As for the actual racing, I was not really sure what would happen. I had no idea how my cycling was coming along and although I was running well, this was only really when I was running alone, i.e. with no cycling beforehand to hurt the legs. I was hoping to go under the hour, but as I started last season with a 58:39, I was secretly hoping to get close to that time.
Eventually the race got underway and we all got undressed (freezing) and got over to the swim start, eager to get into the heated pool, if only to warm up a bit. You can see from the steam on the pool, just how great the temperature differential was!
My swim was not too bad though, being out the water in just under 6 minutes means that I am pretty close to my best last season, and that is on half as much swim training as last year, so that was good.
T1 took a bit longer than normal though as had to contend with the long sleeve top I was going to wear...trust me, putting on clothes when you are wet is never a good idea. Still, eventually I got it on though and I headed out for the bike.
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The bike felt good though and knowing that I had a whole bunch of the fastest guys up the road provided all the incentive I needed to put the hammer down and try to catch them. It took me a while, but eventually I caught one chap who had a chance of winning and then I just missed catching my mate at the end, albeit, I had taken a chunk out of the time that he started in front of me (complex timing system at these races) so it was only going to be a case of not letting him run away from me to allow me to beat him.
The run was never going to be that much fun as, by the time I had spent that time on the bike, my feet were pretty much just frozen little blocks, totally devoid of any feeling. At the start of the run, my calves were hurting and my feet were not feeling that much. The race winner came past me pretty early on and then proceeded to run off into the distance. I kept pace with my club mate and we managed to run round in a steady time, albeit not as fast as I had hoped. At the end of the day, I think that my time of 1:00:21 was not that bad considering the conditions. The next race takes place in May so we'll have to wait until then to see how things have really progressed over the winter months.
Write up can be found here and the full results can be found here
2 comments:
Just caught up on the blog mate, nice work. I'm supposed to be doing a triathlon in two weeks time. It's a corporate one and I have done no training. I think it's a 400m swim, 8k bike ride and a 5k run. I plan to do it all in boardies (if I do it at all), but fear maximum chafing! I think the swim starts in the Harbour at 6.30am or something ridiculous. Beers follow as soon as we cross the line I hope.....
Sounds like fun mate....you'll be alright in the boardies I reckon. It will all be over and done with in no time anyway...then you can start the important job.
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