Cotswold Tri – race report
I had a great time. We stayed in the Cotswolds for the weekend and had a really enjoyable time.
I scouted out the lake on Saturday morning when I went for a run from the hotel. I asked the concierge if there were any run routes around and he got a map out. The offroad routes looked short and fiddly and he suggested a run on the main road that runs through all the lakes. I asked where Lake 32 was and he said something like “no disrespect to your running but you won’t get there”. So my plan for a 40 minute run changed and I ran to Lake 32 (29 minutes) ran past the people camping there, had a look at transition, and then ran back. I was running at a pretty easy pace and got back 13 seconds quicker. I was chuffed with the pacing but I did get pins and needle in my feet on the way back. Not good. But my calf was fine. The concierge wasn’t there when I got back.
Sunday morning was quite relaxed. I rocked up, put my bike in transition and then went out and started chatting. Then I heard “Transition closes in 2 minutes” so I ran back, put my shoes and stuff out, grabbed my wetsuit and ran out.
At the swim start I saw Ian, Steve and Steve. Then it was my turn, I got in the lake for a warm up and noticed that my hands and feet felt quite cold. But no ice cream headache so that was good news. Plan was to go hard to the second buoy and then find someone to draft off. The start went and I was a bit suprised by the starting horn’s “sound”. Wasn’t a proper sound but anyway. I went a little too hard until the first buoy and so eased back a fraction there. I think I was about third or fourth at this stage out of about 80 in my wave. I veered off a little to the left about 75m from the second buoy and noticed that there was someone swimming about 5m to my side. No one was too close in front so I decided to draft off him. Once I was on his feet I eased back on the intensity but still swam quite hard. We then started catching someone else and in the last 50m or so, my guy started to overtake the other person/people and so I just followed behind both of them. The bank was a bit steeper than I expected and I got helped up it. Then a short run to transition.
Swim time: including the run to T1 was 11:53. I was fourth out of the water (one guy was 1 min 14s ahead of me and I was in the next group of four, all of whom got into T1 within 5s). Overall, that was 7th percentile.
T1 was ok. Not fast because I put my bike shoes on, but ok. There was then a long run on a gravel path out to the road so I was glad I had my shoes on.
Bike: A very flat course, with a few very minor hills on the last quarter. I worked hard almost all of the way through – someone who I had overtaken when mounting the bike went past me at about 5k and so I stayed behind him for a bit (7m back so very legal) but didn’t need to push as hard every now and then. He went a bit harder than I wanted to up a hill at about 8k so I left him to it (the second person to go by me did so then and he tried to go with him). I was overtaking people all the time and quite happy. Took a gel about half way in on the way to around about and drank a bit with it. Then someone else went past me on an uphill bit and I went by him on the downhill, only for him to go past me again (but I passed him quickly in the run).
In terms of power, I haven’t downloaded it yet but it wasn’t that high. I was trying hard though! I am sure that my TT bike power is so much less than my road bike power. One day I’ll do a test to find out!
Bike: 32:39, 12th percentile.
T2: a bit slower than the average. Not sure why. I might try to get some elastic laces to save a few seconds!
Run: this was mostly on grass and compact gravel paths. The first lap hurt. And so did the second. I wanted to slow but I was constantly going by people from the earlier waves so I carried on. Three people ran by me like I was standing still. No one else went by my though.
Run time: 19:56, 16th percentile.
Overall: 1:06:54 and 8th percentile so a fantastic result.
How can I improve? Well I just need to improve my bike power and run speed. Easy! Eating/drinking wasn’t an issue. Going as hard as I could on the run wasn’t an issue (ok, maybe a fraction at a couple of stages). I guess I could have gone harder on parts of the bike. I haven’t checked my power data but sometimes I noticed my breathing was not as hard as it should have been. It would be good to speed up my transitions, esp T2. Shoes on bike would help in terms of time but my feet might well get cut up on the long run to the road.
Organisation was great. No problems at all and the thousands of marshalls were all very polite.
After the race, I went back to the hotel and was in plenty of time for breakfast!