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
2 comments:
Good skills Rich and good luck in the 'Worlds'. Just make sure you beat the Aussies!
Haha....fair dinkum!
Good Luck mate. Looking foward to hearing all about it and seeing more pictures of the inside of your mouth.
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