Every once in a while in the world of traithlon, we get to do something a bit different to the normal solo effort of swim, bike and run. Bananaman is one such event, the main gist is that this is a team event, so the theory goes that you get a team of 3 similar paced atheletes together and then race as a team of 3.
The main advantage to this comes on the bike where you ride in a line of 3...for those not too familiar with the world of cycling, if you ride directly behind someone you can save a whole lot of of energy as they are creating a slipstream in which you can ride. As for the swim, well that is pretty hard to organise in terms of sticking together...it is just a case of getting out the water as quick as possible. The run is then just a case of trying to get a pace that everyone is comfortable with...for someone like me, comfortable was never going to be the case with my team mates though.
Thames Turbo Sigma Sport have won the Bananaman Team Time Trial a number of years on the trot so our team of Dion Harrison, Charlie Pennington and myself had a bit of pressure on us to make sure that we did not let the record slip.
About 120 (40 teams) eventually lined up at the start for the 800m swim which included getting out after 400m, running round the pontoon and then diving back in.
The swim was quite good, although I can feel that I have simply not been doing enough swimming this season...I got tired quite quickly and my technique was not much to write home about. All I was hoping was that I had not let the other two down too much...in the end, we were the first team of 3 out of the water and on to the bikes.
The bike section is where the fun started for me. All 3 of us quickly got into formation and started to up the pace and get some nice drafting going. By the time we started the 2nd lap, there were loads of other teams on the course, with a lot of them definitely falling into the fun rather than racing category...que a lot of shouting by our team to ensure that we could get past them without any incidents...at times, we must have been passing teams at pretty much twice their speed, so a collision on the narrow course could have been quite nasty.
At the end of the 30k course, we had managed to put about 90s into the next team, something that I was quite worried about as I just did not know how well they could run off the bike, and with me not being the best runner in the team, I had this horrible thought that I might let the Turbo record slip.
Out on the run though, I felt great...I have probably never run that well off the bike and the best thing was, it did not feel uncomfortable at all. We went through 5km in 18:20 and then eventually got round the 7.5km course in 27:15...for me, that is just about as good as it gets! It really did show me that I can run a lot better off the bike and that part of my problem is rooted in my negativity towards the run and also I found that Dion and Charlie were very good at running a well paced race...something which definitely seemed to help.
In the end, we even managed to put some serious extra time into the next best team, eventually finishing over 5 minutes ahead of them. So, all in all, it was a good day in the office.
Needless to say, in this mega wealthy business of triathlon, our prize fund for the three of us did not even cover the cost of our entry fee - what a disgrace!
This weekend saw my return to Wakefield for the National Triathlon Championships...the same event that saw me make a number of mistakes last year and yet somehow still manage to make the GB team...thanks last year to someone else dropping out and opening up a slot for me.
A while back I had decided that this year I was going to race this race as well as I could and actually do the course justice...especially as this is pretty much the toughest course in the triathlon calendar, with the bike section taking in some 25km of climbing and some fast descents.
At the end of the day,my race preparation was just totally rubbish...I had become slightly complacent on the back of some of my recent times and I had made the foolish assumption that qualification (a finish in the top 8 of my age group) was pretty much a given...I just could not believe that I would be that far down. During the week beforehand, I had not really got enough sleep and on Wednesday, I probably ended up doing over 5 hours of exercise in the day...never really a good thing during a week before a big race. I had also eaten way too much during the week so the combination of all this bad preparation saw me head up to Wakefield, overweight, tired and with a cold coming on thick and fast. Still, I believed that it would still be okay and that a finish in the top 8 should be a breeze.
I woke up on race day and I realised that I was still feeling tired and my blocked nose was telling me that this was not going to be too much fun. We all headed down to the lake though and set up our transition area. I did this way too quickly and just paid the price for this later on.
Still, in the end all the 30-34 got into the water for the swim.
The swim for me started off really well when I realised that I was going round the first buoy after 300m in about 3rd place...probably my best ever position in a triathlon of this standard - things were looking good. On the long straight to the second buoy though I made one of the biggest mistakes in traithlon - I allowed someone else to sight for me. I stuck with some chap for about 200m before looking around to see that I had totally gone off course and now had to make my way back to the rest of the group. Obviously, I had lost a fair few places though and hence only got out the water in a little over 24 minutes...pretty much exactly the same as last year.
I always knew that the bike leg on this course was not going to be much fun. On a flatter course, I can pretty much always assume that no one is going to come past me for the entire 40km's of cycling. However, on a course like this, being a big lad makes it a bit harder going up the hills. Alas, I was passed by someone in my age gruop pretty early on and he just seemed to ride away from me. I passed a few in my age group as we made our way round, but a few passed me as well so my age group place at the end of the bike was about 1 or 2 places down on when I came out the water (6th).
