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

Culford 2 Triathlon 2015

I initially entered Ipswich Tri Club's Culford 2 event to support a mate who was doing his first tri, but it would also help to gauge my readiness for Wattisham a few weeks later.

The event is held on the grounds of the very posh Culford School; the swim takes place in their sports centre, the ride consists of 3 laps of the public roads that border the grounds and the run covers 2 laps of the perimeter of sports fields and a long driveway/path.

The forecast was changeable throughout the week, and ended up being drizzly on the morning, it stayed dry for most of the event, however the heavens opened during the run.

When we arrived we drove along the bike route to check for standing water and pot-holes and just to get a feel for how tight/open the turns were.

Notable details;

• Swim: 300m, Bike: 21km, Run: 4km
• Transition points were pre-allocated
• I kept banging my hands on the bottom of the shallow end of the pool
• Run to T1 was pretty big; few hundred meters
• The ride had a single foot-down stop per-lap at a road junction

 I took the swim steady, as I have for the last few tris, not wanting to tire myself early on.  The person before me had dropped out so I had a clear swim.  This also meant my transition point had one less bike in it which helped prevent it from being overcrowded.

The ride went well, there was minimal standing water despite the earlier rain, although having to perform a foot-down stop each lap was tricky to get right.  Fortunately there were no cars for each of my laps so I was able to get going again straight away.

In T2 my thighs cramped horrendously.  Trying to get my trainers on seemed impossible, and was made especially hard by the fact I'd used the "loop lacing lock" tip which meant they were harder to pull on than normal.  I probably lost 30s due to this, but after much spasming I managed to get the trainers on and out onto the run!

The run went well, although it started to rain fairly heavily after about 1km, this left some of the surface fairly slippery and trying to stay upright while navigating one particular hairpin was tricky.  The course was flat apart from one evil bump, which wasn't long but was steep enough to knock all momentum out of my stride.

I finished 8th of 185 overall and 3rd of 22 in my category (Male 40-44).
Swim (300m): 5:35 (68th)
Bike (21km) + T1: 36:51 (8th)
Run (4km) + T2: 14:46 (12th)
Total: 57:12

I was approx 3mins from 2nd overall and 9mins from 1st.
I was approx 30s from 2nd in my category and and 2mins from 1st.

Thetford Winter Series 2014/2015 - Round 4

Round 4 : Brandon Country Park : 22nd February
With a 13th at round 1 and 21st at both rounds 2 and 3 I was sitting in 7th overall in the series standings.

In the weeks leading up to the race I'd found my pace has improved quite a bit and my single-track handling was back to something like normal, so I was hopeful of being further into the top 20 this time.

The morning was cold but bright and the forecast said it should warm up as the morning went on, rain wasn't due until an hour or so after the race. I decided to trust the weather man and opted for non-winter gear, baring my legs and leaving the winter boots in the car!

Although I was gridded I wasn't comfortable with my position in the pen and got off to an apprehensive start, feeling I could put more power down but not finding it easy to jostle among the other riders. After the first couple of fire-road bends there was a long straight where I managed to push onwards and was able to retake a few places before the first section of single-track.

The course was excellent, with lots of single-track and with a surprising amount of climbing. TMTBR had been a bit evil with the end of the loop which took us up the bottom of the Plumb-buster then across and up the Nutcracker (very narrow and steep)!

I can't have lost too many places as I didn't find much in the way of hold-ups along the course but the poor start niggled at me for the rest of the race. Lap 3 was eerily quiet and forcing myself to push on was hard without other riders around to pace myself with. I played a game of imaging Ady and Wingar were just around the corner ahead and I was trying to close them down...  At the start of lap 4 Karen told me that Cavey wasn't too far ahead which spurred me on for the final lap (even though he's in a different cat). Around half-way through the lap I caught a few glimpses of him in the distance and finally, at the bottom of the Plumb-buster I managed to catch and pass him, but found a slow queue heading up the Nutcracker. At the top I chased after a couple of others from the queue (not knowing if they were in my cat or not) along a draggy straight to the finish line but wasn't able to catch them.

Once again I'd targeted a top 20 finish, and as I'd gone into this round feeling stronger than last time I'd hoped on a reasonable improvement on the 21st place I'd finished in the last 2 times.

I turns out the 2 blokes I was chasing at the end were in my cat after all, and I finished 19th (7s off 17th!). The full series rankings haven't been published but after fiddling with a spreadsheet I think I've worked out that I finished 11th in the series overall.

I had hoped all the training would have got me a few places nearer the top 10 but it can't be helped. I suspect a weak start and not having anyone to chase in lap 3 cost me a few places. This is my last year as a Senior and I'll be a vet next time round, if I'd been in that cat yesterday I'd have finished 11th...

Roll on next season...

Thetford Winter Series 2014/2015 - Round 3

Round 3 : Mayday Meadow : 25th January
An xmas of being ill and lazy had taken its toll...  I'd put quite a lot of effort into training through January but it was largely undoing the damage from December's lurgy and Xmas's lethargy...  By the middle of the week before the race I was feeling pretty quick again, but knew I wasn't quite where I had been in Nov/Dec.

