Bala Middle Distance was to be my first race of the season and a practice run for my fast-approaching Ironman.
Despite placing towards the left of the swim course to give myself a chance at a fast start, as the left hand side of the course is the straightest route, I managed to get off to a pretty slow start. I swam just behind Alvin Cooney who, I noticed, was getting bashed by people around him. I didn’t fancy that sort of treatment so stayed well back, eventually moving to the right after a 150m or so to swim out of the congestion. Apart from a couple more slight collisions with swimmers who were determined to zig zag their way to the finish, the swim up to the buoy was trouble free. The disadvantage to this approach was that I didn’t draft off anybody’s feet. As we approached the buoy, my goggles filled up with water in my left eye, making it difficult to sight. I assumed the turnaround buoy was after the small boat in the water so I continued swimming past the turn! Only when I stopped, cleared my goggles and looked up did I notice that I’d overshot the buoy by a couple of metres! My clear vision was short lived, however, as Alvin came through the turn and kicked me in the face! From the turn, I looked up to see a handful of people ahead of me in the swim, yet I seemed to be cruising – this race was going well! I followed Alvin and a small group of other swimmers for the most part of the 800m or so swim to shore.
From about 50m from shore, the water level was really shallow and before I knew it, my hands were scraping against the stones on the bottom of the lake. I could see people standing up to walk the last 20m towards shore, but I had decided to swim as far as I could in shallow waters to avoid hurting my feet on the stones! With 5m to go it was time to stand up and head towards transition. For the first time in my short triathlon history, I stood up and felt good – as usually I feel a little dizzy coming out of the water. I had a really comfortable swim, feeling in control of my stroke and my breathing, and had come out of the water 19th fastest of the day in 29.26.
From the photos I’ve since seen, my run to transition looked good, stripping off my wetsuit as I ran towards my bike. Why it then took me another three and a half minutes to get out of transition is predominantly down to faffing! In my transition spot I had laid out a yellow towel which I was able to spot easily – so no problems there. Apart from removing the wetsuit, which came off surprisingly easily, transition consisted of putting on two pairs of socks (run socks underneath thicker socks to keep my feet comfortable and warm on the bike), two watches (one Garmin for pace and heart rate and one watch on timer to remind me to eat), heart rate monitor, number belt, shoes, helmet, glasses and then, following a quick drink of water I was away!
Starting the bike, my HR was very high. My priority for the next couple of kilometres was to take it easy and get my HR down to a level I was happy with. My strategy for the race, following my own training and the advice I have read in books and magazines on Ironman pacing, was to keep my HR in my aerobic zone – somewhere at or below 152. By doing this, in theory I would have the energy to run well off the bike. However, this was proving difficult. Rather than slow down and wait for my HR to drop to this level, I decided to keep my pace steady, and my perceived effort moderate, and let my HR come back down when it was good and ready!
Usually, the bike leg is the most demoralising part of my race. I tend to be out of the water relatively near the front, which means that all those uber-bikers who can’t swim (!) take their revenge and fly past. The bike course is 82k long – 41k to the turnaround and then retrace your steps back to transition. After the first 20k, when all the initial climbs were conquered, I was able to pick up a little speed and allow my HR to get back to normal during the descents. The next 20k to the turnaround point were great (which consisted of some flat sections and some downhill sections). I felt really good, spinning a nice gear, drinking and eating well and keeping pace with those ahead of me, only being overtaken by relatively few people. A quick stop at the feed station to refill my aero bottle on the front of my bike saw me lose about 10 places as people zoomed by. No matter. I wasn’t comfortable refilling on the go so no point trying to do it on the move and dropping it – I’m sure that would cost me more than 10 places. Water bottle topped up, I was away for the second half of the bike leg.
I was really pleased with this section of the bike. I had energy. I was spinning up the slight (and not so slight) inclines nicely. I was actually overtaking! This bit of the bike is good because you can see people coming the other way – and I could see how many people I was still ahead of. I have done this race twice before and each time I have felt that this is the worst section of the course. It is mostly uphill so requires a bit of strength in the legs. There is also a steep climb (10% gradient) to be tackled about 20k from home, which I really dread. This time, when I got to the top of the hill, after overtaking lots of people on the way up, I remember thinking ‘is that it?’ Wow. What a feeling! That, I am sure, is the Ireland effect. The week spent cycling with Mersey Tri in Ireland helped me enormously, particularly on the hills. The last 20k of the bike is fast, as we retrace the climbs we tackled in the first 20k. Feeling good, and having energy and strength on my legs, I pushed some big gears on the way back into town, again passing people as I went.
Obviously I had lost a lot of places on the bike leg, I expected that. However, it was nice to see lots of empty spaces in transition, meaning that most people were still out on the bike course. I managed to complete the bike leg in 2.44.29 (of the 628 competitors to finish I was 263rd fastest of the day), averaging over 30k per hour – whilst feeling relatively fresh for the run – so I was pretty pleased with that.
For the run, I was going to adopt the same strategy – to try and keep my HR in the aerobic zone, which for running is below 158 for me. The biggest problem on the run is starting to fast. My legs were used to pedalling quite a high cadence on the bike and they wanted to do the same on the run. Using my Garmin watch to monitor my pace and heart rate, I slowed my run right down to 5 minute per kilometre pace to start with, and this remained consistent until about 7k when the hill arrived. The course is a rolling course, with very few flat sections, but the description of this part of the course definitely changes from rolling to hilly! According to my Garmin stats, in one kilometre, the road rises 50 metres, making it a 5% gradient – but I’m sure it was steeper in parts! In previous years, this has been the point where my run has fallen apart. However, keeping an eye on my heart rate helped me and I was able to keep running through this section (albeit dropping the pace to 5.25k pace). I passed a lot of people who struggled up this hill.
The second half of the run was fantastic. I knew I ‘only’ had 10k to go, and with energy in reserve, I was able to up the pace a little. I increased my pace to 4.40k pace and really started passing people! I actually felt like I was racing a triathlon. All other triathlons I’ve done (all four of them!), I’ve felt like my goal was to finish and I was only competing against myself. This time, I was running to pass people, even checking out which age category they were in (the marker pen letter on their right calf)!
I finished the run clocking up 4.20k pace for the last kilometre or so, although I did have time to smile for the camera and wave to Lynn! My run time was 1.39.29, which was 214th fastest of the day.
My overall finish time was 4 hours, 58 minutes and 41 seconds. This was a full 30 minutes better than my time last year! Having not really expected a sub-5, my emotions took over and I had a little ‘moment’ to myself! Overall, I came in 187th place from the 628 finishers, 97th in my age group (under 40’s). As the race was being used as the British Middle Distance Championships, a high quality field was assembled. With my time this year I would have been 50 places higher in 2009!
Anyway, what a day and what a race! Roll on Ironman Lake Placid in 6 weeks time!
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