Blenheim Sprint Triathlon 2012 - photos

I swam (1 minute faster than last year)

I biked (3 and a bit minutes faster than last year)

And I ran

Yep. Ran.

Actually ran.

 Running at Blenheim was a big deal, having DNFed last year.

Ultimate Challenge: 1 down, 3 to go

UK IM 70.3:- 07:11:04

I'm hoping to write a proper race report later, with photos.  But, the short of it is that I finished.  I didn't die.  My heart rate monitor fatally broke right at the start.  I had a weird thing happen on the swim.  I made some mistakes on the bike (one real corker!).  And had, for me, a great run on a tough course.  Lessons to learn all over the show for the next one.

Thanks to the volunteers, Rotary Club, Ironman UK and staff... the conditions were tricky for everyone to put an event together, with the wind and the rain in the preceding days, so thanks to all!

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.

Peak training session

After the hill reps on the familiarisation day, I had the hardest, longest training session ever.  A 6 and a half hour brick; 5 hour bike, 1.5 hour run.  And it turned out to be a tiny bit longer as you can never be -quite- sure about traffic and pace...

I was due to do 3 sets of over-gearing for 15 minutes but it got difficult due to the terrain.  Firstly, due to the awful road surface around East Clandon, I was just chowing down on a particularly tasty Mule bar, when I hit a bump and 90% of the bar (I'd just had one bite) slid out of the wrapper and bounced down the road, leaving me holding an empty wrapper and a grouchy expression.  Then as I decided to use the first hill to start an over-geared section, it was too high a gradient descent to carry on putting in any effort at all so I ended up with not even 10 minutes for the first repetition.  The second one I started before my favourite hill - Crocknorth.  I think I got about 12ish minutes in to the over-gearing repetition and then hit the hill itself which needed no over-gearing whatsoever.  The third go was coming in to Box Hill and included Box Hill itself, which I left myself in 4th gear for just to make it a bit harder.  Interestingly, I was a bit tired going up Box Hill and actually fancied leaning on my tri-bars, so I did that almost all the way up and it was fine.  In fact, it was really rather comfy.

On reflection, I don't think I'm doing over-gearing right.  Or rather, making it hard enough.  I don't know.  It's hard when there's nothing to measure against and I still have relatively little experience at all of this stuff.  I was doubtful enough that I decided to do one more over-geared section while out on the Thames Turbo route towards the end, where I did manage to squeeze in another 15 minutes of it.

Garmin gets over-excited about kcals - I actually burned 2254kcals (and consumed 1387kcals, 239g carbs - needed 300g for the ride, in theory)

I thought I'd done over 125km on the bike.  Mostly because I accidentally hit the lap counter when I was trying to get the display back to cadence after moving the position of the Garmin on the bike and knocking it into a different display that I really wasn't interested in at the time.  Hey ho.  So, it's still quite a long way and the furthest in a single bike ride to date - and with only one wee stop, the longest in the saddle to date.

Hopping off the bike at home, I scampered for another wee (yeah, I think I was hydrated enough despite having not finished the two 750ml bottles on the ride), changed out of my bib-tights and cycling top into capri tights and a running t-shirt as well as out of my cycling shoes and into my favourite trainers and off out for a 90 minute run.

It took a while to settle into a stride that felt OK - I was worried that all the fatigue I accumulated on the ride and the previous two days would hit home and I'd run out of endurance.  But no, this was a really useful run to have in the mental bank as well as physical.  Once I got into my stride, I felt pretty good.  And by the time I got home, I felt like I could have carried on.  It wouldn't have been pretty and I'd've been quite knackered, but I could have gone on.

My IM run pace is around 06:12/km (I think) and, after this brick, I now think I will actually be able to sustain that over 42km on the day.  This brick session showed me a few things, one of which is that yes although there is a certain amount of background fatigue that accumulates, with the appropriate fuelling and a good taper, on the day it'll be achievable.  I was worried that I'd just be really dead in the legs, they'd feel awful throughout the whole run and I'd need to use all the psychological tricks in the book to get to the end of the run course.

These are my km splits for this brick session and remembering that there is a non-trivial hill in there, that's some quite encouraging data.  And my effort level was nicely consistent...

Got 2 streets away and turned back to get a gel to keep me going - I didn't need to find out what bonking feels like today

I must say that I didn't feel sparkling when got home, but after a Recovery XS and a chicken and avocado bagel and a 10 minute sit down, I was fine to trot out to sit in the cinema for two hours.  And 8 hours sleep later (which I really rather needed), ready to get up and go for a 2.4km swim :o)

This brick session gave me a great confidence boost.  Mostly around learning that longer races are a little bit like the shorter ones; once you get stuck into the next discipline, the previous one fades in the memory a bit and doesn't have a huge effect unless you've over-cooked it and/or not taken on board enough calories/carbohydrates.  If you have managed your effort well and fuelled well, you're in good stead for motoring on.  I did 1.38x the 70.3 bike distance (with around half of the hills) and 0.75x the run (with 1/3 the hills).  After a few days of fatiguing myself.  And I feel fine. (and when I wrote this, I'd just done a 2.4km swim and another 1.25 hours on the bike - rest day today!)

