Bala Middle Distance

Sun June 3 2007
Listed by ATOM.
Entrants (6) Club PB SB Pred Time WAVA
ATOM. Pirate Ship Of Fools, Zoom Tri Club 5:59:59 5:41:45 107.46
Flying Ant Black Pear Joggers 6:03:06 99.28
GOM. Swim + T1 46:39, Bike + T2 2:49:18, Run 1:54:49 Ely Tri Club 5:30:46 109.81
Gumpster Unaffiliated 50:00 4:00:00 149.40
Hollywoof! Hollywood's elongated Bala report... sorry! --- swim 2km - bit slower than last year - maybe 33 or 34 minutes? Huge postive kudos to all those who did this - it was a cold and fairly rough swim - by far the toughest I've done. I kept way out to the right on my own (which was a mistake in those waves), had some puke issues (Lucozade sport - tastes disgusting going up and down), stopped briefly with a cramping calf in the last 300m - it's always awesome to complete an OW swim of that length but my performance was a bit weak (stupid?) really and I was glad it was over... --- T1 - a bit slow - cramp spread to my right shoulder so I couldn't get my wettie undone, then cramped in my calf again, but while I was putting on my shoes I got to watch Mr Melli, Melli and Mel all leaving for their bike. --- cycle 78km - started really fast - caught Mel and Melli on the first section of the hill, had some cramp again (oops), then caught Mr Melli and Shiraz before the top of the hill, raced Mr Melli for a while, then faced the tanker of doom (he was definitely bigger than me), then faded a little - did enjoy watching some draft cheats get caught (Mr Melli will be glad to know that I recognised at least 2 of the numbers in the DQ list), second hill was hard, found I just couldn't eat my flapjack and felt really off the lucozade sport again... pirate support at 35 miles was excellent - yellow umbrellas superb - go pirates! Last section dragged on... my back hurts still today... Finally made it back to Bala spot on an average of 20.0mph - 2:23ish - around 10 minutes faster than last year :-) --- T2 - for the first time ever I took my shoes off while still on the bike - managed not to crash, but I suspect it didn't make me any faster - then quickly got my running shoes on, grabbed my buff, grabbed yet more Lucozade, got my Garmin and I was off. --- run - beastly, beastly, beastly hills - far steeper than they were last year I'm sure - started off feeling OK, stopped after 200m in some long grass for a comfort break (amazingly pee was not Lucozade orange in colour), started running again but had a sharp stitch which made it uncomfortable going, found I was running between 8 and 8:30 per mile, found some civilians to run with and chatted away for the next 4 miles of undulations. Stitch finally vanished before 3 miles was up, got to mile 6 and the yellow support crew were out loud and lovely ... then up the big hill, spotted Mr Melli coming the other way (he said it wasn't far - he lied!), then Team Snorks overtook me (although he stayed and chatted for awhile - thanks!), made it to the turnaround and then flew back down the hill... only to discover Mellifera was coming up right behind me. The plan had always been to try to speed up for the second half and having Team Snorks in front and the MelliMonster behind really helped. I managed splits of low and mid 7's for the next few miles despite laughing at the pirate supporters who'd found a way to play the captain pugwash theme tune through a megaphone... lots of high fives with pirates coming the other way - including Shiraz who was clearly not loving the hills. As the tiredness increased I really valued all the high fives - thanks so much to all the pirates who played along... finally the 7s caught up with me and I hit a wall - my thighs cramped, mentally I started to wibble, I struggled to 9:30 for mile 11... pulled myself together a little when I got to the one mile sign but was really suffering as I hit the bridge in to Bala... I turned to see the Mellinator maybe less than 1 minute behind me and pushed the final 800m home... no more looking back... fell across the line in 1:44 - so the run was 8 minutes faster than last year. 4:46 overall - 16 minutes up on last year... very happy, but with plenty to think about ahead of IMA... more than double the distance, will have to slow my pacing and work out my feeding - also really need to find a cure for biker's backache. Huge thanks to all - especially Squishy for the magic anit-rain devices which really worked a miracle yesterday - the rain on the way home was amazing! Bala was my first pirate fix last year and this year was even better :o) Go pirates! Unaffiliated 4:46:17 125.59
Iron Squishy Pirate Ship Of Fools 6:40:31 101.25

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