This Bank Holiday Monday witnessed the last in the series of Thames Turbo sprint races. Last year I managed to race all four of the races and eventually walked away with the first place prize for the my age group for the whole series. This season has been a bit different though....I came off my bike pretty badly before race 2 and then on race 2, I got about 5k into the bike section before I started to feel my carbon rim on not making a good sound on the road thanks to a sudden loss of air.
So, my theory went along the lines that, surely nothing could go wrong at this race...my season has to have had enough bad luck so far that would allow me to race properly for an hour. Things almost started to go wrong on the Sunday though when on a training ride my chain came off and got caught and subsequently I bent one of the links in the chain. Cue an hour of trying to bend this back into shape on Sunday night...there was no way I would be able to buy a new one before race day so I just had to do my best. Finally, after some pretty heavy handed repairs, I had a chain that seemed to run smoothly....I was pretty concerned though as to whether the chain still had the same strength...I decided to not push too hard when I was trying to get my speed back up after cornerning or roundabouts.
My race morning kicked off at 4:45am as I needed to have my breakfast and then I needed to get there to help out getting people registered and body marked in prerperation for the event.
Finally, I started my swim just after 8am and things actually felt pretty good. I was able to maintain a pretty steady speed over the course of the swim and actually felt strong towards the end. To be honest though, this is what I had hoped for...I have been suffereing from the swimming fear for the past few weeks and as a result, I have spent a lot of time in the pool doing hard sets.
Still, out on to the bike and I knew that this was where I was going to be able to make a good stab at setting a new course record for the bike section. I had been biking well recently and felt strong getting on the bike. I was also aware that another competitor was racing today who has had a blistering season, typically beating the competition by a number of minutes, and who was also no slouch on the bike...I knew full well it was gonna take one massive effort to stop him stealing the record.
In the end, I manage to knock 50 seconds off my previous record but when I put my foot down at the end of the ride, I knew straight away that the record had gone. I had done well, but not as well as the other chap. Looking at the results, it looks like I lost the record by 4s...at least that is a record that I know I can have a go at breaking again.
I eventually came back into transition with about 3 other racers, all of whom were probably gonna fill the top slots. Without going into the details, the Thames Turbo races have all the starters starting at different times, so it is not just a case of first across the line. I tried to stay with my mate during the first km of the run but he managed to drop me...however, I knew that I could let him get away a bit as I already had 45s on him from my start position. For the remainder of the run, I tried to keep him within my sight and hence not lose too much time to him. I kept on trying to guess the gap on the corners and I thought I had it.
I eventually managed to post my fastest ever time on that course (57:17 - previous PB of 58:39) and finished in second place behind the new holder of the bike course record. Still, I managed to post PB's in each of the three disciplines on that course so I was pretty pleased with that and it bodes well for the World Championships which I leave for tomorrow...
All larger photos are thanks to David Spencer from us2design
Last weekend witnessed one of the biggest ever mass migrations of Thames Turbo (my triathlon club) as we all headed north to Nottingham for the National Relay Championships. As with BananaMan, which you may recall reading about before, the National Relays are another event which don't subscribe to the normal swim, bike and run sequence of events.
The club relays basically allow clubs to enter teams of four people who all race as a team, the format of the race is along the lines of a tag team. The first man swims (400m), then he tags the next man who goes out and does his 400m until all 4 of you have completed the swim. Then the last swimmer tags the first man again who goes out to the bike. Once he has completed the bike, he tags the second man to head out and do his 15k. The last bit is a 5k run in the same format.
These relays have always attracted some of the best athletes in the country and this year was no exception. One of my team mates sent me a list with some of the other teams and it was clear that we were gonna be up against a who's who in the world of speedy triathlons...albeit, it does seem a little unfair when you are racing against sponsored teams which are not exactly clubs...as in, a sponsor will try and bring together a bunch of chaps who are pretty fast. There were a few teams of this sort of calibre on the start sheet, but we still thought that we would at least have a chance of being near the front.
Anyway, the swim finally got underway in the baking sun, never the best weather to be donning a thick piece of black neoprene..the sweat pretty much starts straight away. Anyway, our star swimmer came out really near the front of the pack and handed the baton (theoretical) to me...for some damage limitation. I think I lost about 2 spots in the water and by the time we had all got out, we were down to 18th position...things were not looking good. However, we had our secret weapon up our sleeves now...we are all pretty decent on the bike. After all 4 of us had cruised through our 15k sets of cycling, we had managed to move ourselves back up to 2nd place. To be honest, for Martin, James and myself, this was pretty much tantamount to winning the whole event..we all love the bikes, so this was a pretty impressive performance, especially considering the opposition. If I am honest, I have probably never ridden that hard on the road for about 20 minutes. When I finally came in to tag my team mate, I had snot all over the face and had a strange taste of blood in my mouth, not really sure what it was, but I am pretty sure that I had a fast ride!
My bars obviously slipped downwards somewhere round the course as well..
The other good thing about this format is that you get to wait around between your disciplines, hence, once I was off the bike, I had about an hour to get the legs ready for the run.
We started the run in 2nd place, but it was quite obvious as we looked across the lake to Dion that he was not going to be able to hold off the two competitors behind him. Credit where credit is due though, these chaps were all 15 minute 5k runners, so he was always up against it. By the time that I started my run, we were down to 4th but we were being chased down by some pretty decent teams, including the Army who, I must confess, I do like beating. I somehow managed to not lose any further places on the run and then neither did the two chaps after me.