Into transition 2 and I paid the price for not spendning much time setting this up in the morning. I got in and could not, for the life of me, find my running shoes. Queue some hunting up and down the rack trying to find my shoes. In the end, I wasted a whole minute in there before I found the shoes. Two of my age group enemies went straight past me in transition so heading out on the run, I was pretty despondent...this was just not gonna be my day. I started to think about what else I can do if I don't make it to the World Champs this year.
The whole run was subsequently just filled with negative thoughts about how I had not trained hard enough, what to do if if I didn't make the squad etc. In the end, I was just glad to have finished the run. I was pretty sure that I had not made the top 8.
We hung around for a bit after the race and eventually saw the results say that I had finished 10th in my age group. My analysis during the week of all the people racing made me believe that that was it, I was not in. I had pretty much already decided that time trialling was going to be my focus..even toyed with the idea of not doing triathlons any more.
I texted a few of my mates on the way home to say that I was not in and eventually Josie rung back to say that she thought I had made it in. Two of the people above apparently had qualified somewhere else so it would seem that I have got my slot for Hamburg!!
I need to wait for comfirmation though, but as it stands, I am pretty sure that I can book my spot on the "Magic Bus" (4 of us all driving to Hamburg).
So, time now to start behaving more like a triathlete....
I am now back from my five days in Copenhagen for the European Championships and most importantly, I made it round this one without any mishaps...no punctures, no crashing, so all in all, a successful weekend.
Myself and another chap from my club headed out there on Thursday for what was going to be a pretty boring few days before race day. It is perhaps one of the hardest bits about travelling to a race...all you really want to do is go out and have some fun, but at the end of the day, you are there to race so need to save the legs. Thursday was just spent milling around and then on Friday we had to all register etc. All quite boring and all seemed to involve lots of walking around...sorry, sounds like I am some big moaner doesn't it?
Saturday we got to see some of the elites racing and this was pretty good, is always amazing to see how fast they are able to run off the bike. It just seems amazing that someone is able to run a 30 minute 10k after all of that. I was starting to get pretty nervous during their race though as I witnessed about 4 punctures out on the course and I had already made the decision to race on my fastest tires...the ones that have punctured twice in recent races.
Anyway, Sunday finally came round and it was good to put the ol GB kit on again and head down to transition to rack the bike and start getting ready for the race. The conditions were perfect on the day, having had 3 days of high winds and rain on the days before. On Sunday, it was warm, dry and only a little bit of wind - perfect racing conditions.
After a few delays at the start, all of the men under 39 got into the water and before we knew it, we were all off for 1500m of fun. The start was nowhere near as bad as I thought and I seemed to find some clear water quite quickly before the first bun fight on the first buoy. I think that all the open water swimming I have done this season is really helping though as I am nowhere near as timid as I used to be in these situations, I actually quite like the whole rough and tumble of getting round that first buoy now. I finally managed to settle into a steady rhythm with another chap and we pretty much paced each other round the course. I got out in a new PB for me...although, to be honest, it must have been assisted by the tide as I am just not swimming 20:30 pace at the moment.
The bike section was quite fun with 4 laps of a ten k loop which went round Copenhagen. There were 9 dead turns in total so it was hard to keep a steady speed. It was nice to ride through the middle of town though, up and down the main road in Copenhagen. At the end of the ride, I came into transition and I was only 1:20 behind the eventual winner of the entire wave. I had also managed to record the second fastest bike split of the day for all of the age group athletes...gutted that I was not fastest, but hey ho.
The run started off worse than I thought...the legs just did not want to run that much. Still, I'd been here before so just set about keeping a steady pace and trying not to lose sight of the guy in front of me. Thankfully, from about half way round, I had some Irish lad running next to me and we were able to keep each other going a bit. He tried to pull away with about 2k's to go, but I managed to stick with him. I put in some extra effort as we went over the bridge for home with 1k to go but he still managed to stick with me. At this time, I knew what was coming...it was going to be a sprint to the line for the place. With about 100m to go I could see the team manager handing out the flags that a lot of people collect en route to take across for the finishing photo but I decided now was not the time....there was national pride at stake. I started sprinting and soon realised that he was not gonna catch me now...the battle was won.
I had tried at one point to figure out how many people were ahead of me and whether I would have been in line for a medal but it was hard with so many age groups all going off in my wave. I knew that one 30-34 person had passed me and it seemed reasonable to think that there would have been another couple ahead of me. Still, there was always the chance...
When we got to the medal ceremony I waiting around for them to get to my age group but alas, it was not to be on this day. I had finished 4th in my age group, missing a medal by a mere 20s. I was not that disappointed though...a 4th place in a GB kit is something that I am pretty pleased with. It was also nice to see that a medal at a European Champs is not exactly something that is out of my reach....there is always next year.
