Roth: The introspective race report

I've thought alot about my performance yesterday. Thanks to all the people who've sent congratulations but, despite a huge PB and a pretty nice marathon time, I ultimately failed in what I came here to do. I hold myself to very high standards and I didn't (quite) meet them yesterday.

My execution was the best I felt it could have been given the fitness I brought to race. I raced my heart out and left everything on the course as I have always been told to do by everyone who has guided me in this sport. My failure is rooted in a lack of discipline which crept into my life when I had nothing to do but train. With so much time I began training later in the day, not optimaising recovery time, this probably played a small part in the virus I picked up costing me three weeks during my peak phase. I began to eat more than I should convincing myself I could lose the weight. I left it to late and couldn't. I arrived at Roth at least 5lbs more than I should have been and this is unacceptable. It undoubtably cost me 5 minutes on the bike and run combined.

I write this because these are the things I MUST change. I have no problem with failing, I used to think it was a bad thing to fail and would do anything in my power to avoid it but I like to think since I left university I learnt failure is fine as long as three things are true:

1. You fail knowing you have given it your all (Check);
2. You fail in the pursuit of a lofty target (Check);
2. You work out where the mistakes were made and endeavour never to repeat those same errors. (We'll see)

Despite this I will take a moment (and it will only be a moment) to put what I have done in perspective. In only my third year in the sport and fourth Ironman I have gone 9:11 as well as posting a huge PB. Even more pleasing was that I finished top British male OA (Chrissie beat me by a mile as well as most of the men's PRO field, unreal!) and within the top 50 overall in what is one of the most competative Iron distance races in Europe and probably the world outside of Kona.

The rest of my season will be a little different to what I originally planned, I simply cannot afford to go to the USA to race and Kona will have to be put on ice for another year or two. Instead I will return to the Little Woody to round out the 2010 season.

2011 will again feature some significant lifestyle changes both in sport and in the outher facets of my life. I will be returning to work as, to be perfectly frank, I am never going to make a living from this sport and I feel I can race just as well whilst working. Moreover, I will be able to afford to race instead of suffering from the constant nagging thought that I'm surviving on borrowed cash. I hope to obtain my PRO card as I originally planned and race in that category but ultimately that is down to the discretion of the BTA. Finally I will be taking a step down in distance and racing Olympic and middle distance triathlon next year. In the long term I hope this will enable me to return to long distance in 2012 with the ability to aim for some top 10 placings. But we'll have to wait and see.

Apologies for a somewhat introspective blog but I like to get things and thought down as soon as possible after a race. A more traditional race report will follow, hopefully with some lovely pictures of me in lycra!