Early start Saturday morning for the trip up to north Norfolk and got there just in time for the race briefing.  Met up with Viceroys Rachel & Lance and registered and racked, checked out a few bits at the venue and then we went off to lunch followed by beautiful home-made ice-cream for dessert (an important part of the carb loading process!).  Got over to my accommodation and sorted kit out for the morning & got the feet up.

Typical pre-race evening of not much sleep, up at 4.30am and back to the venue to setup.  Saw Rach & Jen (Isaac) when I got there but we all got on with setting up.  I wasn’t feeling quite right though & felt really disorganised & kept feeling like I was forgetting something (which turned out to be the case!), and just couldn’t get my wetsuit on properly etc but eventually got myself sorted (poor Jen turned up to a flat tyre so her morning was even more manic than mine!) and over to the swim start we went.

Right from the start I felt sluggish & just couldn’t find a rhythm & as it wasn’t particularly wide was getting caught up a lot (I started on the right side which was meant to be for the slow folks but somehow found myself at the front of the slow section but was even a bit slow for the slow section!), but just carried on as best I could, but was really struggling with energy the last 500-750m so wasn’t surprising that my time was slower than the Outlaw Nottingham half but still disappointing nevertheless as I’d been getting some good times at the lake.

Onto the bike I went but only after standing in transition for a minute feeling lost / that something was missing / not right.  Straight onto an up section which on sluggish energy levels wasn’t too fun, and the first 30 or so miles were undulating (nothing steep but just constant up and down so was hard to get a rhythm), but my system finally woke up at about mile 15 and got myself going a bit more.  From mile 30 – 52 it was then either mostly flat or slightly downhill so lovely & fast and the smile was definitely back on my face.  The last 3-4miles were back in on the same road we came out of, but initially the road was a slight up into a headwind which was a rude shock after the lovely fast section, but tried to back off those last few miles to get the legs eased off for the run.

Back into transition and realised that yep I had in fact actually forgotten to put my ITB strap out, and Outlaw from this year have a no bag in transition rule (they all have to go to a central storage area)!  I was certain that I’d laid it out with my hat last night so made my way over to bag storage area and ripped everything out of my bag, and sure enough there it was at the very bottom (black bag + black strap means I’d missed it putting kit out), so on it went & off I went having re-packed everything into my bag & making a right meal of T2 (and therefore T1 as I had that bad feeling which was making me check everything).

Onto the run and looking at the time wondered if I could beat my Nottingham time, but quickly put that thought out of my head and just concentrated on the job at hand and what I could do at that moment.  The run was 3 laps around the estate and was quite beautiful, but the initial section goes out the same way as the bike, so yep, straight onto a climb!  The legs weren’t so happy with that, but once it flattened off again they came back and I got into a good rhythm.  Jen came flying past me looking super strong and with only 1 lap left I knew she’d rocked it as suspected.

Just kept the head down and kept going, but knowing the stomach issues I’d had at Nottingham and as it was quite warm I was sweating an awful lot, so decided to go lots of fluids & had a cup of coke and cup of electrolyte drink at each station.  Bit of a risk as I’d never fuelled with only coke / fluids before, but it seemed to be working & the stomach was ok!  Had a bit of a low point about mile 7.5-8, but knowing I was near the end of lap 2 and there was only 1 left kept me going and a feed station shortly after got me back on track again, until about 1mi out when the legs started to wobble but there was no chance on the planet I was stopping then!!

Not long before the finish went past Rach & Lance, which to know they were on the run gave me such a huge boost & the energy to get to the finish!  Turned the 90 degree corner for the red carpet & the legs didn’t like the sudden change of direction so nearly fell over, but got myself back upright & high-5’d everyone up the finish straight which is always fun and for the first time I got to hold a finishing banner (not because I’d won anything but they held it there for everyone to hold up which I thought was fantastic), and then the legs did promptly give way!!

After a few minutes managed to stand (well, hold onto the fence!), and convince the medical folks I was ok, just had jelly legs & that the tears were really of joy / being overwhelmed so thankfully they let me go & once I’d had a proper sit & some food was all good.  Hung around for a bit but had to leave, but just as I’d packed up & went to sit in my car to go heard Rach & Lance being announced over the finish line so was really chuffed to bits for them!!

Was the first time they’d run Outlaw at Holkham Hall and I think it’s safe to say it was a big hit so hopefully they will run it there again.  Having done the outlaw half double this year I really can’t praise the One Step Beyond team / Outlaw events enough; really well run, really friendly and you are really looked after as an athlete (there’s not many half’s where you get a lovely hot cooked meal & massage after!).  Oh and I did beat my time from Nottingham, which given this was a much tougher run course and the fact my knee had held up again, was well happy 🙂

As raced and reported by Andrea Whelband.