This weekend was always going to be a strange one, what with not knowing whether my knee would hold out for the run between the swim and T1, let alone the 10k at the end and also how the whole things would be like - this being my first National Champ event.
Things did not start off in the best form though with a four and a half hour drive up north with my mate Gregg. The temperature in the car seemed to be just about bearable as temperatures outside soared to something like 31 degrees. Still, we made up with just enough time to get our bikes racked and the head off to watch our footballing hereos perform yet another quarter final exit and, low and behold, on penalties again.
Still, all seemed to be going well though until we got to the hotel - que massive wedding reception and the prospect of a disco that was going to be going on until 1 in the morning. Things got worse when we realised that we should have had the foresight to realise that we should have made our own breakfast as theirs was not going to open until gone half eight - unfortunately, the hotel was not on the bike route..so no quick fueling stops. The night did not go too badly in the end - was only woken up a few times, mainly because the road outside seemed to be the preferred route for the emergency services. Plus, the room was boiling...no air con in £45 a night room should have been expected I suppose!
Come race day I loaded up on energy drinks as my make shift breakfast and Gregg and I headed over to the event. Gregg was off at 6:30 so this gave me some time to mill around and set things up...although not as one should - as we will see later.
My event set off at 7:15 and the field all looked pretty lean and a lot more serious than any of the other events I had been to. I recognised a few faces in the water and started to think about trying to stay with them in the swim - I knew that they would normally just beat me. Anyway, the horn went off and off we went out to the first buoy...normal tussle in the water accompanied by the feeling of panic and breathlessness and the whole "why on earth do I do this rubbish?". Finally got into what felt like a good pace after about 400m and continued at about this pace until the swim exit. Swam on my own for most of the time so have decided to push myself harder next time to stay with a group to get the benefits of them sighting and the slipstreaming - I found it hard at times to sight the buoys and was not taking the racing line all the time. Got out in about 24 minutes which was a whole 2 minutes slower than Windsor so something had gone wrong....with only the swim done, I was already in a bad mood.
The run to the bike seemed okay and the knee did not give me any trouble so I thought that this must be a good sign. Found my bike straight away and headed out of transition where I jumped on and quickly realised that I had put my shoes in the wrong pedals - what an absolute idiot. I had to stop and change everything round and must have lost a good 30s doing this. If I was annoyed with the swim, I was seething now. The bike started with a long slog up a 2 mile hill. I was quickly on the small ring and kept on thinking that this is not what I wanted one bit. Was not long before 2 E category (my age group) riders came storming past me. At this point I had to have a little talk with myself - I was not going to be passed on the bike, no way. I have not been in one race yet and this one was not going to be the first. I eventually caught them again and then had a passing and overtaking battle with one chap all the way round. He was pretty small so flew up the hills...my weight advantage would help massively on the downhills after that where I would fly past again..topped out at 72.5kph today. After getting over some of the nasty hills, it was time to head for the finish line...just I appeared to have lost any knowledge of where that was. I missed a signpost on one roundabout and headed left when I should have gone straight on...noticed there was no one in front of me so turned round and then took the next left. Again, did not see anyone up ahead...turned round to see a disc wheel in the distance taking the third exit. After a bit of off-road over a central reservation and finally getting the right turn I was back on track...must have lost a good 2 minutes faffing around. As you can imagine, the annoyance levels were sky high - this was just destined not to be my day, and I still had a run to get through and I was not even sure if I could manage 5mins of that.
Finally got back to T2 in 1:10 which seems like it would have been a good time for the day. Would have been a lot better if 3 minutes were not on there though for silly mistakes that proved to cost me dearly. Still, I got the runners on and headed out. As usual the movement between bike and run was hard work, couple this with the fact I had not run on the road for about 3 weeks - which ever way I looked at this, this was not going to be an enjoyable run. After about 1k the knee started to hurt a bit and I slowed down massively to contemplate continuing in the race. During this slow period, it started to feel a bit better though so I thought that I would carry on. The heat was really blazing down now and after the 2nd lap of 4 I could feel the lack of running in the legs. Still, 2 to go and I would not be a DNF. The last lap seemed to go on for ages and I finally came under the Finish Banner in 2:19:03 a time that I instantly thought would place we no where in terms of qualifying for Lausanne - I thought my swim was 2 min too slow and the run the same.
Well, the results are now out and it would seem that after removing those people that have already qualified and those that do not wish to go, my 18th place in my age category meant that I missed a place by about 90s. This pretty much means that my mistakes today cost me a place at Lausanne. I have not taken it too badly though, this is only my first year and I knew I had not had a good race. I have learnt my lessons and am now more determined to qualify in style when the events come round next year.
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