Well some of us who entered managed to get to the start for this yesterday.
I decided beforehand to run my own race and worked out a pacing strategy for a 2:48 finish and wrote the times I needed to achieve at various points on the laps on my arms and my bike (47 1st run 1:11 bike 48 2nd run).
I went 30s faster on the first run but I was feeling good and wanted to hang onto Andy Collins from SLH who I new was a big threat in the vets race. As soon as I got on the bike, I wend straight past Andy and he was unable to stay with me and I did not see him again. Unfortunately Andy punctured on the 2nd lap but he said he fixed it pretty quickly and less than the time I beat him by but it would have been nice to have beaten him fair and square though. He did use a lightweight timetrial tyre which was a big risk to use them on this course.
I let Matt Chapman go on the 1st run but overtook him after one lap on the bike. On the descent on the 2nd lap, I got stuck behind a horse box lorry and Matt caught up with me again but I managed to drop him on the zig zags up Box Hill.
I came off the bike 2 minutes up on schedule but a 48 2nd run was always going to be tough. I felt pretty horrible at first but managed to speed up after a few minutes and managed to maintain a nice hard pace to the end of the race and thought a sub 50 2nd run was pretty respectable. The bit I enjoyed the most was running up the zig zags on the last lap and overtaking competitors on their bikes. Some guy who was riding next to me up the hill shouted to me "bloody hell your doing 13kmh" although I accept he maybe using the same speedo Marek and Stu use.
I crossed the line in a time of 2:48:03, 9th overall (8th not including the relay team) and won the vets prize. 2:48 would normaly put you higher than than that, but this was the 20th anniversary race and all previous winners were invited to come back and compete.
Matt suffered on the last run and ran out of energy but still managed to come in 16th place. I think he went too hard on the first run as well.
Effort wise, I always felt in control and just had one of those days where I new I was going to go well and never felt I was going to blow up. I got up at 4:30am and had a massive breakfast to make sure the fuel tank was full and digested before the race as its not so easy run and eat as it is cycling. I reckon I could go faster as well and a 2:45 is not out of the question with another years running and a better bike leg with no obstructions.
Ben and Mark also competed and both did respectable times as well.
http://www.humanrace.co.uk/result-detai ... 6-361.html
Cheers