Race report: Centurion NDW100 2016

Since I read Confessions Of An All-Night Runner, I wanted to run ultra distance events.  Having winged the first few at London and Rotherham, I got a coach because I really wanted to run Land's End to John O'Groats (a multi-stage event with an average of 50 miles per day).

James, the ever wise coach, steered me away from 17 days of 50 miles average per day.  And we explored some other multi-day events as I wanted to see whether that suited me more than longer single-stage events.  And that went well and I enjoyed it.  But the time came when I really wanted to pop my 100 mile cherry and see how that might go.  So, originally we targeted SDW100, with SDW50 first as I kinda wanted to do the Centurion 50 mile Grand Slam in 2016 anyway.

To cut it short, the SDW50 didn't go well for me.  I did NDW50 and loved it. So, having DNFed on SDW50 and not being quite happy about the prospect of the 100 along the same route, James & I decided to cut losses and shift focus to NDW100 instead.

NDW100 (2016) route

Much better!  And MrTOTKat and I had decided to run the whole length of the North Downs Way National Trail (all 153 miles of it all the way to Dover and back to Ashford again) a couple of weeks before the 100 race as a 6 day multi-stage jog/hiking holiday.  (we loved it, might get around to posting about it later).

NDW (2016) elevation profile

I came into the weekend of the race a little unsure of how I'd fare with a week of taper (1x 3 mile run!) and my second biggest mileage week ever (167 miles with the holiday, including extra mileage to and from the route/accommodation each night/morning) the week before that.  But otherwise pretty relaxed and confident that whatever happened on the day, I deserved to finish with the work and preparation that I'd put in.

James, the RD, showing the (highly reflective!) marking tape at the race briefing

With an 05:30 race briefing on Saturday, before the 06:00 race start, we (MrTOTKat and I) decided to book a hotel nearby on Friday night to maximise sleep.  And that went pretty well apart from the fire alarm at god knows what time in the night.  I'd registered on Friday, dropped off my drop bags for the 50 (head torches and foot care kit) and 82 (extra snacks in case, plus foot care) mile aid stations, finish bag (warm, clean clothes and shoes for afterwards) and picked up my race number.

After the briefing, which included some sage advice about keeping things sensible during the coming heat of the day and enjoying the cool of the evening, we all ambled down to the head of the trail for the start.

It's pretty narrow at that point and, given the distance of the day ahead, I was happy to not rush to the front to sprint off from the start.  I was also happy that the first 25 miles or so I knew pretty well having run it 4 times already as far as Merstham, so while I had little idea of exactly where the aid stations were or what some of them were called it was no bother.

Of course, being a bit blase about the first 25 miles routing meant that I was daydreaming a bit and within the first 4 miles I'd gone over, tripping on a tree root, and smacked my elbow so hard it immediately came up with a bump the size of half a boiled egg.  Yay!

Around 6 miles in I rescued a couple of guys from going completely the wrong way as we came up to a t-junction they blissfully turned left ahead of me and I knew it was right so yelled "THE OTHER WAY!  TURN RIGHT!" at them as I approached the junction and managed to set them right.  They had been pretty much daydreaming too, there was a lot of it about.  Enough of it about that a few other folks around within the first 10 miles managed to trip over, bang things and twist things but everyone was OK in the end.

The day was going to be hot, so I was keeping an eye on water consumption so I didn't actually end up drinking too much rather than not enough.  As I came to the first aid station at Puttenham, just under 7 miles in, I'd barely touched my water bottles so I made sure my number was checked and sailed straight through without stopping and trucked on through towards the next one.

Aid station locations along the course

20 miles in, I remembered James' words about people feeling mentally bad at around 20 miles because they're tired and they get into a spiral about it so the other 80 miles seem insurmountable, but you're going to be tired at 20 miles because YOU JUST RAN 20 MILES AND THAT'S A LONG WAY!  And I smiled.  I was feeling like I'd run 20 miles, but that was OK.  Everything was as it should be.

Except for one thing.

About 6 miles in, I'd needed to step into the bushes for a "wild poo".  And I'd sat down pretty much right on some nettles I'd not seen and stung my bum.  Which was not the most fun experience I've ever had, I must say.  And though it was the first wild poo of the day, it was certainly not going to be the last.

It is said that the way to get through an ultra, particularly the longer ones, is to break it up into getting from one aid station to the next.  I didn't really do that until the last aid station and the finish, it just didn't turn out to be necessary and I wasn't craving them or getting whiney with myself about "where's the next aid statiooooon!?" like I have in the past.  Today was really Zen and there was none of that going on at all.

