I wish I knew (Race Report: Thames Turbo Sprint #4 2013)

Bank holiday Monday.  Thames Turbo Sprint Tri day!

Vicky Gill - Ladies Winner and setting a new course record

Usual 04:30 alarm; up, brekkie and off to park and register by 05:45.  This race, I was in the 4th wave of starters and quite far down that wave for start time.  [Start time at these races is seeded by overall estimated completion time, wave 1 being slowest, 4 fastest; then by estimated 400m swim time, fastest first in the pool.]  So from registration time, I had a 2 hour wait before getting into the pool to start.  Thankfully there were some nice people around to chat to, both competitors and spectators (thanks Rowe family, @abradypus, Danny), so the 2 hours passed relatively quickly.

I had my usual "I don't feel like this; I don' wanna get in the pool" minor funk before getting in and getting on with it.  My swim was pretty average and uneventful and for all my whining that I hadn't re-set my estimated swim time to something sensible, I was in a perfect spot in the swim - the guy in front never showed me his feet and the guy behind never got close.  I popped out of the pool, trotted into transition to my bike, which was nicely racked towards the end of a rack.

Shoes on, number belt clipped on - ARGH! IT'S SO LOOSE! - I tried to adjust it but the little loops that hold the loose ends were jammed into the plastic buckles and stopping me from getting it any tighter.  I tried a few times, managed to get it a little tighter, enough that it wouldn't just flap around on the bike, and then gave up.  Helmet and glasses on. Trot out to the bike mount line at the pedestrian crossing.  More errors!  I skidded about a bit trying to clip in my shoes and then was in a silly low gear as I spun up the wheels on the spur down to the main road.  I decided not to get down on the bars for that part as the traffic can be unpredictable there and I just spun out at a high cadence all the way to the junction before turning out onto the main part of the course, getting down on the bars and then getting into a better gear.

It was time to put some effort in, so off I went.  Slowing slightly for the roundabout at the short-end turn point, I started to wind it back up again for the run back down to the church and on to the flight of mini roundabouts in the villages.  Argh again!  There's a right-hand turn at a narrow point in the first village where there are often vehicles turning right.  Coming up to that junction was a very slow cyclist, with a bus stuck behind it, which also wanted to turn right.  No way to over or under-take the bus as there was no room and it was turning right, I had no option but to ease off the pedals and wait for the bus to turn right.  Argh!  It had to wait for 2-3 cars to go past on the other side of the road before turning!  Never mind; on with it down to the left at the traffic lights.  No further incidents on the bike, strong, confident cycling down to the far end roundabout turn and then back, into a reasonably fierce head-wind.  I was over-taken by one, two, then three men on squashy bikes with whooshy wheels, but the third one (511) was only just pulling away.  He might be catchable!  A peloton of bank holiday cyclists went past me and interjected between me and race number 511.  They sat there for a bit, pulling away from me very very slightly and then eventually overtook 511.  Who then eased off!  Catchable!  So catchable, I eased off too.  Bah!

I caught him just as we eased into the bike finish funnel and then off to the non-compete zone back to T2.  We had a bit of a chat and I said I'd been hoping to go sub-40 minutes on the bike that day, but the wind and the bus had certainly put paid to that.  Oh well!

Back to T2, bike racked nicely in a huge gap where the people around me hadn't got back yet.  Shoe swap, helmet off, sun-visor on and off to the run out from T2.

And I felt -GOOD-.  Really really good.

Trying to run through the stitch, but not doing well
(Thanks to David Rowe for the photo)

Trotted down the road to the park entrance, being overtaken by 3 people who were quite nippy.  Into the park, up to the first km marker and then... oh dear god, the worst stitch known to humanity hit my right side.  I slowed to a walk and stopped.  Tried to breathe it out but it wasn't going, so started walking and trying to massage the muscles.  This was not good at all.  It just wouldn't shift and then eased a little, so I started to run again, legs feeling absolutely great, but the stitch sharpened again.  I passed Mr TOTKat and @abradypus at the water station and quite vocally explained my predicament as I passed them.  It went on; run, walk, run, walk for the next 2km up to the corner which was just under 2km to go.  I don't know if it was Rob telling me "just under 2km to go" that made the magic happen, but the stitch went away completely and I started to run properly again.  It just felt so good in the legs and lungs I really wish that stitch hadn't happened.  I motored on in to the finish line and stopped my watch.  01:21:27 - I'd started it early in the pool and it included the non-compete zone between bike and T2 so I had no idea what my overall time was.  I really wanted to beat 40 minutes on the bike and really wanted to beat my previous PB of 01:16:14, but was pretty sure I hadn't.

