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Back to the pier, hang around a bit, then go to the little "dig me" beach ready to plunge in the water. A bit later I moved to the starting line. Put myself right between the buoys, but wasn't on the first line (quite a few people in front of me, but I had a reasonable amount of room - considering how much I hate being beat up during the swim, I was happy about that). Gun goes off, start swimming. I started moving to the outside of the course pretty quickly to get out of the crowd as much as possible. All went well, didn't get knocked about and had a good feel in the water. I was moving ahead in the field, so I was happy. No clues about my place or anything. I knew I was near the front of a group, but that's it. It turns out I swam 58'17" and came out of the water in 244th position. I had a pretty slow transition, taking my time to get into my gear (and put something under the champion chip, to prevent it from chafing). Got some suntan on my upper legs as well (as they asked us not to put anything on the race number before the race - of course I forgot to have some on my upper arms and lips), and then jump on the bike and ride... |
Race morning, we get up at 4 to eat something
and then make our way to the pier (oh, very useful that our hotel was very close, something like 200 meters or so). Stand in line to get in, get our body markings and pump up bike tires, fill
water bottles etc. All done, we (oh yes, I was there with Eric De Beuckelaer) actually went back to the hotel room. Very practical.