The AllezNutrition van at West Hanger car park was back!

The next *mumblety* miles went pretty uneventfully for me.  I kept a lid on things as it was getting warm and for a while when it was pretty warm for me, I felt a bit ill so slowed things down a bit to reduce my core temperature and that really helped.  I sailed through the miles and the aid stations, up and down the hills and steps, not stopping any longer than it took to fill up bottles and drinking increasing amounts of Pepsi/Coke each time as well as the odd 1/4 ham sandwich and handfuls of cherry tomatoes and orange segments; each time taking most of the food I wanted and a last cup of Pepsi with me so I kept moving while eating/drinking.

Trotting through Newlands Corner aid station

This was the formula all the way to Botley Hill (with a couple more wild poos thrown in - ow, nettle sting!) where the first of the familiar faces was going to be in the form of Stephanie(theMagpie) and Cat Simpson (who I'd not yet met).  Cat fed me some awesome fruit and made sure my bottles were refilled, but no sign of Stephanie!   I trotted out to the road crossing outside the aid station and there she was - making sure folks got safely across the junction.  She gave a quick passing hug and said that MrTOTKat sent his love and she'd let him know I was safely through.  Thanks Stephanie!

About 2 miles out from Knockholt, I and a couple of other runners came across a poor chap who had extreme chafing in his nethers and his race was pretty much over whether he took up my offer of additional lube I was carrying or not.  I felt bad for him as he was doing really fine otherwise.

Coming into Knockholt aid station - perky perky!

Time came for the mid-way checkpoint at Knockholt and a very familiar and reassuring face in the form of the aid station manager @abradypus (Centurion 100 mile Grand Slammer in 2015 - we both ran our first ultra at the same time in February 2013), and MrTOTKat, as well as my first drop bag with the essential lighting for the overnight section.  This time I stopped for a little while - around 14 minutes in all - as I wanted some tea and chicken soup as well as the gallons of Pepsi I'd started to really look forward to.  I felt a bit sick, so decided to give in and sit down for a few minutes for the first time in 51 miles.  That and the Marmite sandwiches @abradypus had saved for me really really helped!  The sick feeling subsided and I trotted out with a handful of Marmite sandwiches, a cup of tea and a fist full of orange segments which I stuffed into my mouth as I stumped out purposefully.

In my happy place with a plate of Marmite sandwiches!

Everything felt fine and as it should do at this stage.  Yep, I'd run 51 miles so there were some sore bits but even then they weren't as sore as I'd expect for this stage.  MrTOTKat helped out by stuffing my lights into my pack and taking out the collection of paper cups I'd amassed over the previous aid stations.

As dusk was falling a little, I came across some red glow sticks in the trees which I thought someone was putting out as way marking a bit early and saw ahead a couple of guys one of whom looked really handy, fit, tallish, covered in tattoos but moving pretty slowly so I thought he was route marking for the night.  Until I, and the other guy, got closer at which point the tattooed chap bent over and vomited profusely.  We stopped and asked if he was OK and the chap behind did too - he had lots of stuff in his pack and offered bitter things, tangy things, salty things to help so the other two of us carried on trotting onwards knowing this guy was better equipped to help than we were.  As we went onwards we could hear pretty horrific vomiting for another 15 minutes or so - I felt so sorry for him; that was violent and unrelenting vomiting and he was about 4-5 miles away from the next aid station.  The guy who was helping him caught up with us pretty quickly and said he'd left him with some anti-sickness pills and that was that.

Dusk was well and truly happening, the next aid station would be Wrotham and time to get the head torch on.  MrTOTKat said he'd see me there and then head to bed for the night to see me again in the morning.  And it turned out that was really very very lucky.

I fished out my head torch and stuck it on my head while I drank even more Pepsi and had a quick chat with MrTOTKat.  I tried not to waste too much time at the aid station and made to leave, gave MrTOTKat a hug and started to head out, then paused to turn on my head torch so I could see where I was going.

Hah.  Nothing happened.  Torch no turny on.  So I called at MrTOTKat that something wasn't right.  The next 20 minutes were spent fiddling, trying stuff out and coming to the conclusion that the battery was totally dead.  We tried to charge it from the battery pack but the drain was so low it kept turning off the charging.  I put on my backup light - which is pretty bloody good really - and we agreed that MrTOTKat would take the battery and find somewhere with mains power to charge it and bring it to me at the next allowed crew point (16.2 miles away at Bluebell Hill) and that was that.   There were no worries really as the night was pretty short and I had my backup light (which is awesome and I'd happily use it as a main light), my phone with a torch in it and a portable battery pack I'd been using to recharge my GPS watch on the go with a ton of charge left in it.  Worst case we'd not get the main battery charged and I'd run out of light going into the dawn or earlier and I'd have to pull out at a coming check point.  Not ideal but not the end of the world.