After a chat with Liz Pinches and Richie Thorpe, @abradypus, Mr TOTKat and I ambled back to the pool for some tea and a bacon roll.  I went to print my results while Mr TOTKat scored tea and food up in the cafe.  And there we go.  I smashed my bike PB, by 3 minutes, despite the bus and the wind.  And I beat my overall PB by just under a minute too, despite the awful run and average swim.  3rd in AG, which is OK I suppose.  7th woman on the bike overall, which is OK I suppose.

Not a bad day, not the best day, but I'm thinking Zell Am See may well turn out interestingly.  Hopefully I'll've got all the crappy luck out of the way and no more stitches!

I really really wish I'd not had that stitch; I wish I knew what the run could have been.  I'm thinking it could have been around 25 minutes, but I'll never know.

Slightly overwhelmed

(if that's possible)

4 weekends; 4 races.  Sprint, 70.3, Olympic, Sprint.  And I really really care about the first two.  Thing is, I'm going to have my ass handed to me at both.  The field at Thames Turbo race 4 looks like it's gonna be a good-un.  And the Austrians and Germans are pretty dominating for the 70.3 the following Sunday.

I really wanted to do well, but I don't think I'll place very highly at either.   Plus, I do need to be careful at Thames Turbo due to the local traffic and starting so late.

A difficult, but good sprint

Blenheim last year was a mixed race, but a wonderful experience overall.  I always think back to what happened at the swim exit and run to T1 with fondness.  I was pretty early out of the water in my wave and despite the horrid 400m uphill run to T1, the reception of the supporters was absolutely amazing as I rounded the final corner into T1.  I was greeted by a huge wave of applause and cheering and it lifted me up higher than I've ever felt in a race before or since.  OK, so due to my knee troubles at the time, I had to stop racing after the bike leg and as a result did not complete the race, but the experience of T1 far far outweighed that on the day and ever since.

I needed this race in order to put in some of the final building blocks to get me through the Ironman Ultimate Challenge.  If I didn't do this race, I wouldn't be in good stead for the first Ironman (UK 70.3) on the schedule next weekend.  For me, these Ironman races are not only a significant financial commitment, but they come together to form a major life event for me.  Almost every waking moment when I'm not at work, I'm training or preparing for or planning for or thinking about these races.

So, I raced.  Some of you will know what a really hard decision to carry on and do that was under the circumstances of the 24 hours before and that I now need to be up all night to support something important.  And it was a good race, despite the mental turmoil.

The water was cold and very churned up and silty.  I got a good mouthful at one point when someone with a phenomenally sploshy kick was alongside me.  I got a kick in the jaw near the end of the swim too and the whole thing felt terrible, which usually means that it's quick.  And it was quick. A whole minute faster than last year.

The bike was windy as all hell, but again quicker than last year, this time by 3 minutes and 5 seconds.  Lots of people don't learn about the beginning of the bike course.  There's a short downhill run into a short rise.  People free-wheel down the downwards bit and then end up cursing and sawing at the pedals to get up the rise, instead of powering down the hill then using the momentum to swing up the rise.  There are a few sections of the bike course like that and with 3 laps, it's really something people should learn and take advantage of.  Anyway, I had some fun over-taking a good few people in the first couple of km and then over-taking and re-overtaking a guy in orange-soled shoes who was very distinctive.  Yes, there were a few people on squishy bikes with whooshy wheels that over-took me, but today wasn't about really slamming it - especially after yesterday's hour of spin bike work.

Oops, I left my bike computer on after the bike leg, so the last split includes all of the time for my last 5km of the bike, T2, the run, getting back from the finish line and then realising it was still on.  Still, very nice average and top speeds for not trying very hard on the bike leg.

The run... meh!  Turns out I could have give it a heck of a lot more, but again that wasn't the aim today.  The aim was to ease into the run and then see how I felt.  I felt OK, if a little warm and the rises weren't half as horrible as I thought they would be.  I got overtaken by a little blonde girl about 750m from the end, which made me kick up two gears and then curse the fact that I'd had those two gears and not used them - and there was plenty left to hold that pace -and- put in a sprint finish.  I got overtaken again by two more girls, who I hung on to, hoping they were only on their first lap of the run.  When they peeled off left to do their second lap when I was finishing my second, I laughed out loud because I hadn't been racing them, had a huge grin and sprinted to the finish.

Overall quite pleased, 7% faster swim, 7% faster bike and no idea about the run as I DNFed last year.  The results are screwed up online and there are loads of people who clearly didn't do 3 laps of the bike course, but I'm provisionally 9th in my age category and that is only likely to go up if the results are properly and fully scrutinised for finalisation.  So, for a race where I wasn't really racing, I had a great result.

