Burnham Tri
Jun. 12th, 2006 07:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andygatesCor, that was fun.
No, seriously, that was fun. I finished with a big silly grin and everything.
From the start then: pre-race nerves were gruesome but that's just par for the course. I got skillfully distracted by being given bikes to fettle in transition (152, you need to regrease your front hub).
Into the pool and my big bugbear right away. Five athletes to a lane - and luckily the Real Ant Ireland had posted an expected swim time similar to the Fake Ant Ireland! The five in my lane, myself included, were a right shower, stopping often, changing stroke, piling up at the ends and laughing at how wonderfully incompetent we were. My stroke held out. I broke to breaststroke once out of need and twice just because of traffic: the scary 500m demon is broken and I'm tons more confident about the open-water swim in a couple of weeks. My stroke held out, though I was breathing on my favourite side with every stroke most of the time.
T1 was mentally vague and baggy. Didn't pantomime the transitions the way I did first time, and I should have; the swim left me feeling a bit wooly in the head too, so I wasn't as quick as I hoped. No errors, just slow.
Onto the bike and the best bit of the day. By starting in the slow swimmers, I had a bunch of people ahead of me who were generally slow. I'm generally quick on the bike and lay down a steady just-under-20mph on the open stretches. The first of my swim lane was eaten up in a quarter mile, and then the fun began. The bike course was flat: a 20km loop around Brent Knoll (think Devil's Mound in Close Encounters), with two gradients where the road went over railway bridges. Perfect time-trial territory. I opened up and took five more slower competitors before my challenge began: number seven was in a tri suit.
Number seven was doing a decent clip, too. It took me a couple of miles to run him down and get my eye-hooks into him (there's no drafting in tri but getting a visual lock on someone means you can get paced at a great distance, where the pacing is purely psychological). Reeled him in oh-so-slowly and then the second railway bridge appeared. It was clearly my one chance, so I slapped up a gear, jumped out of the saddle, and gave it some fixie legs. The chap (who took me back on the run, of course) apparently tried to chase me down for the rest of the course. Heh.
Two more were reeled in and I was beginning to feel like Biggles taking out the dastardly Hun one by one (can I fit a crosshair on my bars next time?) before the bike course devolved to local roads and traffic and T2.
A word about hydration: I'd suffered so badly at Wellington that I actually had a strategy this time. Electrolyte/carb drink on the bike, a gulp more and some raw sugar at T2, and another bottle of electrolyte after the race. Overall, this worked, but CHECK THE WATER STATIONS ON THE RUN! The raw sugar was jelly babies, which I know are easy on my stomach: I'd set up a little chorus line of the fellows on my transition towel.
Back to T2, and with gumby legs I fight to rack the bike which developed a mind of its own. Shoes off, lid off, and munch half of the jelly babies. Hallucinate that you're Godzilla and these are the residents of Tokyo. Resist the urge to roar, shoes on, more Japanese into my scaly maw, and out.
As at Wellington I was taking tiny strides and at Burnham I still couldn't see how to open them up. That's something to focus on in training with some bike/run bricks, I think. The shuffling jog was not quick.
And the course was evil. Blazing sun, a beach run, then up over the dunes (soft shifting sand!), round the golf course and back over the dunes and down the beach. I did have to break into a walk a couple of times, and I fell victim early on to a maleficent brainworm: Bobby Goldsboro's "Summer": "It was a hot afternoon Last day of June And the sun was a demon The clouds were afraid One-ten in the shade And the pavement was steaming ..." - totally wrong, negative and slow. The trade-off was an Ice Cold In Alex picture of the frosty bottle of water waiting at the finish. No water on the course apart from the one at T2, so my Harajuku Morsels turned to syrup on the roof of my mouth and caught flies.
Everybody loved the bike course; everybody hated the run. Overall time, 1:36:52 (provisional, splits to come). Elaine finished a few minutes ahead of me, Paul was up with the top-end girls, and Iain from Tri Talk was on the podium, the skinny git.
No, seriously, that was fun. I finished with a big silly grin and everything.
From the start then: pre-race nerves were gruesome but that's just par for the course. I got skillfully distracted by being given bikes to fettle in transition (152, you need to regrease your front hub).
Into the pool and my big bugbear right away. Five athletes to a lane - and luckily the Real Ant Ireland had posted an expected swim time similar to the Fake Ant Ireland! The five in my lane, myself included, were a right shower, stopping often, changing stroke, piling up at the ends and laughing at how wonderfully incompetent we were. My stroke held out. I broke to breaststroke once out of need and twice just because of traffic: the scary 500m demon is broken and I'm tons more confident about the open-water swim in a couple of weeks. My stroke held out, though I was breathing on my favourite side with every stroke most of the time.
T1 was mentally vague and baggy. Didn't pantomime the transitions the way I did first time, and I should have; the swim left me feeling a bit wooly in the head too, so I wasn't as quick as I hoped. No errors, just slow.