The next section was a mix of a small amount of street-lit road, moonlit/twilit fields and totally dark bits so I turned off my backup light to conserve that battery when I really didn't need it and when I was running with other folks who had super bright torches on.  It was incredibly beautiful crossing fields under the clear skies with so much ambient light I could see where my feet were going and being able to look up at the stars without my light getting in the way.  Absolutely stunning!

@abradypus came to the rescue at Holly Hill - I pitched into the aid station which was covered in lovely pink glow sticks and went to get my bottles refilled and heard a "Mrs Driskell!" from the darkness to one side of the aid station.  It was @abradypus with her own head torches, one of which was the exact same model as mine so she lent me her battery which had plenty enough charge in it and I swapped my backup light back into my pack and went onwards, at around 11pm at this stage, with my intended main light on which was utterly awesome on the lowest intensity and adaptive lighting mode.

"Sickening.....!!!! Ly brilliant!!!" - thanks James!

Bluebell Hill was the next aid station and a super speedy tactical hit on water, Pepsi and some orange segments.  The exit was marked with a line of glow bracelets that looked like a fairy landing strip - so cute - and the comment "that was the fastest in and out of this aid station today!".  Yep, no time to be wasted now, onwards to Detling!  ...where I came across @abradypus again (thanks for the great photo)!  Feeling still pretty good, but feet getting more sore than I would have liked, my spirits were still high and I'd had not one single dark moment in 82 miles!  (Not mentioning the growing number of wild poos that were going on, likely due to a combination of heat, running and Pepsi - my bum was getting quite sore!)

Two more aid stations to go and I finally started to mark progress by aid stations and getting to the next one.  The trail surface was pretty harsh on my feet, with rare and only short sections that were not covered in rocks and stones for a good number of miles so far and continuing that way to the end.

The dawn came and Lenham aid station - I checked in with the volunteers "theoretically how many miles are we at here?" being told 91, my watch said 90.45 - I needed to know where we were in relation to the end rather than where my watch *thought* we were.  So. With about 12 miles to go I decided to have a tactical cry about the soreness of my feet on the stones and the fact the stones were not letting up in the slightest.  I kinda didn't want to have ugly happy/crying face when I got over the line and there was a build up of annoyance at the stones being *everywhere*.

This was a great idea.  There was nobody around so I could really let rip with some swearing and snotting, singing loudly a made-up song about hating rocks, and sobbing, and felt loads better after about 15 minutes of that.  OK, my feet were still sore but the only way that was going to stop was if I got myself to the end.  It also helped if I trotted rather than walking - hah! It hurt *less* to "run" than walk!

This was where I was aiming for - hot dogs and tea!

The guys at Dunn Street aid station were great.  As runners approached, they'd take the number check and ask if we needed any food or drink and if we didn't they'd wave us onwards rather than into the aid station.  Good work!  I didn't even see what the aid station looked like and trucked onwards with two almost full water bottles still and only 6.5 miles left to cover.

The awesome sight of the finish arch

It's amazing how long it can take to cover 6.5 miles.  When I ran the Rowbotham's Rotherham Round back in 2013 I was stunned that it took around an hour to cover the last 3.1 miles, so since then I've been well prepared for distances to take shockingly longer than you'd expect.  Today was no exception.

Despite the fact I was jogging everything but the steeper inclines, it took an hour and 40 minutes to cover that last 6.5 miles.  The last 3 miles of it being a deviation from the North Downs National Trail to the Julie Rose Stadium in Ashford, and so on road mostly which was a blessed relief for my poor feet.

Rounding the final corner, I could see the running track and expecting to run a whole lap to finish, I was pleasantly surprised by there being only a segment to do.  There was cheering and clapping and shouting encouragement.  I could see MrTOTKat and it was good.  Then I spotted James just beyond the finish line and a huge grin spread across my face.  I'd only gone and actually done it.  And it already started to feel like the whole thing was a dream.

