I had a great race weekend and thoroughly enjoyed what was a brilliantly organised event. The setting of the national water-sports center is perfect for it, and the course overall was brilliant.
My weekend started on the Saturday morning when I loaded all my worldly triathlon possessions into the car and set off for Nottingham. The weather was looking great which was a massive bonus, and the wind was looking calm too, all the better to use 100mm carbon wheels in. After a long 2 and half hour drive up to Nottingham I arrived to the centre and registered. Wandered round the expo and made some necessary last minute purchases too, as I'd stupidly left my goggles and neoprene swim hat at the lake during the week. (So much for not trying anything new on race day). Then really stupidly went off to my hotel room without going to the race briefing. So, drove back to the watersports centre to catch up. Luckily nothing too critical, mostly just safety stuff, and nothing that wasn't really in the race notes.
So retired back to the hotel room after some quick shopping for race morning breakfast and my evening meal. I'd been consciously eating more than usual during the day to try and carb up, and had a craving for salty chips, so went for a fish and chip supper. Definitely not the most nutritious but I figured it would be ok. Tasted good anyhow!
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| I've had worse views |
In the past I've struggled for sleep before a big event, mostly in worry that i'll miss my alarm, which is stupid considering I set about 5 of them. The night before this race was no exception and it was pretty restless sleep, mostly out of excitement more than anything else really. As I finally get to test myself for real after all the training, and get the race buzz again. I woke at 4:30 and decided as I was pretty awake just to get up.
Breakfast was a pot of instant porridge, a yoghurt and banana. I tried not to eat too much as I didn't want a full stomach sloshing around all day. All my stuff was ready so I checked out and jumped into the car to head over to the race. Luckily I knew the route by now and it was only a 5 minute drive.
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| Morning race fans! |
I kitted up and queued for the loo, and before I knew it it was time to wetsuit up, and get in the water.
Jumping into the lake after watching the first wave set off at 6:30, the water was a lot warmer than expected, and definitely warmer than my local open water lake. I seeded myself pretty much in the middle of the faster group towards the left so I had an easy out if I couldn't keep up. Nervous chatter with some other competitors and then the five second count came. I was off. This part of the swim is always nervous as you never know if you are going to find a gap or get completely mugged by everyone. Luckily I found the gap, and had to get past a couple of people, but found a guy to work with and we pretty much swam together the whole way out to the halfway turn. That was pretty cool as I've never had that before. I felt decent at the turn and checked my watch as 17 minutes. Not too bad, and I felt like I wasn't pushing too hard. I lost my swimming partner on the turns, but soon found somebody to stick with on the way back in. So much nicer to swim with people, less sighting is needed, and i'm sure you work at a more consistent pace.
Before I knew it I was hauling myself out the water with a swim time of 34 minutes. Jogged through transition and just took it pretty easy to get my stuff on. Jumped on the bike and set off round the lake. Began to check my heart rate at this point and it was up around 175bpm, I knew that wasn't right for the effort level, so assumed this was just an after effect of the swim and transition. Thankfully it began to settle out around the 155-160 level I'm more accustomed to. Now I knew I needed to nutrition up now to get in shape for the bike ride and run to come. So I swallowed a gel and took on some fluid.
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Now as you can see in the pictures of my bike I decided on using a profile design aqua rack for my IM races this year. My thoughts being that I could have tools and essentials in one bottle, and fluid in another to supplement the speedfil. Well safe to say I won't be doing this again as I'll explain later on. Luckily I decided against this and added a small top tube bag before the race for a couple of gels and my puncture kit. My spare tub would still be attached to the rack, and I left it empty of bottles so I could pick some up in the feed stations along the way
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I felt decent coming out of the water sports centre and on to the road so started to increase the effort level a little, and was soon overtaking people on a regular basis. I worked with a few people too and we were alternating overtaking each other. The course was nice with some decent roads and no major inclines bar one. This was interesting though, as I now had the compact installed I span up it at a good pace, and had to resort to the other side of the road to overtake people, as people had really slowed here. Guess my hill climbing isn't so bad! I concentrated the rest of the ride on riding to heart rate and feel, and taking on nutrition regularly.