@ironman_uk familiarisation with @thetrilife

Because we're new to all this long course craziness, we thought it would be a good idea to get some familiarisation of the first two courses, Wimbleball/Exmoor and Bolton.  So, we signed up for the organised days run by @thetrilife - one at Wimbleball lake for the 70.3 race and one in Bolton for UK IM.

We'd arranged to do the Saturday for Bolton familiarisation but as it was going to impinge far too much on MrTOTKat's birthday so much he wouldn't have had much of a day, so thanks to the flexibility of the @thetrilife team, we switched to the Sunday one.

The weekend came and it rained.  Lots.  Friday was raining, Saturday was raining and the forecast for Sunday was even more rain.  So we drove on up to Bolton in the rain on Saturday afternoon (after my longest scheduled run on Saturday of 2.5 hours at my IM race pace, which was a great run despite managing to throw myself on the ground and badly bruise the heel of my right hand as well as some grazes) and had a rather too large dinner before crashing to bed, listening to the rain.

Sunday morning we met up with the @thetrilife team and the other course delegates - a couple of older gentlemen, another lady and a few of the usual 30-40something guys.  Duncan, one of the coaches, led the presentations and Liz explained that they'd learned from the day before that the conditions of the weather were really not conducive to a safe and useful day, so the agenda was changed.  We were intending to ride 1 lap of the bike course, run a bit to think about pacing, take a look at the swim area and transition and then back for Q&A.  As it was so wet and cold, we had a look at the lake and T1 area, drove 1 lap of the course and then rode 3 repetitions of the one significant hill (Sheephouse Lane) - the guys from the day before said that was the most significant part of the ride so it made sense to take a good look at that - then ran off the bike to feel the starting pace.  It was still really very cold and as I was woefully under-dressed (I'd expected to have put some effort in and got quite warm riding), one of the coaches lent me an extra long-sleeved jersey which was very welcome and took the edge of the cold for the first ride up the hill until I'd warmed up.

The hill.  It's not -too- bad the first time and descending over some slightly lumpy road surface on the way back down to the start (which won't happen in the race as it's the wrong way 'round) wasn't so scary.  Second time up the hill, the second phase of it was a bugger as it was so windy that the little dip after the first phase gave no advantage up into the second phase that it was hard to make progress against the wind.  Second time back down I was alone, the coaches split between the front group (with MrTOTKat) and the back group who were taking the hill very steady.  Braking on the rough surface in the early part of the descent, I skidded a little to one side and braked a little harder in fear of going over, such that I ended up fish-tailing and wobbling really very badly for around 20 seconds or so before recovering to stable again.  That was pretty damned scary as the bike swung rapidly from one side to the other a good few times, each time feeling like it was going to slide out from underneath me and I'd go over.  But.  I did recover it and once the adrenaline had gone, I felt quite good that I'd managed to keep it under control - I think that riding in the ice over winter helped give me a bit of experience with skidding/sliding.

Third time up the hill wasn't funny.  Still very very windy I wanted to swear a lot and loudly as a lot of the effort I was putting in was being defeated by the wind.  One of the coaches was riding up with me again, a different one than the second time (I think 2nd time it was Dan and 3rd time it was definitely Rich) and we were going up in silence, my bike creaking lightly and his a lot more (thanks for that, it makes me far less worried about my frame!).  I crested the hill around the left band bend, turned around and headed back down for the third time... even faster than the second time :o)  I really enjoyed the descent until I caught up with another of the delegates - the other lady - and had to be encouraged to pass her.  I had thought there wasn't much point passing as we were near the end and we'd need to re-group soon anyway, but got on with it, really enjoyed a couple of swooping bends, and we then rode back to where the cars were parked to get going for a bit of a run.

Ended up going quite quickly in the end - 57.6kph/35.8mph

We set off running and the pace awareness work that Rich has had me doing really paid off.  One group shot off with everyone in it except me, and then MrTOTKat and one of the other guys dropped back with me.  Rich was cycling along beside us as we trotted, and explained that the front group was running at 3hr 30 marathon pace - way too fast for us!  Dan dropped back to run with us, leaving Sam with the front group and we carried on at around 06:15/km - pretty much my IM pace.  A little 5km trot, then back to the car and the hotel for the Q&A session.

After a sarnie and a chat, we launched into the afternoon session where Liz went through some really useful mental preparation work, Dan talked nutrition and Rich explained about the final few weeks training and tapering and the team answered lots of questions about the course, logistics, worries and niggles people had and we wrapped up the day just before 5pm.

Overall the day was very productive.  Initially it had been quite disappointing that we weren't going to get to ride the whole bike course and that meant only 1 hour of riding instead of the 4 we'd been expecting, but it was better to be safe, see the whole course from the safety and comfort of the car and experience the one real hill of it.  We both came out of it feeling pretty positive and MrTOTKat was particularly pleased that some of the mental/logistics preparation work he'd already been thinking about was spot on.  Good day.  Well worth it.  And I'd recommend it to anyone signed up for an Ironman race to attend a familiarisation camp before the race.