James and (the awesome) Nici dished out the hugs, braving the distinct hum of stink rising off me and I don't even remember which of them gave me the buckle I had been coveting for quite some time.  But I do remember the first thing that came out of my mouth to James was "stuff Ironman!" which I won't retract even now.  28 and a half hours of actually enjoying what I was doing, and though it was tough and stuff hurt, I'd had a tactical cry, and there was a brief period of feeling a bit sick, there was not a single dark moment in the entire race.

Honest guv', this is my happy face!

@abradypus brought fabulous tea; MrTOTKat brought me shoes and warm clothes to put on; and a long time old friend turned up utterly delightfully unexpectedly and found me a hotdog!  I had many happy, stinky hugs, many cups of tea and worked my way through the rather unexpectedly tasty hotdog (proper sausage, not a frankfurter!).  We clapped and cheered the final runners over the line and waited with bated breath for the last 20 who'd made the cutoff at Lenham to get themselves across the line under the 30 hour limit. And they all did!  Wonderful stuff!

Thank you Nici!

Overall I think I'd say there were two things I could have done better in this race.  1 - made sure I had the correct and fully charged torch battery the night before and if not, charge the damned thing.  2 - shoes with a rock plate.  I'd deliberately worn my trusty Asics Gel Fuji Attack rather than the lovely La Sportiva Helios SR as the Asics had a lot more protection for the soles of my feet and having covered the whole of the North Downs National Trail a couple of weeks before, I was aware of the harshness of the surface over the 100 mile route.  But 100 miles in one go is apparently a bit much for me in those shoes; they don't have a rock plate.

Still.  I genuinely think the race could not have gone any better than it did given the main mistake I'd made.  I am really pleased with the result and still can't really articulate what happened, but I did it.  My first 100 mile race.  And I'm wearing that buckle with pride.

Race report: Seville Marathon 2016

The target was 03:59:59 and it was going to be a stretch.  For that time, I'd have to do 26.2 miles at only a few seconds per mile slower than my half marathon PB from September.  On average only 17s/mile slower including any congestion, water and/or wee stops.  Quite a big mental stretch especially given what happened at the Lee Valley Marathon in October (I stopped at 1/2 way as I simply couldn't keep any kind of pace (and my shoes were hurting)).  That and the last time I actually finished a marathon, I was 3kg lighter.

One of the streets on the route - I don't remember it at all, I saw a lot of yellow balloon...

Seville is also quite pretty.  I'd been there very many years ago with a university friend of mine and we mooched around the old part of the city but this trip wouldn't have much sightseeing really.  Arriving late on Friday, Saturday a lie-in and a trip to pick up race numbers etc. from the (not that exciting) expo - the expo at Rotterdam was muuuch better.  And then up early on Sunday to go run.

And that's what we did - via meeting some of @abradypus'  running club mates as well as some of the Centurion running team (including @jameselsons, my coach :o) ) at the expo and then for dinner.

Cutting a 4ish hour race story short - I set my watch for a target pace that would get me 03:59:xx and stood in the start pen right behind the 4 hour pacer with his enormous yellow balloon.  And I stayed mostly behind him for the first 30km (EU race, everything is in km), getting banged on the head every now and then by the balloon bouncing around and thinking "03:59:59" as a mantra.  Every time I started to doubt, thinking "03:59:59".

Ignore the total time - I stopped my watch oddly.

The pacer didn't slow through the water stations; someone else got a bottle and brought it to him.  So, as I slowed to take water every other aid station after the first 10km as the temperature rose, I had to catch back up to the pacer with a bit of extra effort.  Which got pretty tricky after a while.

I got to 18km and was really happy that I felt pretty OK - having had the wheels fall off at Rotterdam at 18km, I was worried that setting off at a spicy pace again this time could end the same way.  20km came and still good, 25km... 28km and a bit of grit started to be needed.  I was a bit fed up with having a balloon hit me quite so much, and some annoying short guy in a green vest cut me up every few km but was hanging on to the 4 hour bus still thinking "03:59:59".  There wasn't any shade from the sun any more and I was starting to get too hot.  30km... and I don't remember much until 34km when I was so hot I had to dump cup after cup of water over me, drenching me completely - at which point I peed myself quite thoroughly, which was a surprise.  At least it meant I was drinking plenty enough :o)  I had a massive maths fail though (unsurprisingly for while running), 8km to go... that's about 75 mins to the finish and looking at the time, I worked out that'd mean I'd finish around 04:12.  Not happy with that, I lost heart for a little while, but persuaded myself to try to get as close to 4 hours as I could.  Yeah.  Running maths.  Gotta love it.

