A busy few weeks have meant that I haven't had much of a chance to write about the Bristol Harbourside Triathlon. I've spent the last few weeks doing DIY and moving into a new (for us) house in Whitehall near the cycle path. This has meant work/life balance has been somewhat hectic recently and training has suffered as a result. Fortunately, I've been in "taper" mode for both Bristol and Wimbleball and there is only so much I could have been doing. I'm hoping to get through Wimbleball next week as a bit of a learning experience and then settle into a solid couple of months training for Tenby.
The Harbourside weekend began with marking out the run course on the Saturday. As much as the temptation to make the run short was in the back of my mind Ben and I set out what the Garmin told us for km markers and were pretty confident it was as close to 10k as we could really get. Having seen the course first hand it meant there was no whinging about it being long. Thanks to Robbie for sorting out some delicious bacon/sausage/egg roll from the lockside cafe as a reward as they were pretty delicious, although probably not ideal pre-race nutrition. In the evening Neil and John arrived for the race and we managed to stuff ourselves with some spag bol before showing them round the new place and heading to bed.
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| Carb-loading with Elisa, John and Neil. |
The waves start times were a little later this year which meant we got time for a relatively long lie in, but despite the leisurely start I still struggled to eat any food. I managed a coffee, banana and half a piece of toast with peanut butter not enough for a longer race. I think I need to work on a strategy for eating in the morning as not getting enough food before Wales could be disastrous. John and Neil were in the same wave as me and so we were racked fairly close together. We got set up and squeezed into our wetsuits whilst Elisa was racked further down with the others from the women's sprint. We saw the previous waves coming in off the bike as we headed down to the waiting pens for the race briefing.
The Friday before the race I'd been to the Triathlon Shop in Bristol to pick out a new wetsuit as my trip to Henleaze lake for an open water swim had helped me come to the realisation that my current suit was far too tight across the shoulders. Johns suggestion of a blueseventy helix was tempting but at the best part of £400 was out of my budget. The Trishop were brilliant though and I managed to try on a few different suits and even got to test them in their endless pool. We came to the conclusion that I'm not shaped like a normal triathlete, (read fat bastard), so it was definitely worth getting to try them and realising I needed to go for the larger sizes. It felt good in the endless pool but I was keen to see how I would go in the water.
As we dropped in the water Neil and I were side by side at the start with John lurking off to the side, defrosting?, as I know he loves the cold water. There was a bit of a ruck to begin with but I tacked onto a group of setting a pretty solid pace up to the first buoy. The swim was much easier this year with the sun higher in the sky it meant you could sight much easier. At one point I think John Neil and I were swimming side by side, but in the end the un-trained Neal was a shark and out the water first followed by John and myself. I finished the swim in 22;30 which is pretty solid, sub 24 was the conservative minimum, and I didn't feel like I'd gone all out and could probably have pushed a little harder in the second lap to bring it down to sub 22. The suit was a massive success and was definitely worth it as it was a pleasure to swim in compared to the old one. I saw John and Neil in T1 and thanks to the flying-squirrel I was out and on the bike behind John but ahead of Neil. With BADTri members watching I managed to almost crash the bike but I was away and round the first bend and just managed to miss a meandering spectator on the pump-house bend. Like a spectacular idiot I'd forgotten to undo the straps on my shoes but fortunately I managed to get my feet in without too much bother and was off on the first lap.
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| Neil departing T1 - Photo HPK BADTri |
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| Leisurely T2 for Neil - HPK BADTri |
The bike route is 4 laps of the Portway and I looked down at my heart rate 295.... hmm I should be dead. My heart rate was fluctuating between 49 165 and some ridiculous numbers. In conclusion my monitor has probably died. So a new one for Wimbleball is on order. I felt like I was pushing a fairly steady pace but with the sun shining I was getting through water too fast...Again something to be aware of for Wimbleball. My new front water bottle holds 750ml and I probably need to take on more water than that especially when I'm working hard my insulation might be good for the swim but not so much for the heat. With Elisa, John and Neil all out on the course together, I managed the occasional grunt and shout. John was flying and had a really solid bike, I managed to put in a 1:10.05 (damn those 5s I can blame it on the shoes) but had 4 fairly consistent splits. I was really happy with my bike this year and was pretty much bang on where I wanted to be. I was overtaken by a couple of people pushing a bit harder than me hitting 1-1:10 bikes I recognised Dave who eventually came home as the first BADTri, but I was tracking behind Ben for most the bike leg. I knew Neil wasn't too far behind me, although I saw I was taking a few minutes off him on the bike. I have to admit I was hoping to have put enough time into him to hang on for the run but I wasn't sure as I left T2.