Happy.

Now back to work.

Second race of the season and my new TT bike

It's upon us already; the second race of the season.  And like the first one it's going to be cold and potentially wet too!  It's going to be an even earlier start than last time as transition closes at 06:15 on Monday (the race director will be on site from 04:30!!)

I'm a bit excited, but not so excited that I'm even thinking about racing on my new baby when I've only just picked him up:-

I call him "Stormtrooper" (thanks to the new chap at Triathlon Zone for putting that idea into my head :o))

I'll be racing on my usual Fuji Team Pro Special Edition now that the guys at Prologue Bikes have made it feel right again.  I had it in for a full service at Evans a couple of weeks ago and it came back with a rattle at the back end, which we thought we'd fixed after taking the cassette apart and putting it back together again, but the rattle came back.  One of the guys at the Wimbleball familiarisation weekend we went to, one Sam Baxter, recommended a shop in Sheen so I went and found it this morning.  Turns out they're really nice guys.  They stripped down the cassette again, found that two spacers were missing (one that came with the wheel and one that came with the cassette), replaced them, adjusted the slightly out of whack back wheel, the rear and front derailleurs and didn't charge me a penny!  All rattling has stopped and I feel confident throwing the bike around the road again.  Much much happier about racing on it on Monday now!

Another mixed bag

I had a time trial scheduled in for last night's training session with coachJez.  The plan was for a partly indoor sprint tri but by the time I got to the session, I didn't really see the point of doing it.  I have 4x identical sprint races this year, the first of which is really very soon, so why do a time trial now?

After a bit of a chat, we decided to go ahead with -something- anyway.  So I plopped into the pool in my 2XU tri separates and hit a 400m swim.  Which was rubbish.  07:18 and every time I turned, my shorts felt like they were filling up and causing drag.  This was very confusing at the time as last year all I remember of those shorts is how fabulously comfy they are.  I'd never felt that drag in the water before. Current suspicion is that I've not worn them for a swim without a wetsuit over the top... I'll verify that from my race spreadsheet later, but it makes sense.  Anyhoo, not the fastest swim I've done by a long shot and a demoralising start.

A quick dry off (people get snippy if you drip all over the gym floor)and on to the spin bike for 30 minutes hard work.

I started off at a heart rate of (caveatted) 85% HRmax for 10 minutes, then 88% for 10 minutes, then 90-91% for the last 10 minutes.  This was absolutely great.  Never mind that 30 minutes is way faster than I can probably do 20km, learning that I can push my cardio system that hard for that long is a really good thing.  OK, so the real % will get moderated once I've done a proper max heart rate test (hopefully this weekend), but understanding how it feels to push that hard for that long and not keel over, or even vomit, is a very useful experience.

And straight on to a run around the track of 10 laps (and extrapolate a 5km time from that).

Lap 1 and coachJez yelled at me to wind it back a bit.  The next 8 laps came in at 51s per lap (90% HRmax) like clockwork so I put in a bit of a spurt for the final lap, coming in at 41s (94% HRmax) for that one and the calculation came in at 24 minutes for 5km.  That would have been a PB for 5km for me even without a swim and bloody hard bike beforehand.  Very very pleased with that.  Very pleased indeed.  I know I can hold a higher heart rate over 5km as I've more than once held over 180 bpm (84% HRmax) for an entire 5km, so there we go.

The swim I'll put down to bits of biology and the fact that I just hate that particular pool; it's dark and busy and I nearly smacked straight into someone's face at the end of one length.  I can do better, by around 10s per 100m or so, so it was just a bad day.  The heart rate trace shows there's loads of effort for little forward motion compared with previous swims.  The bike and run were really good.  Overall, despite not really getting the point, I got a massive psychological boost and a couple of learning points.

Doing something the average person doesn't do.

I wanted to complete an Ironman in the year I turned forty.  Initially I intended to do it when I had actually turned forty, but once I was bitten by the idea I didn't want to wait that long.  It's a compelling need to do Ironman.

I started triathlon in 2010 when, as a former swimmer who had recently taking up cycling and running, Mr TOTKat said he wanted to do another triathlon after doing one a few years back and I looked around online.  I found a "civilised" one where the swim was in a pool and it wasn't that far from where we live so would be quite easy to get to.

