Bananaman - 2007

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!