First of all I want to say that it was an absolute pleasure to be representing Balmoral Triathlon Club at this event. When moving to Australia I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to find a triathlon club that mirrored the fun, group oriented training and racing philosophy of Boxfit Tri Club which I was part of in the UK. This weekends racing and festivities reinforced what a great club BTC is. It was such an awesome, well organized and real club oriented weekend.

The Race: 1k swim, 30k bike, 8k run

It was one of the most enjoyable races I've ever competed in due to the amount of club members racing from Balmoral. The 30-34 age group was the last wave to go, but I was excited to have a group of great Balmoral athletes (Joe, Stu, Neil and Shane) in my wave who I knew would have similar swim/bike legs as me so it gave us all other people to work with out on the course. I had a pretty solid swim and transitioned very well into the bike leg, towards the end of the 30k I tried to go hard into transition and get out into the run in a good rhythm. There was great encouragement from lots of Balmoral supporters and athletes on the run that got me to the end  in a pretty good time to eventually win my age group. Everyone invloved in cluding the marshals and organizers did so well and it was great to see so many new faces to triathlon, plus the long-standing members of the club racing on the same occasion.

The Presentation

The After Party was awesome, tense at the start as no one knew the official results. Whatever the outcome I knew that even if we hadn't won the overall Championship, as a group we had drunk enough alcohol to win the after party hands down! Most of our clubs' athletes' had an idea of where they came in the race but overall the point calculation was proving too difficult to call between four good teams. For those of you who aren't familiar with the scoring system in the NSW Club Champs, the first person in each age group scores points for your club depending on how high up you finish (in the top 30) and all other finishers in your club push your competitors further down the results to block other teams giving them less points. Only  a handful of points separated the top 4 teams and Balmoral were announced winners to the joy of many outside the club as well as all of us. we had an awesome initail celebration with a bit of crowd surfing from our Club President.

One of the best experiences in my racing history thus far !!! I'd like to say that the party finished there and we went home to bed to rest for the morning ride,  but the rumours of hot tubs, shuffling and topless bus chants can be confirmed due to photo evidence (damn iphones).

Congratulations to everyone in Balmoral Triathlon Club, the newly crowned NSW Club Champions 2012.