Early on in the ride I was overtaken by Luke Dragstra, I could not believe the speed he came past at. ( I believe he was first out of the water but was held up in transition and then had a puncture soon after, eventually finished 12th). He came hurtling past and was literally gone within seconds, it was incredible to behold. Made everyone look like they were out doddling around.
I was looking good for a sub 2:45 ride before I slowed to collect a bottle at the second feed station. I grabbed the bottle and went to reach to put it in the rear bottle rack, which wasn't there?! Now remember by tub was attached at this point, as was my 2 spare co2 canisters. (luckily my tools etc not). I slowed and jumped off to see what was going on, and the rack was hanging right down all loose. I whipped my multi tool out of the top tube bag and attempted to tighten it up, but the spare tub, which I had ziptied to the rack was in the way. So at the time I thought I had no choice but to rip the thing off and dump it at the feed station. It did occur to me that I could have just left it hanging, but I didn't think it was fair to have it potentially fall off at some point on the course.
Luckily the build quality didn't seem to great so it eventually came off after some twisting and pulling, not before slicing a couple of my fingers, and getting blood all over my nice new white bartape :( . After all this I filled my speedfil with the bottles I had and set off again, with no spare tub or co2. So if I had a puncture at this point it was going to be over. Looking at the garmin data I estimate to have lost 3 or 4 minutes faffing with this before I set off again. I attempted to make back up some ground and put a burst of speed on as I was still feeling good. The last 6 miles or so of the bike course the wind seemed to really pick up and my pace slowed a bit, but I was fine with that in order to prepare the legs for the run. Before I knew it I was a mile away from transition. Annoyingly, putting aside the feed station debacle, the last mile or so was a real average killer. It was almost a gravel track at points, with a load of speedbumps. I'm amazed most people stayed upright, as it was sketchy at best. But I made it back into transition with a bike split according to the results of 2:46. Still pretty happy with that all things considered.
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| Bike GPS data |
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| Remains of the aqua rack |
I was still feeling solid throughout the run, and not finishing was never a danger but it was just tough going. I didn't wear a HR monitor on my wrist although I recorded it using the garmin in my back pocket, so was just running on feel really. Looking back at the data I can see I was a couple of points below my optimum of 160bpm for most of the run, so in all honesty could have and should have stepped up the pace really. Chalk up another lesson learned for the big race!
Finally I was homeward bound and on the last mile of the run, managed a sprint down into the shoot and was greeted by many cheers. I was doing the race solo with no support as my family have been busy preparing for my sisters wedding next weekend. So to have people being able to see the name printed on your number and shout personal encouragement was brilliant. So good to hear people shouting and knowing they are encouraging you on. Crossing the line in 5:39:16 was fantastic. I'd roughly wanted to go sub 6 hours, so this was great. I was handed a finishers medal and t shirt, and then walked through to an area that was serving free food and cake to all the other finishers, bonus! There was also free massage (with a long queue). I tucked into a nice chilli, and then hobbled my way over to transition to get my stuff and get home.
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| Nice to get an actual decent finishers top, can actually wear this training as its decent training type material |
So, overall a fantastic event which I thoroughly enjoyed. Not as hard as I was expecting it to be, but it was all about economy of effort throughout in order to finish. Some good lessons learnt for my A race, and the experience is always useful. Definitely a race I would do again, and a distance as well. Long enough to be seriously tough, but short enough to be not completely destructive on the body.
Overall my splits were something like the below:
Swim: 34:13
T1: 2:52
Bike: 2:47:41
T2: 2:30
Run: 2:12
Total: 05:39:16
So blood was spilt, sweat was most definitely sweated, just the tears to come! Definitely been boosted by this, even though its brought home how difficult the full Iron distance will be, I'm positive I can attack the coming sessions and make it work. Really looking forward to getting stuck into the next training block now.
Thankfully I've got this week off work so I should be able to get some quality recovery and training time in, the sensational weather we have at the moment is a massive plus. Need to try and rid my sexy tri suit tan lines too!
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| Not too shabby |
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| Boom! |
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