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| Coming down for another lap round the basin. |
Getting out of T2 and away on the run I had shouts to chase down Ben from Robbie and Will. I could see he wasn't that far ahead of me, but despite feeling pretty good he'd set off at a pace I had no chance of hanging on to so instead head down and try and put in a solid run. I was hoping to run sub 50 and a good run would be closer to 45. I was ticking the first few k's off at 4:50-5:00 and was feeling pretty comfortable. I wasn't sure if this would be enough to keep Neil at bay as I know he's a strong runner. As I was heading out John was flying back down the trail he looked strong and we managed a high 5. I wasn't sure where he was placed, but figured he'd be pushing towards the top like last year. I turns out he was suffering but was closing in on the leader. In the end John absolutely smashed the run. He was neck and neck with 3rd off the bike and he'd chased down the leader on the run and overtaking him in the final bend to get the overall win. A massive achievement and thoroughly deserved considering the amount of hard training he's been putting in.
His blog gives you a good idea of the level of suffering required to push yourself right until the end.
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| John collecting his winnings for coming first! What a race and what a final 200m! |
My run was very much a tale of two halves. I was beginning to suffer coming up to the 5k mark where Raf another BADTri member absolutely flew by me - reminding me of most of my thursday run sessions. I was running sub 50 pace at halfway but I desperately trying to hang on. I knew I was dehydrated and after the turn I could have done with some water. Despite the shade the heat was really getting to me. I saw Neil on my way back in not too far from the turn and was half expecting him to fly past me in the final km. In the end I managed to come in at 43rd 20th in category with 2:28.35, losing a few too many places on the run. I'm pretty pleased with that, 10 minutes faster than last year and with a stronger run it would have put me under the 2:25 target I'd had as a stretch goal. Although a 52.13 10k was a bit disappointing. I don't think I was the only one who found it tough going. The top runners were 2-3 minutes slower than last year. Neil wasn't too far behind me and when we managed to find John we all had some much needed ice cream.
As per usual when I crossed the line I looked utterly destroyed unlike Elisa who looked like a seasoned pro smiling for the camera as she finished her first ever triathlon - hopefully the first of many to come. I managed to convince Neil to do the Cotswold standard at the end of July, He might even do some training this time.
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| John captures my suffering! Final km of death! |
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| Elisa cruising across the line! Looking good! |
After a successful day out we followed it up by stuffing our faces with pizza! Does this count as carb loading for Wimbleball? Brilliant weekend! Can't wait for next years race.
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| Mmm Boca Bar Pizza |
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| Swim | 00:22:30.7 | 00:22:30.7 | | 16 | 9 | 14 | 1.5 | 15:00 min/km |
| T1 | 00:25:04.7 | 00:02:33.9 | | 12 | 6 | 10 | | |
| Lap 1 | 00:43:00.0 | | 00:17:55.2 | 65 | 32 | 63 | 10 | 33.5 km/h |
| Lap 2 | 01:00:16.6 | | 00:17:16.6 | 32 | 18 | 30 | 10 | 34.7 km/h |
| Lap 3 | 01:17:52.3 | | 00:17:35.7 | 39 | 19 | 37 | 10 | 34.1 km/h |
| Bike | 01:35:10.4 | 01:10:05.6 | 00:17:18.0 | 42 | 20 | 40 | 40 | 34.2 km/h |
| T2 | 01:36:22.0 | 00:01:11.6 | | 45 | 16 | 34 | | |
| Run | 02:28:35.5 | 00:52:13.5 | | 116 | 55 | 107 | 10 | 11.5 km/h |
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