected) but I knew straight away that I wasn’t right. Despite swimming my guts out I still came in slower than I had done last year and way too far behind the rest to give me a chance of catching them. Failing to ever feel “right” on the bike, though I lost no time to anyone, I just couldn’t push it as I hoping to. As with Swindon, as soon as I left T2 I knew I wasn’t right and within 2k’s I was curled up in a ball on the floor with incredible pain going through my stomach, leading to a disappointing DNF.
Eaton Banana man (July) 1st Over-all
Back to business and in a flat non-drafting race, with both my new Nemesis and this time the Disc wheel too, I set about restoring some confidence. Posting the fastest bike and run split of the day again and another win was under the belt. The following day was the Super Sprint and slightly tired legs led to a 2nd place.
Eaton Super Sprint (July) 2nd Over-all
Milton Keynes Triathlon (July) 4th Over-all
Milton Keynes HIM Distance “Cow-Man” (August) 1st Over-all
My second outing at Half Ironman Distance saw another satisfying result and my 4th win of the season. Once again helped largely by a fast bike (averaging 24mp for the 92 hilly k’s) and 2nd fastest run split of 1:16 for the half marathon. My finishing time of 4:12.10 meant that I was on course for a decent day at HIM Monaco in a few weeks.
HIM Monaco (September 4th) 42nd Over-all
with a formidable bike leg involving over 2000m of climbing over the 90k in the mid day heat, followed by a scenic but tough run around the historic Monaco port this was always going to be a tough day. Sadly my disappointing swim times returned at the wrong time and though posting a bike split nearly 50mins slower than at Milton Keynes (due to the severity of the course) I was left once again with a lot to do on the run. Having gone too hard on the bike I only managed to pull a further 8 places back on the run, with a time nearly 10 minutes slower again, than at Milton Keynes. Once more there was much to be learnt…..not least was how to descend fast down the endless hair-raising switchbacks in the hills of Montecarlo.
Viturvian HIM Distance (September 10th) 2nd Over-all
After a difficult week returning form Monaco and failing to get my entry in to HIMUK as a result I travelled up to complete my 2nd HIM distance race in 6 days. Though tired, the bike seamed flat in comparison to the previous week and resting on the Aero bars of my Nemesis felt good. With a staggered start I had no real way of knowing how far the leader(s) might be and simply raced as I felt. Sadly this left my just a few seconds down (4:04:04) on a 5th victory for 2005. After Monaco and on a horribly wet day I was happy enough with the result.
London Richmond Park Duathlon (September 17th) 4th Over-all
The end of my 3 week race madness was in sight and a tough event in Richmond Park beckoned. Starting with a 10.9k run lap of the park (anti-clockwise) followed by a 2 lap 22k bike leg (clockwise) and finishing with a final 5.4k half lap run leg. Coming into T1 in 4th I was fairly confident that I could make a lot of ground back on the 3 guys in front. Posting a 31 minute bike split pulled me back to within a 100m of 2nd place, with 1st just a further 400m up the road. However 5k proved to be a little too far and fading towards the end I fell back into a slightly disappointing and very tired 4th place.