I just about caught the 4 hour pacer up again after that extended, slow walk through the water station but at the next one I had to do the same again and totally lost the pacer.  Never saw him again after that.  As I'd thought I was looking at a best case of 04:08 (more fabulous maths) I walked a little up one of the alleyways shortly before the 40km mark, saw that marker and then made a deal with myself to run to the finish from there as it was only 2ish km.  My watch said 03:51:xx.  That perked me up a hell of a lot!  I still wouldn't make sub-4, but I'd still get close to 4.

26.2 miles on the watch, I hit the lap button so I could have a "technical" marathon time vs the race route time.  When I set up my watch for pacing, I set a pace range "until lap button press" but no cool down section.  I thought I'd hit the lap button and get a 26.2 Garmin split and then hit stop at the finish line itself.  What I totally forgot was that if you don't set a segment after the lap button press to end the main workout segment... IT STOPS THE TIMER COMPLETELY!  And I didn't notice that happen when I hit the lap button.  So when I rounded the running track, leap-frogging the walkers who were on the inside lane, and finally crossed the line I hit the stop button.

Weaving through the other finishers, I cursed a lot like I did at Rotterdam.  Though there were easily accessibly plastic blankets to keep us warm, the folks giving out medals were hard to find and there was no bloody water!  Why do race organisers do this!?  OK so there was a water station at 40km but I didn't bother with that one thinking I'd get water at the end.  Hah!

Weirdly, cadence dropped off more than pace. But you can clearly see where I slowed right down at the later water stations to cool down.

I needed to find MrTOTKat and wasn't sure where he might wait for me.  After wandering with other finishers for a little while, I decided to look at my watch to see what time I might have got.  It was still running!  Gah!  So I hit stop, not realising what had happened earlier.  It said 04:02:51.  Cor!

Little bit bloody - lottle bit stinking of piss at the end.

 I found MrTOTKat; he was quite light headed and both of us needed to get out of the stadium to somewhere less echoey and loud.  Grabbing a couple of finishers' goody bags (can of Coke, bottle of water, an orange and a chocolate wafer) we got out and sat down for a little while.  I even drank the whole can of Coke, which at the time was glorious!

The official finishing time being released revealed what happened with my watch at the end of the race.  I'd actually ended up stopping it when it thought I'd done 26.2 miles, it didn't record the next bit until I hit stop(start) at the finish line, so it then recorded while I was wandering around after the finish line until I saw that the timer was running and stopped it.

This race was much nicer than Rotterdam - staying near the start/finish was a great idea.  There were plentiful pacers, water every 2.5km-ish and no worry about running out of water or having to wait long between stations.  Road surfaces were a bit rough in places and sticky in the latter stages going through and after water/fuel stations but I'd be very happy to go back and have another go.  Sub-4 is definitely possible!

Race Report: Racing the Valencia F1 Circuit

Thanks to Virgin Active, a bunch of Team Freespeed went down to Valencia to race the Valencia triathlon at the weekend.

A week after Ironman 70.3 Zell Am See, Mr TOTKat and I would have just about enough time to get over lead-legs and needing to sleep a lot, and get out and race an Olympic distance with a good degree of fitness and energy.  We swapped bikes in the bike boxes, TT bikes out, road bikes in - Valencia is a drafting race so TT bikes aren't allowed (or rather, long aero bars aren't allowed as they're pretty dangerous at close-quarters riding).  Plenty of clip-on, stubby aero bars in evidence at the race, but I'll get to that in a bit.

We flew out on Friday morning from Gatwick and into 28C an sunny skies in Valencia - gorgeous!  The forecast was for cloud and still warm across the whole weekend, so no need for a wetsuit (though we both packed one, just in case) and no need for socks apart from the fact I really want to be sure my feet are good for the next few weeks into the Rotherham 80km Ultra marathon.  Fun and games at the airport with 9 people and 5 bike boxes to get to the hotel and only normal-sized cars as taxis.  No mini-buses, no people carriers.  We managed somehow and got to the hotel, which was really lovely and welcomed us with cava and orange juice as well as little gift packs with maps and travel passes in them.

A little unpack, then off for a swim down at the beach and back to the hotel for an early night.

Next day we put bikes together and headed out down to the sea front to have a look at the race expo.  Not so many vendors there but a few stalls with general sports kit and the registration tents for when that opened later on in the afternoon.  Back to the hotel for a huge nap and then out with the other guys again to register and rack up bikes.

