Valencia had the benefit/disadvantage (depends how you look at it) of being a split transition, so my chief supporter (my Dad!) and I enjoyed a leisurely bike ride on the ValenBisi to the marina. Quick bike check, and I was ready to put on my wetsuit. I said goodbye to my Dad, and went to join the women. It’s quite chilled, we chat and laugh and help each other with our swim caps (thank you Indie for holding my hair in place!). Then it’s time to line up ready for a slightly scary dive start.
GO! The gun goes and we are off. I am instantly thrilled that I’ve managed to dive in without dislodging a goggle, and I’ve managed to stay with the group. About 8 strokes later, somebody elbowed my face and I ended up with salty sea water in my eye! I briefly contemplated swimming the next 29 minutes with one eye but decided against it, and briefly stopped to sort them out. I’d lost the fast group, but let’s be realistic, I’m to enough of a dolphin for a 24-minute swim yet, and I found myself nicely tucked in on the second group. I was completely blinded by the sun for half the sun and just had to hope that the feet in front of me could see the buoys. The rest of the swim thankfully went without a hitch, and we were soon at the exit, where I managed to fall back into the water. Whoops!! Thankfully a sprint through transition meant that I still bumped up 2 places.
I was super excited to have come out the water with Ruth, a known uber biker. Perfect, I though, we can attack this together. My chief supporter had been well briefed on shouting splits and hadn’t shouted anything remotely useful (‘well done darling keep going’, in case you were wondering), so I didn’t know what the gap was but I was confident we could make up to the speedy swimmers. I did a turn, then Ruth came past me, then I went past her. I was thrilled, I knew Dan would be proud of me! Around 20km I was starting to feel a tad irritated; why hasn’t she come past me? In fact, I was wondering why any of the 3 people we’d overtaken hadn’t come past. I risked a quick look over my shoulder and realised I was totally alone. Another 10k of pretty constant climbing, I caught up with Marjolaine and Jeanne. After a mini fan girl moment that I was cycling with an Olympian, I followed the mountain goats down the descent. It’s probably the best descending I’ve ever done, always good to have a line to follow. The rest of the bike course was very non-technical and perfectly suited my all-power-no-skills style of riding. I was mega chuffed to see 40kph as the average speed when I came into transition, quite possibly my fastest ever bike split.
Having watched Taylor Knibb stack it at transition in Texas, I decided to stop my bike and dismount carefully. Another smooth transition and I was flying out on the run course. I felt good. Valencia has the benefit of a small out and back next to transition so I used this to gauge where everyone else was. My Dad had semi-remembered his role and had managed a quick ‘you’re third’. My main concerns were Dani Kleiser and Jeanne Lehair who I knew were behind me but were ultra-rapid runners. I knew I didn’t have the tarmac that I wanted between us, and so I made the call to run out hard and see if I could hang on. I knew it was a long shot, but better to regret trying then never know. After the first lap I’d moved up into 2nd but I knew that Dani in particular was closing in. At around 15km the inevitable happened and she came zooming past. By this point I was hurting but still maintaining the power I wanted. I pressed on, using the crowds as motivation and the knowledge that I was closing in on Lizzie Rayner. At 18km, Jeanne came flying past. I was mentally trying to calculate how much I needed to catch Lizzie and I knew it would be close. Rounding the last bend to the finish, I could see I’d fallen about 30s short of the podium but I had at last achieved my goal of emptying the tank. I crossed the line and joined the bodies of Jeanne and Lizzie strewn on the floor. I was satisfied I’d done all I could, I’d emptied the tank, and I was done. 4:08:02