It was 70.3 UK last weekend and I went back to defend my title in possibly one of the most beautiful race settings anywhere in the world. It was always going to be a very tough race, there were murmurings Macca would turn up, Faris al Sultan was there and Fraser Cartmell who has been having a fantastic season also towed the start line making this the strongest field I had ever raced in the UK.

After a pretty atrocious performance at Eagleman 70.3 the previous weekend where I felt flat all day and died on the run I flew back to Britain on Tuesday, got in the house on Wednesday and tried to put down some good training particularly getting in some hard last minute bike legs to try and wake them up from the long flight.

I was thankful to the later start though I was freezing on race day; I got out of my tent shivering and made my way down to the swim start. I had a pretty average swim, I was in 2/3/4th place all the way along then at the end the front 3 went wrong and I took a more direct line to come out 1st. I then ran as hard as I could in the 400m up to T1 and then hammered the first part of the bike. I got a gap of somewhere just over 3mins after 15miles and then put another minute into Fraser Cartmell on the rest of the 56mile bike. I did die completely on the bike and getting off I was a bit worse for wear but I soldiered on round the run, Fraser flew past me near the end of the first lap of the run but I managed to hang on in there for 2nd, a result im more then please with! What next? I go to Portugal for a training camp and then Ireland for European Triathlon champs where I hope to have a good race and get in the points!