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Middelkerke,
Belgian Championships,
SP, 4.5/180/42
First complete triathlon for me. Unfortunately, I had a pretty bad week before the race. On monday I was afraid to be getting sick, but this was fortunately not true. However, the
prepations for us moving from Veltem to Edegem were not ideal for my mental preparation.
I took it slow on the swim again. I know I will have to swim faster next time, but I didn't want to spend too much energy this early in the day. I got out of the water 3'30" after the
leaders, which is too much. However, as the leaders were taking it slow on the bike, the gap was closed in about 50km. After eating a bit, I tried to get the speed up for one round (of seven). Realising that this
had no use (and that I would just kill myself doing so), I took it easy for the rest of the ride and let the others in the group determine the speed. At the end of the bike portions I was feeling quite bad, and I
almost fell off the group when Dirk Van Gossum (who won the race) tried to get away. My back was hurting, and I wasn't feeling too good. When the run started I felt surprisingly well, and the first 20km I was
running easily at (I think) a reasonable speed. In fact, at that point the run was going much easier than in Nice. However, I didn't feel good for too much longer, and the last 8km were real difficult (acally walked
some bits). Don't really know what was going wrong. My stumach wasn't helping. I possibly should have handled the eating differently. I probable also ate too little in the third round (of five). I am sure that I
haven't done enough training kilometers on the bike, mostly because these are the first training sessions I skip when I feel tired. I finished nineth and was especially happy to complete the race. I now know that I
can handle the distance, and with a better preparation, I should do better next time (year).
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