In the end, we came home in 4th place and claimed a prize that we fabricated in our own minds....we were the first team of people who actually live in the same area and belong to a normal club, hence, we (in our own minds) won the Club Relays. We managed to hold off the Army and a few other top teams, including some semi-pro sponsored teams. It has to be said though, this was all down to some pretty good swimming and running, but our team's riding was quite amazing!
I'll start this little piece off with a little race report and some photos and then I'll move on to the saga that followed. To be honest, I should have known that I was due for some bad luck, I mean, I must have had one good race, so it was time for something to go wrong, at least that seems to have been the format of this season.
The London Triathlon is the biggest mass participation triathlon in the world with some 12,000 competitors taking part this year at the event in the Docklands. The race does get some stick from a lot of triathletes because it is so big, expensive and the number of people on the course can make it quite hard to have a good race. To me though, the London Tri is a unique experience where you get to ride at top speeds along closed roads in the centre of London (the bike route goes all the way to Westminster on closed roads). The finishing area is also always full of crowds and you always get to see a lot of friends while you are there.
After winning my age group in last year's race, I decided that this year I would need to move into the special wave that they have created for athletes who have a proven performance history. To get into the sub 2:30 wave, you need to show evidence of having competed at this sort of level in the past.
Come race day, I was feeling pretty good. I had suffered from the "swimming fear" during the week leading up to the race and had been to the pool about 5 times in a desperate attempt to get my swimming fitness up to scratch. In the end this paid off though and I exited the water in my best ever time of 21:52...the person in the background of this photo is someone who would normally beat me by about 1 min out of the water anyway...I was actually quite surprised that I had been able to swim that fast.
When I got into the massive hall where our bikes were all held, I also noticed that I had beaten Charlie (from our BananaMan team) out of the water and also another chap from my club who would normally beat me...things were looking good.
The problems started pretty soon on the bike though...as a result of that fast swim, I quickly found myself riding very close to a number of athletes who can unfortunately ride just about as fast as me. Along with Martin and Charlie, who can bike very fast, we were also joined by two other chaps who I am pretty sure are not able to put down the same amount of power as we are. So, for most of the race, the 5 of us road in close proximity. There were times when I was aware that I was in positions that could be construed as drafting (basically, taking pace or slipstreaming someone else) I tried my best to move out of these positions as fast as I could, but I was definitely not going to put the brakes on. As you can see from some of the photos below, the chap sat behind me is definitely slipstreaming me...basically, cheating!
Anyway, I managed to finish the bike in what I thought was second place, we had been behind the lead motorbike for the last few km, so it seemed plausible. Unfortunately, out on the run, I realised this was not the case as we saw the lead guy storming round the run course at quite a speed. I had lost another couple of spots going out on to the run so was now in 4th place. I got 2k into the run though and my right foot started to hurt, I had obviously done something jumping off the bike at speed. It got worse and worse and eventually I started to walk for about 20metres. My mate Dion just passed me but I knew that two others were hot on my tail so I started to run again. Funny enough, it cleared up and by about 4k...I was back on the case. I could see Dion ahead of me and I tried to keep him in the same position. At the turns I noticed that Scott and Martin were not going to catch me, so the 5th place was in the bag. In the end, the run (taking into account the stopping) was not too bad with a 38:07.
At the end of the day, I was pretty pleased with the 5th place, I had trained hard, raced hard...I would like to have thought that I could have held out for 4th without the foot problem. I had also managed to finally break the 2hr mark (1:57:55) for the Olympic triathlon, albeit, the bike was 2k short here so not a real result. Still, I was pleased.
It was not until late at night thought when I was having some nice food and wine that the bad news came through. My mum texted to say that I had been disqualified for cheating on the bike. Apparently, one of the British Triathlon officials had decided that I cheated and that was it, I was DQ'd. Normal procedure is to have some warning that this is gonna happen, alas this was not the case. The main problem for me, is that I know full well that I am able to ride my bike at that speed on that course...all my previous results point to that. Thankfully, the person sat on my wheel in the photos above also got DQ'd. Some others in close proximity to me did not get DQ'd though. At the end of day, I was livid though, this was probably my best ever performance in a triathlon and I have been marked as a cheat...from the bike section as well, if there is one place I don't need to cheat, it is on the bike.
There is no comeback on these decisions though so it is left to stand. My only hope is that things finally do come together for an amazing performance in Hamburg in a few weeks time. I know that I am fit at the moment so, if all goes well, it should hopefully be a good one...barring, I don't crash, get a puncture or get DQ'd!
In the end, I manage to knock 50 seconds off my previous record but when I put my foot down at the end of the ride, I knew straight away that the record had gone. I had done well, but not as well as the other chap. Looking at the results, it looks like I lost the record by 4s...at least that is a record that I know I can have a go at breaking again.
I eventually managed to post my fastest ever time on that course (57:17 - previous PB of 58:39) and finished in second place behind the new holder of the bike course record. Still, I managed to post PB's in each of the three disciplines on that course so I was pretty pleased with that and it bodes well for the World Championships which I leave for tomorrow...
