Eton SuperSprints - 2008

Seems that all the races are coming thick and fast at the moment....I still have two 25 mile TT's for the next two weekends and then it is Windsor Triathlon again. This weekend though, it was time for the Eton SuperSprints which are held at Dorney Lake just outside London. The venue provides an almost perfect setting for racing, with calm water, flat good surfaces and no traffic. However, the popularity of these events (over 2500 people competing over two days at this one) mean that the bike leg can get especially busy.

Anyway, after the result in Lisbon I had pretty much done no training, apart form the odd easy ride whilst in Portugal so felt no where near as prepared as I would normally be for this one. I had probably also piled on a couple of pounds in my post European success, but I figured it was only a short race so hopefully things would be okay. This race was however also set to be the Club Champs race for Thames Turbo...as in the person with the fastest time over the two days would be crowned as the Thames Turbo Sprint Race Champ for the year. Having seen some of the times from Saturday, I knew that I would need to put in a good performance to be able to get close to it this year.

The swim is 400m and before the horn went off, I was pretty sure that I would be able to do a good time, even though I had not been in the water for a week, normally a bad sign. Anyway, the end result was rubbish...getting out in 5:43 was not that great, but at least I was near the leaders going on to the bike. I struggled to find my cord on my suit and this added some valuable seconds on to my T1.

The bike felt good though and I knew that I was lapping at a pretty decent pace, I was just not sure if it was actually going to be fast enough in the end - there had been a load of good times posted on the Saturday so I was mostly just trying to ride and beat those times. In the end, I came in with the second fastest split of the day, which I was pleased with.





When I started the run, my legs were not feeling that great, but as I had done at the Turbo race, I decided to just slowly try and increase my speed. Again, this seemed to work a lot better and by the end, I was putting in some of my fastest km's. The only problem is, they were just not fast enough really. My run time was much further down the leaderboard so I think I need to do some more work on it, especially so that I don't lose so much time at the start of the run leg.





Anyway, my time of 54:42 for the race was enough to give me the 3rd fastest time of the day and the 4th fastest out of the 2500 racers over the weekend. The best bit was that I just managed to get the Club Champ honours as well...by a mere 9 seconds from last year's winner. I won my AG as well and this got me £50 in vouchers...which Paula used.

Thames Turbo - Race 2 - 2008

This is a bit of an old post as this actually happened before the Euros...

On the second Bank Holiday of this year we had the second of the Thames Turbo series of races. Having come second for the last three of these races, I was again disappointed to see that one of the previous winners was on the start sheet....unfortunately a chap who is a fair bit faster than me. So, I was fighting it out for second place and beyond for this one.

The swim was a pretty standard affair and I was pleased (to some extent) to be out the water in about 6 minutes as this means that the 426m is taking me the same time now as it did last year when I was doing about 3 times as much swim training.

Out on the bike we had some perfect conditions for some fast times but I was quickly scuppered when I got caught at the traffic lights for the full 20 seconds. Anyway, the rest of the ride went okay, apart from the fact that the saddle moved a bit and it just was not the same after that as it felt like I was sliding off all the time.






I decided to start the run off slower than normal this time and see if I could then build my pace over the 5k. This definitely seemed to help anyway and as I was soon knocking out some good km's and knew that I was on for a PB on the run, and probably the whole race as well. In the end, I did my first ever sub 19min run (it is 5.2km), not only just either, it was 18:39.

copyright david spencer/us2design 2008

copyright david spencer/us2design 2008

copyright david spencer/us2design 2008

In the end, I managed to just sneak under 56 minutes for the first time in this event, some 40 seconds quicker than my previous best at this race. Only problem is, I now want to get a 54...

European Age Group Triathlon Champs - Lisbon

Last year's 4th place at the Europeans in Copenhagen and the subsequent realisation that I had only lost out on a medal by 20 or so seconds, my main aim was to go back to the Europeans and get myself a medal. This year they took place in Lisbon and the course seemed to be quite well suited to my style of racing. I arrived in Lisbon on the back of a few good results this season, so I knew that I was fit, I just hoped that the distance of the race would not come as too much of a shock - I had only really done some shorter distance stuff this season.

Anyway, my 30-34 age group was much bigger than last year, with over 120 athletes racing, so I knew from the start that I was going to need to push hard, especially against the large contingent of local Portugese athletes who probably had more experience of the course.

When we eventually got underway, I was instantly reminded of how tough the swim starts can be. With 120 athletes all swimming at pretty much the same pace, you can't help but get the odd mouthful of salty water and the odd kick etc. The turns at each of the buoys were also pretty frantic with arms and legs going everywhere. For the last 500m, I managed to find a pack who I could have swam faster than, but I decided to hang in behind them to get the draft and then hopefully save some energy for the bike and run. I was out the water in 20:44 and was pretty pleased with that as I think that I was pretty much in the second pack, albeit, I had lost over 2 minutes to the leaders.







Before I had left the UK, I had done some research on the bike course for this race and I was pleased to have seen that the course was pretty much flat the whole way round. However, having now done the course, I can confirm that is not the case. Yes, a lot of the course is pretty flat, but I never realised that there would be an energy sapping long climb at the turn point for each of the two laps. Going up, I was struggling in a small gear...the upside though was that I was able to come back down the other side doing over 75kph...quite scary on the wet roads. Overall, the course was good and I did enjoy the bike section. I worked damn hard to reel in all of my wave and eventually caught last year's gold medal winner after about 20k. He held on for about 10k and then on the last stretch, I managed to pull away. This now meant that I came back into T2 in the gold medal position, with the fastest bike split for everyone who raced that day, including all the other age groups. (1:06:42 for the 45k course).





The problem, and the lesson that I will never learn, with going all out on the bike is that your legs tend to feel a bit worse for wear when you start the run. This is pretty much the tale of my triathlon career, but, in my defense, it has worked quite well at times. But, in Lisbon, it was pretty bad, probably made worse by the small number of brick sessions that I had done this season. I started off slow, got a bit faster and then slowed back down again to come home in a bit under 39 minutes for the 10k. The eventual winner had come past me at 3k and from then on, it was just a case of trying to hold on and hoping that no one else in my age group came past me. Alas, at the end of the day it all went well and I managed to hold on to second by the skin of my teeth...a mere 4 seconds I think.


















At the time, you are never sure if you have actually done it as there is no one at the finish to confirm where you have come. So, what followed the finish was a long ol wait to see if I had finished where I thought I had. Finally, just before the awards ceremony, I managed to get my hands on a set of results and it was true, I had the silver!