Ironman Mark

I rode to the start again and I didn’t get lost this time so I had a full one hour before the start.

The swim was fine.  I caught the one other person in my lane after about 8 lengths but he got out before I needed to overtake.  It wasn’t an all-out swim and I think the time was quite a lot slower than in 2008 (when I did 6:12).  I need more practice!

The bike was hard on the way out.  I had someone about 200m – 400m behind, who came out of the pool at the same time as me (“blue helmet” man).  The ride out was slightly uphill and into the wind.  Just before the turnaround there is a steep downhill and I lost a bit of time as I bottled one of the corners.  I also wasn’t particularly fast around the roundabout.  The blue helmet man caught me very easily up the hill on the way back.  Then I re-overtook him as the hill eased off.  After a few minutes he overtook me again and I decided to stick with him on the way back.   I made sure that I was 7 metres behind the front wheel of the guy ahead of me.  As this zone starts from the front of his wheel, I basically judged the distance by imagining three people laying on the floor between me and him.  If I started to get closer, I soft pedalled.  Blue helmet then overtook someone (“lots of hair” man) who jumped on his wheel and I had to move to the centre line of the road to stay legal.

Towards the end I got a bit nervous with the lots of hair man being so close behind me, so before we got to a steep downhill I went hard for a bit and was first down the hill, only to be overtaken by blue helmet man just at the top of the up bit of the hill.  I need to work on hills!

A quick change of shoes and I was off on the run.  I soon put a bit of distance into blue helmet man but lots of hair man got 30 metres on me.  I worked hard on the run but  lots of hair man gradually increased the distance to about 70 metres by the time we finished.  I worked very hard on the run.  Most of the time my HR was hovering around 169 – 170bpm, but it increased a little more in the last couple of k’s.

I think I saw that my overall time was 1:08 and some change so I was around a minute faster than two years ago

Edited for results

Swim: 6:33 (2008: 6:12)

T1: 1:29 (2008 not shown)

Bike: 37:23 (2008: 41:06)

Run: 22:42 (2008: 22:29) Not sure whether 2010 includes T2 or not.  I think it does.

Overall: 1:08:10 (2008: 1:09:48) so 1:38 quicker.

Actual ride time per bike computer: 36:54 (2008: 37:24)

Overall, I was ninth out of 194 (4.6th percentile). Woohoo!

It got cancelled. The e-mail said:

“But in our last check, an unforeseen circumstance has appeared with Health & Safety and with your safety being our highest priority we have to cancel and resolve this matter, with help and support of BTF and local authorities.”

I wonder what this really means?

I’ve just gone and entered:

• The Cotswold Triathlon, a 750m open water swim, a 20k bike and a 5k run on 6 September 2009.
• The Reading Concorde Triathlon, a 400m pool swim, 20k bike and 5k run on 30 August 2009.

I tried to get into the Henley Swim at the end of June but was too late.  So I have volunteered to help instead.