Wattisham Triathlon 2015

Four years ago I finished my first Wattisham Tri in 1:08:48, the next year a helicopter stopped play and I only managed to finish a few seconds quicker. Last year I got it down to 1:01:42; I was really pleased with this improvement and had convinced myself I wasn't going to be able to better that.

A good result at the Culford Tri (different distances) a couple of weeks ago had started to make me optimistic that I might be able to shave a bit off last year's time.  I'd even started to wonder whether I might be able to get under an hour...

The weather was very similar to Culford a few weeks earlier.  The sky was grey and it was drizzling off and on.  In the induction the Race Director warned us that parts of the course were slippy.  As we set up the transition area the rain eased off, but never felt far away.

As usual I faffed with my transition layout, putting everything in one order, then another and repeated this until I was suitably annoyed with myself.  I noticed someone near me had placed their number belt on the tri-bars bars and rested their helmet on top.  I decided to give this ago to make them easier to get at and leave less gear cluttering under the bike.

For the swim I'd planned to do my usual thing of keeping a steady pace and not pushing too hard, and as planned I started off steady.  A couple of lengths in I was feeling pretty good so started to push harder.
T1 went OK; relocating the number belt and the lid worked well (there was some faffing getting the number the right way around but that was me not the layout) and the harder swim didn't appear to have taken a toll.

A little way into the ride I was starting to feel queasy and needing to burp, but each burp was bringing up bile...  I managed to ride on through this and don't think it held me up at all, but the first few miles weren't too enjoyable.  Around the time the sick feeling cleared the heavens decided we'd be dry long enough and the rain started again.
The runway is a feature of the Wattisham Tri, with you riding all the way up it and then back down again.  It's notorious for having a strong wind which can halve your speed in one direction and double it in the other!  Of the 4 times I've done the event this was the first where that didn't happen, despite the rain, the wind was minimal and I seemed to average around 21-23mph in one direction and 25-27mph in the other!
Towards the end of the ride as I left the airfield and joined the road back to the sports centre my back wheel skidded massively on a wet bit of road!  I somehow managed to keep upright but swung out far too wide onto the other side of the road just as another rider was heading towards me!  Fortunately he was still about 40ft away and I was able to get back over to my side without impeding either of us too much.  Unfortunately, just as this happened the Race Director was driving along behind the other rider and he gave me a proper drill-instructor-type shouting at...  I worried that this might get me a time penalty but tried not to think about it and just pushed on with my ride.

At Culford I suffered bad cramping as I tried to change my shoes in T2.  This time I suffered a little but not enough to hinder me.  As I set off running I realised I still had my helmet on and had to double-back to leave it with my bike, I'd guess this cost me 10-15s.

I'd used my Garmin 500 to track the ride as usual, but I'm not normally able to track my run, this time I'd used a TomTom Multisport which did the job well enough, but in future I need to spend some time setting the metrics shown on the screen better.  The main metric I wanted to know was my current average pace, unfortunately it was showing it in kph rather than mph so I struggled to translate it.
Run went well, the ground had held up despite the rain and I didn't suffer any cramping (legs or diaphragm).
The watch was telling me that it was going to be close to being under an hour, which helped spur me on and I gave everything I had up the final straight!

As I crossed the line the announcer shouted my name and that my time was under an hour at 59:30!  At that point no other competitors had gone that quick and if I'd had that time last year I would have been 2nd overall!
For a few minutes it was all quite exciting but soon enough reality kicked in and other competitors were coming in under the hour too. 

Finished in 00:59:30!
7th of 244 overall and 3rd of 27 in category (40-44).
Swim (300m) + T1: 00:06:24
Bike (20km) + T2: 00:34:05
Run (5km): 00:18:59
Results here.

I was approx 3m 20s from 2nd overall and 4m 30s from 1st.

I was 25s from 2nd in my category and and 4m 30s from 1st.

2014 Times
Swim + T1: 00:06:39
Bike + T2: 00:35:12

Run: 00:19:51