Royal Windsor Triathlon Elite, 19th June 2005

I set out on the left hand side to get out of the main bulk of people, and swam as hard as I could for the first 200m or so until I was on Stuart Hayes's feet. My aim was to stay there for as long as I could, and although I was swimming pretty hard, I could hold that pace for the whole swim. I stayed here until the turn buoy, where I took a bit of a beating as I was one of the closest people to the buoy. I lost a few places here but was still well inside the top 10, and so decided to stay where I was for the way back.

On reaching the end of the swim, I knew I needed a fast T1 to make the front group. My Ironman wetsuit came off quickly and I was able to get out onto the road safely in the front group.

I was riding in the lead group on the bike, which included AJ, Stu Hayes, Richard Stannard and Will Clarke among others. Everyone was working well as a group and so we managed to get quite a lead on the chasers.

Coming into T2, I found myself towards the back of the group which meant I was one of the last out onto the run. I had Oli Howton and Harry Wiltshire in my sights; they were running at a pace I knew I couldn’t maintain, so I let them get a bit of a gap on me.

After about 1K I was catching them again, and by 2K I had passed Howton and then Wiltshire. For the next lap or so I maintained my pace, and keeping Alun Woodward in my sights, until he eventually started coming back to me, and I subsequently passed him. The next person up the road was Fraser Cartmell. I picked up my pace and caught and passed him with about 1.5K to go, but he had more of a sprint finish than I had bargained for, and he attacked with about 400m to go and I couldn’t stay with him.

I finished in a time of 1:54:53 in 7th place, which I was extremely pleased with.

Dann Brook