Sunday morning was an earlyish start at 6am to get to transition before it closed at 07:45 in time for the first race start at 8am.  I popped into transition to set up my shoes, helmet and take the plastic cover off my bike that'd been protecting it from the potential rain overnight.  I said I'd take the plastic cover off Matt's bike for him so he could have a nice lie in for his race start at 10:30 so I did that and checked his tyres were OK - they were.

Mr TOTKat was due to be off at 08:20, so those of us off later went to check out the swim course while he got ready to start and then watched the swim leg for the first few waves and then saw Matt burning off the front of his wave before Jenny and I headed to get ready for our start.  We were herded into the start pen for a pre-race talk; 5 minutes in Spanish, no English for the International athletes.  Oh well!  We then plopped into the water, which was gorgeous temperature for swimming in!  It was so very very salty too.

Bang went the start cannon and I tried really hard not to just mow over the row of women in front of me who were really slow, but got over the reticence and got on with it.  It really wasn't very fighty as deep water swim starts go, just a little jostling at the start then I had clear water.  Having recced the swim course earlier, we had a great idea of how to sight for almost all of it and I put some good effort in for the first few hundred meters before easing off a bit, slightly distracted by the salt water in my mouth.

With the beautiful water, the temperature and the freedom of just a tri-suit maybe, the swim felt really really easy.  I didn't put a whole lot of effort in, if I'm honest, but it turned out I led the second pack for quite a way until getting under the bridge for the final few meters and a couple of women overtook me, and I let them as I wasn't sure where the exit was so I'd rather follow them.  I scrambled out, up the ramp and jogged the long long carpet through to transition and around to where my bike was racked.  On with the helmet, race number, socks (paranoid about blisters at the moment), bike shoes, sunglasses, unracked bike and jogged with it to the bike exit.

Over the line, mount the bike and clip in.  I heard cheers from the spectators of "Go on Kat!" etc.  I guessed that was Nick and Mr TOTKat as he'd've finished by now.  Start to pedal as I just hit the left turn for the bridge and *THUB*THUB*THUB* er... not a good noise.  Stop, unclip, feel back tyre - fine, feel front tyre - flat as a pancake.

Bugger.

My repair kit was not with me, having lost a chunk of it last week at Ironman 70.3 Zell Am See I'd not replaced it yet and decided not to carry a reduced kit for an Olympic distance race.  I unclipped my other foot, dismounted and hugged the fence back to transition against the flow of other athletes.  I had to find a race official, to withdraw from the race so they wouldn't worry about a missing athlete.  I found one with a radio and made the international sign of the glum face and pointed at my dead wheel.  That worked.  Mr TOTKat had by that time made his way level with where I was and shouted that I should use his repair kit from his bike.  I politely declined at that point - it'd've taken me ages to find his bike, get the kit and wrestle the still fairly new tyre off and by that time I'd've lost over 10 minutes and I'd be the last person over the finish line.  I didn't much fancy that and I'd had a lovely swim, so why get cross and have a horrible run by myself in the blazing sun when I didn't really need to?

I racked up my bike and joined the boys to cheer the rest of the team home over the line.  Turns out I was 3rd in the Vet Females in the swim.  Which was nice.

Matt won the Veterans race, and Jenny was 4th woman overall and 3rd in the open women's race.  Pretty darned good for her seeing as she'd had the twins only 10 months ago and not been able to train for a long time!

All in all, I really enjoyed the race and the weekend.  The swim was really very nice and although it was a shame not to have been able to ride the bike course, there's always another year and we'd be more than happy to go back again.  The short of it, the Valencia Triathlon is a good 'un and at a good time towards the end of the season to keep spirits up in the sun.

[Thanks to Nick for the use of all of his photos in this article!]

Nick on the camera bike

[Race report - Shock Absorber Women Only Triathlon] Pretty pleased with that!

My goodness me that was FUN!

 

Thank you so much Jenny for persuading me to enter the Shock Absorber Women Only Triathlon this weekend.  Having done almost no racing this year, I was getting more wound up about getting used to my TT bike again and how rusty I was with race experience and transitions.  So I decided to give it a shot, not worry about the heat that was forecast and go out with the intention of having some fun with no expectations at all.  It's a funny distance race so no times to beat or match and with it being a nice shallow lake, the water is clean and the bike course completely sans cars so very very low risk racing indeed.

