PCRG - 3KTT - First win

3KTT - 10:04 - 3:22, 3:30, 3:12

Woke up feeling like crap on Monday morning with some cold symptoms also. Took the day of work and spent most of it in bed, eating fruit and vege, popping Vitamin C and guzzling water. The effort was not wasted when I bounced back this morning to win my first ever 3kTT after almost three years of trying.

The lack of any great expectations due to my ailment yesterday enabled me to take a calm approach to the event and I set myself to replicate the successful tactics of the last time trial by taking it easy with a controlled start. We headed off straight into one of the strongest headwinds I've felt at West End and I settled into 7th place early, moving into 5th at the 500m mark, not allowing the pack of four leaders to put more than 15m on me. I started to pick up the speed then and went through 1k in about 3:22 - unbelieveably, I forgot to take my split! Continuing to bridge the gap to the Damian, Pete, Mike and another bloke, I surged at the 1100m mark and took the lead, telling myself 'ok - you've had the edge on these fellas at training the last few weeks and you'd be soft to let them beat you!

In hindsight, I should have drafted the pack to the 1500m turnaround to save some energy before gunning it home because when the path took us next to the river with no tree cover, the headwind picked up considerably! I literally had to put my head down and plough into the wind. I slowed down so much I thought 'Gees, the boys will be overtaking me any moment' but a quick glance over the shoulder confirmed that they, too, were struggling. Marshal Gaz cheered me around the turn and with the wind now at my back, I catapulted forward as if fired out of a slingshot.

It felt like I was flying as I zoomed back down the path at breakneck pace and again forgot to take my split at the 2k but shortly after the 2k I did notice 6:56 on my watch and knew that the headwind had probably cost me a sub 10 run. Marshal Clairie was the next to fire me up as I raced down the hill next to the boatshed telling myself I wasn't going to let anyone past me in a million years. Despite noticeably increasing my speed on at least three ocassions in the last 800m I was never able to shake Pete who hounded me relentlessly all the way home, never being more than 5-7m behind me with Damian only a little further behind. I was exultant as I crossed the line with my fastest 1k split ever albeit with a massively illegal tailwind :) Talk about a nice little late confidence booster prior to the Marathon. Now, I've just got train even harder and actually beat Gaz, Andy and Jason who were all absent today :)