Great Eastern Pacesetters 30k

A big weekend this weekend! Managed to hack through a 210k fast ride with Sam and the gang on Saturday and then straight into the GE Pacesetters 30k run on Sunday morning (not to mention we had a birthday party for Sid and Seb to attend later that day)

It was all training as far as I was concerned - and definitely not a race. I was very concerned about my right foot which has been in considerable pain since I started training again after the WA IM in December but fortunately it held up.

I did the first 19k with Adrian, who was great company although he had to suffer me doing most of the talking (sorry about that Adrian), having said that we kept declaring a talking embargo/truce going up hills and I had to do a hell of a lot of work to catch him after each drink station as I was determined not to get too dehydrated.

With 11k to go I put the hammer down and started knocking out some fast k's. The intent was to catch Aswar and Freddie (as I did last year). I saw them coming back after the turnaround and left them in no uncertain terms that they were marked men.

I caught Freddie with a couple of k to go but Aswar was not playing by the script and he either kicked my butt or he saw me coming and hid behind a bush until I went back. Either way, both tactics were sneaky but admirable whichever it was. The real fight will come in IM Langkawi next month.

I finished in a time of 2:58:03 and was very very pleased with that - my fastest ever for this run and the first time I've subbed 3 hours - although I wasn't racing the fact that I got under 3 hours and feel pretty good the day afterwards tells me that training for the Ironman is progressing well.

After the race I collected my medal and was shocked to see Gan from my office had already crossed the finish line just a couple of minutes behind me - AWESOME job dude!
















Joey also from my office did a magnificent effort to finish the race having just got off a plane from her Philippine holiday - second year in a row - well done Joey.
















As you can see by the photos after the race we were all looking pretty happy and Gan even caught some candid pictures of me! What was he thinking? What was I thinking for that matter.