The ground was frozen solid when I arrived but the forecast was for it to warm up as the morning went on.  I was well wrapped up for the pre-ride, but I decided to leave the buff and jacket in the car and change my longs for shorts and my winter boots for normal SPDs for the race.

I was gridded again and got off to a reasonable start, someone fell in front of me on the first corner but I managed to avoid him without hitting anyone else.  The course had a lot of fire-road (normally a weakness of mine) but the hours of looping around Alton Water appeared to have paid off as I was able to keep my place along it.  There was a small queue at the first single-track section but mostly lap 1 flowed well.  At the end of lap 1 another rider fell in front of me, he clipped the bike in front and went down, fortunately I was able to avoid him (checking he was OK) and carry on.

Lap 2 flowed better and I was still feeling pretty strong, but by lap 3 my legs were starting to fade a little.  This wasn't helped by drive-train issues!  While prepping the bike on Saturday I'd spotted a jockey wheel that was close to wearing away completely and had swapped it for a spare, but on my last few rides and even on the morning's pre-ride there had been no other problems.  However...  Once or twice during the early laps, if I tried to put the power down in a smaller cassette ring the chain would jump; as the race went on this got more and more frequent :-(

A jockey wheel that's seen better days

 By lap 4 my body was whimpering, but I'd worked out that even if I backed off a little I should still be able to make it round for a 5th lap and have recovered a little for a final push.

As the ground warmed up, the course changed considerably!  Bits that had been slippery to begin with had formed a dry line by the end, but the previously frozen sections became slippery and very wet.

Lap 5 felt good, but the lap times show I was actually a minute slower than lap 4... How does that work?!?!

I was aiming for a top 20 slot but ended up 21st of 87, 2hr Male Senior (missing out on 20th by 2s to someone who'd wheel-sucked me with a team mate for for most of lap 5 - mutter mutter), so not too far off.

After the first 2 rounds I was sitting in 10th place overall, so it'll be interesting to see how much damage this has done ahead of Rnd4.

I definitely noticed my singletrack handling wasn't as good as it usually is, I find AW is great for speed training, but I definitely need to spend more time in the forest getting my single-track handling back up to scratch!

Photo by Kevin Shaw

Thetford Winter Series 2014/2015 - Round 2

Round 2 : Brandon FR6 : 7th December
After a few days of being knocked out by a lurgy from hell I was feeling well enough to race, but still had sinuses full of gunge...  It had rained lightly off and on all the way to Brandon but was forecast to be nothing worse than a few spots during the race.
The pre-ride made it clear that my body was lacking power; I was reasonably quick on the flat, but had no oomph up the climbs.  Chatted to Ady before the race and he suggested riding to heart rate rather than speed, so decided to give that a try.
I was gridded, but was soon passed by plenty of riders as I struggled to keep the pace up and found a queue at the first section of single-track.  Around 2/3rds of the way around lap one a 15min sleety downpour soaked me through and froze me to the bone.  The ground churned up and I plodded on for 4 laps, occasionally finding bursts of power but mostly just trying to keep a HR of approx 160-165.
I ended up 21st of 86.  I'd usually be very pleased with that when well, so to be comfortably within the top 30 (gridding place) when poorly was great.

Thetford Dusk Til Dawn 2014

Once again me and Cavey paired up.

It had rained, hard, from mid-day till about an hour before the start.
I volunteered for the 1st lap.
I got a good start however a course taping cock-up meant us leaders were sent the wrong way so I spent much time fighting through the pack to make back some places.
Half way around the course I cheekily overtook some other riders where there wasn't really enough room, I cut back in and had to keep the speed up so as not to hold them up.  This led me to take a tight left/right too quickly and I glanced a tree.  My shorts snagged on a little branch and ripped down the side, all the way from the top to the bottom!  A cry from behind of "Oh, fucking hell!" confirmed I would have to do the rest of the lap with my arse and tackle flapping about in the autumn air!  Fortunately I'd managed to stay on the bike and even more fortunately I had spare shorts in the car!

The taping cockup hadn't cost us too badly and we were in 5th place at the end of lap 1!

The rest of the night was incident free.  The temperature dropped to around freezing and as usual the sunrise in the forest was stunning.  I passed through one forest opening which was strewn with frozen cobwebs with shafts of sunlight glistening through.

As the night went on we moved up into 4th place and managed to hold onto that all the way to the end.  With 2 laps to go there was some timing confusion that meant we might be able to nudge up into 3rd and onto the podium, but in reality that wasn't ever going to happen.  We ended up 4th, with Cavey managing to get back over the line with only a couple of minutes to spare!

We've paired up for D2D 3 times now and this is the best result we've had and I'm exceedingly chuffed with it.

T'Tour de Yorkshire

When it was announced that this year's Grand Depart would be taking place in Yorkshire I knew I'd have to make a trip back there to see it.  While I'm not one for watching sporting events on TV, I love a live spectacle and couldn't miss seeing the worlds biggest cycling event taking place in the county I grew up in.