We packed up the car with both bikes (Mr TOTKat planned a 4 hour ride for while I was entering, registering, racking up, racing and then debriefing) and my wetsuit, just in case, and I zipped up the man-suit about having to swim in a sports bra and race shorts as the team race kit hasn't arrived from Italy yet (thanks to Jenny for the shorts!).  It was going to be fun pulling on a wet cycling jersey in T1 as I remember very clearly the errors I made in my first sprint triathlon around putting on dry clothes over a wet body... try it, it's really not very easy and it takes longer than you'd want it to!  Anyway, those little oddities aside, it was going to be a fabulous little outing for my TT bike and practise with a few other bits in preparation for Virgin Active London Triathlon in a couple of weeks.  Arriving well before transition opening time and just about as registration was open, I entered and paid my fees for the race, picked up the race pack and failed to check the notice board about the lake temperature as I'd assumed it was 23C at least and a wetsuit ban would be in place.  Once Mr TOTKat was packed off and I was smeared in sun cream, I sat in the shade and chatted to a couple of other competitors, who then said wetsuits were allowed as the water temperature was being officially reported as 21.8C.  I ran back to the car to pick up my wetsuit... I really wanted to wear it quite a bit, if nothing other than to cover up my wobbly belly for the swim!

Then I headed over to transition to rack up as it was just about to open and I was in the first wave of competitors due to start.  Listening to a conversation it turned out that the water really was quite warm, so I decided not to boil in my wetsuit and just get over how I look around the middle (my arms and legs are great, but my belly and back are very much showing the signs of the 3.5kg I've put on since last year's racing).  Racked up, stuff laid out in transition I had a quick chat with Jenny (who was in the later wave due to being a spring chicken) and having checked where the swim out, bike out and in and run out were, I got my goggles and hat on and headed for the water.  No race briefing until we were actually in the water, ready to go and bobbing about by the safety kayaks.  2 laps of the buoys for the swim (800m), 6 laps of the bike route (31.8km) and then 3 laps of the run (reduced from 7.5km to 6.2km due to the heat).

2 minute countdown, then 20 seconds then 3-2-1 *frrrrp*  The Challenge distance wave 1 (under 30s and over 40s) was underway!  (Wave 2 was 30-39 and they started 30 minutes after us.)

And as usual, a good old thrash at the start and a small breakaway pack started to get away from me, but I led the second pack in the water.  My tendency to bear left surfaced again and a woman from the under 30s in the wave started to pull alongside on my right and I realised I kept going off left too far and adding metres to the distance.  I re-found the yellow rope that runs along the bottom of the lake, securing the buoys in place and tried to keep that in view on my right for the second lap but drifted off a bit again and ended up deciding to just coast a little and draft the other girl to save energy.

Jogging out of the water and into transition, my bike was easy to find thanks to my Union Flag design Adamo seat and the fact I was at the end of a group of racked bikes, half way down the racks in transition in the 3rd row.  Bike jersey needed to be dragged on over my wet shoulders, arms and back as there are rules about how much skin you can have exposed between top and bottom half of clothing for the bike and run and a sports bra and shorts wouldn't work at all for that (never mind what you think, Mel C, going across the finish line with your abs out for the world!) and that's never a quick process.  Then number belt, sunglasses, bike helmet and bike shoes and unhook the bike for the trot to the bike mount line.  One day I'll learn how to do the bike mount with shoes attached to the bike thing, but it's beyond me at the moment and I'd rather focus on the big ticket items like strength, endurance and technique at the main disciplines.

 

 Off out over the bike mount line and a lady in pink RGActive kit went ahead of me to mount and her support told her she was in 9th place - which meant I was 8th out of the water in my wave (under 30s and over 40s).  I intended to take lap 1 easyish, get used to the route, turn my legs over and then get down onto the tri-bars for the next 5 laps.  But... out of transition onto the long straight on the West side of the lake there was a monster head wind.  Staying up on the hoods just turned me into a sail, so once I was through the chicane, I was down on the bars and up the gears.  I started to overtake a few ladies who were in the front pack of swimmers and then I couldn't see anyone for a while in front of me.  After starting the 4th lap, the next wave started to become quite apparent on the bike course and on the 5th I was overtaken by someone from the later starting wave and I realised I'd eased off and was taking it quite gently!  Back on the gas to overtake her again, loving the sweeping bends on the course, I overtook her back again half a lap later and then steamed into transition after my 6th lap.

Bike racked, bike shoes off, helmet off, number belt turned around, sun-visor on and off onto the run to find out how many people in my wave were already out there.

