I enjoyed all but the last bit of the New Forest Middle Distance Triathlon today. The last bit that was the last half of the run. For me, it wasn’t pleasant.
The day started at 3am. I was waiting for my alarm to go off so I could get ready and drive down. I had registered and racked the day before but I didn’t have my timing chip. I thought that I hadn’t picked it up at registration so I went groveling when I got there this morning. Turns out it was in the envelope that they gave me and I later found it under the seat of the car. My fault entirely but the race organisers were great and gave me another without any fuss or hassle.
The race has a split transition and the coach was waiting for me at the finish and took me quickly to T1. I spent quite a relaxed time in T1 waiting for a quick swim briefing and then got in for a warm up, I was in the first wave.
Swim
Today proved that I have lost a lot of my swim fitness from May. In May I swam “hard” for the first 300m or so. Today it was more like 75m before easing off. I didn’t get a good draft until the first corner of the two lap course. Then I was fine until I lost it by the start of the second lap. I wasn’t concentrating enough. Around 200m later I got another draft but lost that just before the last buoy. Again lack of concentration as we were in the midst of the slower wave 2 swimmers who were going in a different direction. I definitely swam slower at the end than normal. A few of my attempted draftees just swam away from me before I could get properly behind them
Swim time was around 34 minutes. Not sure exactly.
T1: the run to the bike was fine. I dawdled a little with socks and road bike shoes. Then I dawdled a bit more putting my stuff in a bag before running to the mount line.
Official swim + T1 time: 36:16. This puts me 17 out of 316 (5th percentile).
Bike: Being in the first wave meant that lots of people overtook me on the bike for the first hour or so without me doing much overtaking. I deliberately didn’t go hard on the hills but some people seem to go up them very quickly! I know I have put on a few pounds since May but that’s not the difference. I think I overtook 2 people on the bike who were out of the water in front of me.
For the last hour and a bit I went “hard”. I noticed that I was overtaking people who had overtaken me on the first lap. Also a couple of people overtook me but they didn’t stick. I think only one guy overtook me, and made it stick, on the second lap and I guess that his swim is a lot poorer than his bike performance.
Throughout the bike I had a bit of a dodgy tummy and that got a little worse on the second lap.
The course was easy to follow and well sign-posted with plenty of enthusiastic marshals. The only concern about the course is that they have designed it so that there is a headwind virtually all the way around (it seemed that only the last bit before the finish was with the wind – and it was also felt mainly downhill – so I am sure that I did well over 40kph for quite a while).
Official bike time: 3:02:32 (my actual riding time was a few seconds over 3 hours). This put me 92nd (29th percentile).
T2: This was fine and quick. A helper got me my bag. A quick-ish T2 and then on to the run. I say quick-ish because I still tied my laces (double knots!) and had to pack my bag again.
Run: This is where the fun started. The first 2k-ish is mainly up a hill along a road. No problem, I overtook a couple of people and someone overtook me. I also saw 16 VX220′s, which seemed a bit out of place in the New Forest.
Then we crossed the road, got a drink and I could see in the distance some trees towards which I had to run. Trouble was that there was a big valley with steep sides between me and the trees. So I ran down the hill on loose, large-ish gravel. But because it was so steep down, and because of the pebble sized gravel, and because my ankles felt “tight” I had to keep braking myself down the hill rather than run freely. Then I got to the steep uphill on the other side. After a bit, I tried an experiment, how much slower would I be walking “hard” up it (this wasn’t in my race plan!). There was someone who was running at my pace about 10m behind me. He gained 20m very quickly so I carried on running and caught up him back up.
At the 3 mile mark I was doing fine. The scenery on the run is fantastic and it changes all the time. Sometimes you are running through a quiet forest with no one around, at other times you are on a ridge with open plains all around you. I liked that. But at 35 minutes in I got pins and needles in my feet. This is normal for me. It meant I was losing the “feel” of the ground when my feet touched it so I started wobbling more. By 45 minutes, it was quite painful but stayed bearable. I had tried walking a few times (for 30 seconds or so) to see if it would make a difference. I also stopped once to massage my left foot through my shoe. It made no difference. Running was painful on my feet (and the hills were painful in a different way, especially as my longest run since I hurt my calf had been an hour-ten). After about 1hr 20m I walked up a few steep hills. Did I tell you that there are always hills? I walked because of my feet rather than my fitness but in reality I may have been a bit weak-willed.
Then I got to a marshal by a gate and I lent against it, took each shoe off and massaged my feet for a couple of minutes. Massaging them made them feel better but when I started running again it felt like I had even less of a sensation of what my feet were doing – and more sensation of the pain that the ball of my left foot was in. I was now in a double-whammy position – feet were hurting badly and I was worried that I might have diarrhoea. Miles away from a toilet (but there were plenty of bushes to hide behind) and a long way to run.
I continued to run the gentle uphills and downhills (there were no flat bits at this stage) but walked the steep uphills. People were regularly overtaking me on the walking bits. A few people overtook me when I was running.
By the time I got back to the road I was not doing too well. My tummy was worrying me nearly as much as my feet. But on the road it was virtually all downhill for the whole of the 2k to the finish. And I had to walk a couple of bits. Yep, walk! Walking downhill!!!! The pain in my foot was bad. My tummy even made me stop and lean against a wall for a few moments. This was with about 400m to go! The moment past and I started running again. I easily overtook the person in front and finished.
The finish was good. Lots of drinks, fruit, flap jacks and stuff. I sat there for a bit just watching the sights before getting my kit (and finding a toilet) and then debating whether to pop the blood blister on the ball of my left foot.
Run time: 2:04:18 (oh dear). This put me 120th (38th percentile). I am chuffed with the position (i.e. lots of people found it tough) but disappointed with my performance because of my foot. Get my foot sorted and I will easily knock a lot of time off of that. Knocking 6 minutes off would have gained me 45 run places.
Overall: 5:43:07 – 67th place and 21st percentile.
So my thoughts:
1. I like the New Forest and will do this race again next year. I will practice swimming a bit more first though!
2. I was fine on the bike course. I will probably do it the same again as this year (and hopefully be fitter) but maybe push just the last 30 minutes and put more effort into the uphills.
3. I have never run on a course like this. I need to practice a lot more on incredibly steep hills and uneven gravel paths.
4. Most importantly, I really need to sort these pins and needles out. Or if I can’t, have a strategy for dealing with them. One thing seems clear – massage makes running worse.
Assuming that the weather and course is the same next year, I think I could get my time to sub-5:30.