Weekend Race 2 - Burnham Aquathlon 1k/10k

Looks like yesterdays warm up worked out ok.

The 1000m swim wasn't to bad. I never felt great, but my legs only ever drag behind me so they weren't much of a problem. There's no splits up yet, but I guess I swam around 14mins and I was 3rd out of the water.

I was fully prepared for the run to be a cramp-fest so I decided that there was nothing to lose by leaving my Garmin outside and using up a few seconds putting it on so that I could measure the run course, it proved to be quite useful.

Trainers, number belt, glasses and trainers on. My transition was more slack than speed but I was soon on my way. This year there would be no hammering the early k's to catch any swim leaders, it was all about preserving my legs. I soon hit a nice pace though and once onto the beach I started reeling the speedy swimmers in. My legs felt very delicate but my Garmin was telling me I was running between 6:10 - 6:30 pace, I was happy with that. Once in the lead I started thinking the race though and thinking about how my legs were going to cope with the next 40mins, then I hit the first sand dune and felt a spasm through my quads.

The run followed a simple format. My legs would let me run around 6:20 pace quite comfortably, any faster or in fact any slower would see me risking a bout of cramp. Every time the terrain changed there would be a nervous 10 seconds or so where my quads decided whether they were going to behave or not, thankfully they did.
At the turnaround I noticed that I'd got a lead of around 45 seconds, but the chasing group seemed to be huge and I'd no idea how many of them were actually taking time out of me. The pace of others didn't really matter though, I'd enough on my hands focusing on keeping my pace and form consistant. Any wavering in either could leave me in trouble. At the end of the golf course dog-leg section on the 2nd lap I looked across at the course and there was nobody in sight. That meant I'd got at least a minute on anybody chasing and so long as there had been no ringers in the earlier wave it should just be a case of keeping on moving.

The finish line was a welcome sight although once I'd stopped my legs hurt more than when I was running (so I took the pup out for a bimble along the beach).

That's about it really. There's a short report on the local website here.
All that's left to say is congratulations to Mark Conklin & Sara-Jane Cox on their purchase of Burnham Pool. It's crap that they've had to do it to save the council shutting it down. I wish them all the success in the world with it. Here's to the new future of Burnham pool and its races.