All started with a chilly and rainy morning just outside of downtown Antwerp. As expected in all Ironman events, they found a cold spot in the lake and made the 1,9k swim wetsuit legal. Of course, not my personal preference, but that shouldn't really matter during a half ironman. So, started right at 11:05am with a super quick swim, but lost the first group of about 5 guys nearly minutes after the start. At the end, I formed my own chase group and tried to keep the time loss as small as possible. 25:03 seemed a good swim time for myself, but apparently not fast enough for the competition in my age group.
Finally, on the bike I felt more comfortable and tried to push towards the age group leaders. However, nobody insight during the first half on the bike, wasn't even sure if I was on the right course. Coming to the end of the second loop, which was flat but super windy and riding towards downtown Antwerp, I was able to catch the top women pros and a few male pros. At the end I clocked a 2:17:04, which equaled an average of 40km/h on this 92 kilometer long course.
Of course, I could’ve pushed it a little harder, but the tactic was more than clear before: “it’s all about the run” and a possible Clearwater spot can only be reached with a run time sub 1:25. Transition two seemed quit long before the race, but that was probably my best performance to that time, as I managed the second fastest transition of all 1,400 athletes.
Start of the 3 lap run felt very good and the atmosphere around the course was fantastic. I’ve to say this was probably the nicest and most excited Ironman 70.3 and especially run course that I have ever done. Very flat, lots of turns and a huge crowd made me find a good rhythm very quickly. For the first time I raced without a watch, solely listened to my body and I knew this was good as I managed to gain a few spots during loop two.
Last 5k seemed very much in control as I was able to catch a few more guys, as well as the women leader and another male pro. The finish was across the beautiful city hall in the middle of old downtown Antwerp. My run time of 1:23, personal best at a half ironman, placed me in 24th position overall. Well, you would have thought that this will be enough to catch a spot for Clearwater in the AG 25-29, but… that wasn’t the case today.
Only 6th place in my age group, with 3 spots up for grasp had me fail my initial goal today. However, a final time of 4:08:30, 6 minutes faster than Clearwater last year made me very happy and believe that I will come back even stronger next year. I was roughly 2:30 minutes short of a spot for Clearwater, I’ll jump that goal of Top 3 and look forward breaking 4:00 hours next.
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