My original rough plan had been to head up on Friday after work with a mate and stay at my folks over the weekend, riding out to the Dales on the Saturday and over to York on the Sunday to see bits both stages.  But as time went on it became apparent that a full weekend wouldn't be possible for various reasons.  One of the main reasons being that I was attending the Black Sabbath, Soundgarden and Faith No More gig in Hyde Park on the Friday.

The new plan became to head out early on Saturday, leave the car in Selby, ride over to see the early part of the race near Leeds, then head on to Harrogate in time for the finish and then drive home the same day.

The gig was excellent, much beer was drunk (despite the prices) and I was tucked up in bed around 12:45.  My alarm went off at 5:30 and my mate Steve picked me up at 5:45.  The roads were clear at that time of day and we got to Selby just before 9.  It was raining pretty hard for much of the journey but cleared up about 15miles out.
We said our hellos, got changed, unpacked the bikes and were on the road for 9:30.

I didn't fully discover the joys of cycling till later in life so haven't properly explored the roads from back home and was looking forward to trying some of them out.  But, as we were against the clock I ditched the plan to take the scenic route through the countryside and we headed out on the busier main roads instead.

Initially I'd suggested riding approx 25 miles to Harewood House, however once we realised how busy it would be there we revised the plan to head to Pool in Warfedale instead.  It's not that much further away and I imagined it would be less busy than Harewood.  I'd plotted a route and uploaded it to my Garmin, although I knew most of the initial part of the journey very well.  My grandparents lived on the outskirts of Leeds, not too far from where we were headed; as a kid this seemed impossibly far away so the idea of biking it was appealing.

As we set off the roads were still wet but the weather stayed dry, however we were riding into a headwind all the way out.  Neither of us felt on form, the early start taking it's toll and we seemed to be riding up a gradual incline the whole way.

Around Moortown the road was blocked; the A61 was being used for the ride out from Leeds to Harewood House and crowds had already massed at the roundabout.  We got off and weaved our way through the narrow path.  Once through, the road was closed to motor vehicles and we found we were able to ride the wrong way along the dual-laned A6120.  From here we deviated from roads I knew and headed along the country lanes between Adel and Eccup Reservoir towards Bramhope.  From here we had brilliant views across Warfedale and finally had a speedy descent into the dale towards Pool.

We'd had no real idea what we'd do when we got there but assumed we'd be struggling to see over the crowds already massed at the railings.  As we arrived we were greeted by a "Race Maker" marshall who asked if we fancied riding on the course and then finding a spot to watch from a little further through the town.  A combination tiredness and surprise meant we didn't really register what he'd said at first but once it dawned on us we jumped at the chance.  He parted the barriers for us and we set off.

The streets were lined with spectators and as we sped along they were cheering us on; they clearly knew we weren't competitors but were getting into the spirit of things and it was a brilliant experience, especially as it was all completely unexpected.

We passed through Pool and found an area where the crowds had thinned out where we set up and waited for the pack.  We spent about 40 mins here soaking up the atmosphere, watching the Red Arrows flying over and refuelling.

A small lead bunch passed first, followed a minute later by the remaining 200ish riders.

Once they'd passed we rode up and down the stretch looking at all the chalk messages spectators had written for the riders.

We headed back into Pool then followed the GPS route out towards Harrogate.  We weren't the only ones with this plan and even though I'd taken us along a little country lane the road was heaving with bikes and cars. It was only 8-10 miles to Harrogate, but those 8-10 miles were were mostly straight up and we were worryingly low on spare gears at some points.  We refuelled again on the outskirts of Harrogate, before heading in and exploring the event.


The main event village was out of bounds as you couldn't take bikes in and we weren't prepared to leave them while we went in, but there was still lots to see.  All the team coaches were parked up and crowds were milling about everywhere, the one thing we couldn't find was the finish!  As we were discussing it a really helpful bloke overheard us and helped us work out where it was an how to get there.

Once again there was much fighting our way through crowds but we eventually found a way onto the course.

We rode the final mile or so several times, until the marshals shouted that we needed to clear the course ready for the race to come through.

We found a spot, by a dry stone wall, on a bend with a slight incline leading into Harrogate which seemed like a good spot to spectate and then we waited...

We'd got here with plenty of time to spare, and spent a couple of hours relaxing in the sun waiting for the competitors.

First came the carnival floats (aka advertisers) and at one point I was nearly run over by some speeding McCain Oven chips and a Fruit Shoot car!

 

Eventually the pack came into view... 

I snapped away like mad with my camera-phone and was lucky enough to capture a shot of Cavendish being led out by his team mates (he's the 5th one back with the black over shoes)!

After the riders had passed we headed after them into Harrogate, along with hundreds of other spectators.

Even though it was only a couple of miles, it took around 45 mins to get through Harrogate and out the other side, we decided there was little point staying for the ceremony as we'd not get close and time was ticking on.  We finally had some reward from the morning's headwind and absolutely flew the 15 miles from Harrogate, through Knaresborough and on to York.












After a quick sightseeing tour of the city and a recce of where the following day's ride would be starting we left York and wound our tired legs on to Selby.

We called in at Mr C's chippy and then on to my folks', after a quick refuel we headed back home, arriving around 11:30pm.


The full route can be seen here; http://app.strava.com/activities/162160639