The Thames Turbo Sprint Triathlon races are held at Bushy Park/Hampton Open Air Pool - a half hour drive from our house.  Thames Turbo Triathlon club is one of the oldest and largest triathlon clubs in the UK and "...can count three World Champions and other elite athletes amongst our alumni: Stuart Hayes, Spencer Smith, Richard Stannard and current World Champion Tim Don have all been Turbos on their way to the top!"  Their sprint series is geared towards introducing people to the sport of triathlon and every race the question is asked "how many people are here for their first race?" and so many people raise their hands... the races are excellently run and marshalled, with firm but fair application of the rules.

In 2010, we entered the whole race series and I ended up having to miss the first one having injured myself skiing earlier in the year and was signed off from running by the physio.  I cheered Mr TOTKat on at the first one, while freezing in insufficient clothing on a cold Easter Monday morning that started as the alarm went off at 04:45.  All of the races are on bank holiday mondays and for the first three races of the series in 2010, it was utterly freezing cold and we suffered horribly with the temperature both when waiting and when spectating.  We made a lot of mistakes in the first couple of races, but learned and got better, stripping down the equipment in transition to just bike shoes, running shoes, bike helmet, race belt and sunglasses.  Makes for nippy transitions (and oh boy was I glad of that at the British Super Series race at Blenheim - I was way up the field in the fourth discipline there thanks to that learning at the Thames Turbo races).

The field of competitors at the Thames Turbo sprint races is asked to estimate their overall race time and their 400m swim time.  The field is then split, roughly at the 01:20:00 mark and those who estimate over that time for the whole race go in the first half, and those who estimate a faster overall time go in the second half.  Those halves are then seeded by swim time to determine the order in which you start in the pool.  This stops a lot of congestion in the pool and works really well, it also means that the slower athletes aren't the last to start in the morning and left to finish last, extending the race duration out for a very long time.  As a former swimmer, it's my strongest natural discipline and I seed early in the swim starts, but until 2011 I was in the first half of the field of competitors.  There's a great advantage to that on a bank holiday monday morning in that there's almost no traffic on the roads, and that's a big plus for a race where the roads aren't closed.

Over the Thames Turbo races in 2010, we improved and we did a couple of 10K races too.  Come Christmas 2010 we were sure we wanted to do more and, in a night of tipsy foolishness, we registered for all of the Thames Turbo races for 2011, all of the British Super Series races (some of which had a choice of sprint distance or Olympic distance and I decided to take the plunge and sign up for one Olympic one), most of the Clapham Common 10K races and the Speedo Hampton Court Thames swim.  And over 2011 we started working through the races, having the odd injury niggle, missing the odd race because of it, signing up for a couple more races here and there, a half marathon, a 5km swim... and then someone started me thinking.  I can't remember how Paul seeded the idea into my head, but he did.  And it sat in the back of my head.

I bought a few books, read them, looked at all of the courses and decided that heat was a bigger enemy than hills.  And the decision was made.  I'd wanted to do an Ironman race when I got to forty, but the race calendar was against me for the end of 2012 and I didn't want to wait any longer. MrTOTKat asked whether I'd be OK with him doing this too.  So.  Wales is the choice at the moment and we're signed up for Wimbleball Half Ironman already, which is at a good time in relation to when Wales will most likely be scheduled in 2012.  We're volunteering at the first Ironman Wales to get an idea of what the event will be like, and the course and the area.  If all goes well, we'll register for Wales Ironman 2012 while we're there.

There are two hard things at the moment... not getting over-excited and starting a training schedule too soon, and getting my head around how I'm going to fit all of that training that will be required into my life.  There will probably have to be changes and sacrifices made.  Ironman isn't a walk in the park, it isn't easy, it's not called "ironman" for nothing.  Otherwise everybody would be able to do it.  But.  It's not something the average person does.

03:55 and no training

Well, not any proper training really.  I haven't swum since the Thames swim and I've run once since the last triathlon.  But I've cycled quite a bit.  Not formal, targetted training, but a lot more cycling than before.  And it's functional cycling, so not like I have to make time for it either.  And I've done very little weights training over the last few weeks, so I've not even been doing well on that front either.  But still... 03:55 faster this time is better than a poke in the eye and it's 10 minutes and 25 seconds faster than the first one.  Not bad for 3 races, I'd say :o)

Race 2 - 347/411 overall, 39/54 in my category 01:35:02
Race 3 - 268/341 overall, 31/49 in my category 01:28:32
Race 4 - 219/369 overall, 22/61 in my category 01:24:37

And here I am swimming...  (just look at that low, early morning sunlight!)

cycling... (hm, I really -do- need to raise my seat a bit more, but then I can't touch the floor; dilemma!)

and running... (shame there's no photos of my sprint finish; apparently it didn't even look like me)