Onto the bike and the best bit of the day. By starting in the slow swimmers, I had a bunch of people ahead of me who were generally slow. I'm generally quick on the bike and lay down a steady just-under-20mph on the open stretches. The first of my swim lane was eaten up in a quarter mile, and then the fun began. The bike course was flat: a 20km loop around Brent Knoll (think Devil's Mound in Close Encounters), with two gradients where the road went over railway bridges. Perfect time-trial territory. I opened up and took five more slower competitors before my challenge began: number seven was in a tri suit.
Number seven was doing a decent clip, too. It took me a couple of miles to run him down and get my eye-hooks into him (there's no drafting in tri but getting a visual lock on someone means you can get paced at a great distance, where the pacing is purely psychological). Reeled him in oh-so-slowly and then the second railway bridge appeared. It was clearly my one chance, so I slapped up a gear, jumped out of the saddle, and gave it some fixie legs. The chap (who took me back on the run, of course) apparently tried to chase me down for the rest of the course. Heh.
Two more were reeled in and I was beginning to feel like Biggles taking out the dastardly Hun one by one (can I fit a crosshair on my bars next time?) before the bike course devolved to local roads and traffic and T2.
A word about hydration: I'd suffered so badly at Wellington that I actually had a strategy this time. Electrolyte/carb drink on the bike, a gulp more and some raw sugar at T2, and another bottle of electrolyte after the race. Overall, this worked, but CHECK THE WATER STATIONS ON THE RUN! The raw sugar was jelly babies, which I know are easy on my stomach: I'd set up a little chorus line of the fellows on my transition towel.
Back to T2, and with gumby legs I fight to rack the bike which developed a mind of its own. Shoes off, lid off, and munch half of the jelly babies. Hallucinate that you're Godzilla and these are the residents of Tokyo. Resist the urge to roar, shoes on, more Japanese into my scaly maw, and out.
As at Wellington I was taking tiny strides and at Burnham I still couldn't see how to open them up. That's something to focus on in training with some bike/run bricks, I think. The shuffling jog was not quick.
And the course was evil. Blazing sun, a beach run, then up over the dunes (soft shifting sand!), round the golf course and back over the dunes and down the beach. I did have to break into a walk a couple of times, and I fell victim early on to a maleficent brainworm: Bobby Goldsboro's "Summer": "It was a hot afternoon Last day of June And the sun was a demon The clouds were afraid One-ten in the shade And the pavement was steaming ..." - totally wrong, negative and slow. The trade-off was an Ice Cold In Alex picture of the frosty bottle of water waiting at the finish. No water on the course apart from the one at T2, so my Harajuku Morsels turned to syrup on the roof of my mouth and caught flies.
Everybody loved the bike course; everybody hated the run. Overall time, 1:36:52 (provisional, splits to come). Elaine finished a few minutes ahead of me, Paul was up with the top-end girls, and Iain from Tri Talk was on the podium, the skinny git.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 08:15 am (UTC)I did spare a thought for you and the DSPs yesterday. I was mostly thinking it was too hot to do anything - let alone anything energetic - and am well impressed that you all managed to do a tri in that heat.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 09:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 08:32 am (UTC)But, no water on the run???? Thats practically criminal. Especially over a desert like that.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 09:24 am (UTC)Hang on a sec...
Date: 2006-06-12 08:39 am (UTC)You're going to get a 3rd one in before I've even done my first. Masochist.
Re: Hang on a sec...
Date: 2006-06-12 09:26 am (UTC)When's Zurich again?
Re: Hang on a sec...
Date: 2006-06-12 10:30 am (UTC)So, how about coming doing London with Xeeny and I then? Big N is definitely not going to be using his entry, so we might be able to get you in that way. UK's biggest Tri, the full monty Olympic distance, open water swimm (well, London Docks). Tempted?
Re: Hang on a sec...
Date: 2006-06-12 11:26 am (UTC)5/6 August? 1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run?
Holy hell, that's a big big ask. (Which is rather the theme of this whole thing, isn't it? Damn you, sir!)
I'll see how the OW swim at Bude goes. If that is good (ie, no recovery boat), you may have a deal. If nothing else I can pose - my tattoo looks superb in an open-back wetsuit ;)
Re: Hang on a sec...
Date: 2006-06-12 12:36 pm (UTC)Re: Hang on a sec...
Date: 2006-06-12 12:53 pm (UTC)Re: Hang on a sec...
Date: 2006-06-12 01:01 pm (UTC)Re: Hang on a sec...
Date: 2006-06-12 01:17 pm (UTC)Re: Hang on a sec...
Date: 2006-06-12 01:30 pm (UTC)Re: Hang on a sec...
Date: 2006-06-12 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 01:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 01:29 pm (UTC)