ITU Amakusa, Japan

The following race report is a mixture of the truth, the theory of relativity and my own meandering thoughts. I may go off on a complete tangent . .

I finished 2nd yesterday in ITU Amakusa (Japan) and when I think back upon the race . .  I was awesome.

Seriously.

I was.

How is your Japanese ?

Nihon ha subarashii kuni desu. This means ‘Japan is a wonderful country’ (I hope ?) and it is. It is number 1 for politeness and tarmacadam. I asked an old dude why he always wore white gloves ? He bent over and looked at the ground beneath my feet and inspected it for dirt. I looked down too and agreed . . . great piece of road. Even the cars are built smaller so the roads remain baby smooth. My only faux pas all weekend was to ask my taxi driver what kind of a car he was driving ? Is this a Daihatsu ? He gave me a look that nearly broke my arm and replied “Daihatsu is Korean”.

Anyway . . the race.

It was possibly the longest briefing ever. The briefing was awesome.

There he is, Ben Shaw . . . nice hip, nice feet. Is he doing backstroke ? The swim was awesome too. I had a good start and the Ireland boys dominated apart from 2 Canadians, a Korean and 2 Japanese.

With a nice 60sec buffer out of the swim a small group of us got away on the bike – I am sure I don’t even have to tell you how awesome my Venge is (awesome beyond your wildest imagination) – an easy enough out-and-back course along the coast.

Isoide! I would shout at the 2 Japanese amongst other things.

A swift enough transition and a hilly 10km 1 lap run. Hauling nearly 10kg more than those Canadians up every hill.

I held a 30m lead for 9.5km. Running a bit scared. Not wanting to look back but listening for footsteps in the rain, checking reflections in the windows (bloody small car windows i couldn’t see anything).  Just before the finish I was set in a pace and there would be no response when Kyle Jones surged past up the final hill (I was buggered by then).

The camera adds 20 pounds (wish I could photoshop some extra hair, a bit gutted about the reced)

YATTA ! (yaht-tah)

Yatta is what you say when you feel good about something. Getting an ITU podium, giving all you had to give at a moment in time, being pleased with your effort, a feeling of accomplishment, finding a 10 euro note in an old pair of jeans etc … all Yatta material.

I have a little sense of Yatta. I’ll be honest and say I am on an ITU points hunt. In a perfect world I would not have had to race in Japan (I’d be more awesome than I currently am) but there is a bit of a scrap going on between athletes outside of Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, USA, Australia and New Zeland. I need the points to get starts, I need the starts like everyone else to qualify for London 2012.

ITU Amakusa, it wasn’t WCS Madrid, I was awesome.

Seriously.

Onwards with my half packet of oats and 2 Lucozade energy bars to China

Some photos and another race report on Base2race.