It looked pretty empty and I couldn't see down to the turn point as I grabbed a water at the start of the run.  Stomping down the Western shore of the lake I counted one... two... three... three runners on the course!  Time to dig in and get on with it in pretty horrid heat.  I really don't do well in the heat, but even with a couple of extra kg weight compared with last year, I'm in a lot better place than I used to be.  I hung on and took water at each end of the run route and tried to see who was behind me.  Plenty of people were shouting "GO ON FREESPEED!" which was absolutely brilliant and gave me such a boost!

It got a bit confusing after the first lap as there were then people very much at different points of their race and I couldn't tell who I was racing any more.  On my last lap, Jenny went rocketing past in the opposite direction and then a few people went rocketing past me.  I had no idea what wave they were in or what lap they were on, so I just had to hang on and not lose the water I'd been glugging by up-chucking in the last lap.  Carolyn Hewett (Team Wiggle) came past like a train and scared the wits out of me for a second with a cheery "COME ON FREESPEED!", which then made me giggle as there was no way on earth I'd be able to catch up with her as she disappeared off into the distance.

I threw myself under the finish gantry and headed straight for a lady holding a garden hose with a sprinkler attachment and got myself drenched while I sucked down the Vita Coco that was being handed out.  Man it was good!  I had a good old natter with Eleanor Doody from Ful On Tri afterwards, which was really nice; this is one of the things I massively enjoyed about the day, despite having been skeptical about a women only event.  Waiting for MrTOTKat to get back in from his bike ride, I munched on a White Chocolate and Macadamia Clif bar and started to feel a bit more human again (really looking forward to picking up my nutrition pack so I can get on with the Clif Builders Bars after the next races!).

For a last minute decision race, on a really hot day, the day after a monster strength session in the gym and no taper at all... I'm pretty happy with the result.  And it was fantastic TT bike time, getting used to handling that bike again, after the fit at Freespeed a couple of months ago.  It feels really good!

Race result - 3rd F40-44:-

Swim - 15:49 - 4th in AG, 19th overall
Bike - 59:36 - 2nd in AG, 13th overall
Run - 35:44 - 15th in AG, 57th overall
T1 - 01:54, T2 - 01:19

Happy with the swim, happy with the bike (especially given I eased off in laps 3 and 4).  But yes I need to work on my run, but I pretty much gave up on the run once I was reasonably sure I probably wasn't losing places to anyone I was actually racing and I reminded myself that this was a bit of fun and there was no need to splatter myself all over the run course.

It's incredible racing in the team kit of such a well-known high-performance race team as Team Freespeed Virgin Active and it gave me no end of mental boost on the day as well as the support from the team and sponsors.  Looking forward to The Virgin Active London Triathlon in 2 weekends time when I really get to have more fun and enjoy a great race.

Champions are very nice people

I'm back from Kona, Hawaii and oh boy was it a phenomenal adventure.

From the famous Island Lava Java cafe/grill...

...to everything, everywhere in the town being covered in Ironman associated stuff and pop-up stalls.

To volunteer shift #1, escorting athletes through transition to show them the route, help rack their bikes and point out important, er, points...

Lookit the queue that brewed - it's a tough job getting over 2,000 people through to show them the route and rack up and we ran thin on volunteers to length of athlete queue quite quickly.

 And spotted the odd elite...

Raelert brothers

The entrance hall of the race HQ - King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel - decorated with a floral m-dot...

And Ironman brand on -everything- that moves, or doesn't move.

 The place heaving with people with minimal body fat...

Dig Me Beach

And handy placement of the race week schedule on the pavement.

I did a sneaky Brit-centric chalk on the bike-out route from transition, in the hope it might make someone smile.

Didn't really get a chance to take any photos on volunteer shift #2 apart from lots of sweaty, knackered athletes in between crossing off names and handing out medals and finisher goodies.

Faris Al Sultan (5th place)

Part of my little list of athletes to give medals to (Rebecca Romero was on page 1 of my list)

Big chunk of ironwork!

Crowie

Kristin Moeller

But did run into and and had a chat with elites at the cafe on the way back from my surfing lesson...

Andreas and Michael Raelert (and me inna middle)

And new world champions at the volunteer after party.

Pete Jacobs (and me)

They were more than happy to just have a chat, like a normal person and even a normal person with a sunny and cheery, sociable personality.  Triathlon is still like that and I hope it stays that way.  I do worry about it getting really popular and then the elites becoming less and less accessible and "normal".

Also met loads of other good people too, mostly the Team Freespeed guys, IronRosey and @devoniain. 

What struck me about a lot of people who were there that I talked to was the attitude of "well, just come and race here next year" as if it were something that you can just arrange to do with no doubt of it happening.

Maybe 2016's goal.