And... There off!

Had meant to post before now but haven't really had too much time.

First thing to mention is the Ballbuster. Had trained the preceding week and had a few beers the evening before so wasn't really expecting too much if anything out of the race. The weather on race day was great, clear skies and a little chilly. Started of at a real steady pace on the first run was aware that I wasn't running as hard as I could but then I've done the event before so knew that there was still a lot of the event left to do. A friend came up with me and I'd left him my camera in order to to catch some of the magic as it happened. Was good to see him on each of the laps and get some encouragement.

Onto the bike and hammered the first lap, was really enjoying the dry roads and ropey triathlon handling skills of some of the other riders. Made up some easy places whenever the road started to twist and from memory I don't think I was overtaken on the bike. Calmed the pace down
a little on the second lap with the last run in mind and got caught up behind a car on the last lap towards the end of little Switzerland. Spun my legs for the hill at the end of the  last lap and went past Chris, Lisa and Dave as they went up Box Hill. Again cheers for the support, I'm sure you all rushed home and ordered your own compression socks having seen just how good they look on me!

Getting off the bike at the top was interesting, the legs didn't feel like they were going to respond well to running as I hobbled my way towards transition. Still, once I got going and after a short comfort stop I settled into a nice pace. I was wearing the GPS watch throughout and I seemed ot be keepign a good pace on teh run so was pretty happy. Managed to take a few people over on teh last ascent of the Hill and finish in a reasonable 3:14 something.

All in all a pretty pleasing first effort to start racing with the season. Pretty pleased overall for a number of reasons including the beating of my previous time by 7ish minutes with what I thought was a much lesser effort, the even run splits and a good bike leg. If the running is going well over Summer I think I might go back and have a crack at a sub three hour time...