Well, for 2007 my season is now pretty much over having just come back from the World Age Group Champs in Hamburg. The World Champs was my "A" race for the whole season so getting there fit, uninjured and ready to perform at the best of my ability has been my goal for the past few months and for pretty much all of this season. At the end of the day though, we can't have it all I suppose...let me explain.
Over the past couple of months there is no doubt that I have been getting fitter and stronger, gaining confidence and speed in each of the three disciplines. On top of this, at the last few races that I have been at, the Relays, London and TT4, I had been pretty pleased with my racing performance so I knew that when I set off on the now famed "Magic Bus" for Hamburg I should be very confident of a very good result - possibly my best ever in a triathlon.
The magic bus was full to the brim with people, bikes and an extremely large number of wheels....well, we all need training and racing wheels don't we?
Anyway, thanks to the wonderful thing that is TomTom, the journey to Hamburg was a total breeze, taking about 11 hours door to door. Was also really nice to not have to drag the bike etc around airports etc as well.
So, in Hamburg and it was time to start getting ready for the race in a few days time...I normally know exactly what I need to do to get myself ready for a race like this, but one of the big problems we had was that it pretty much rained from Thursday afternoon to Saturday night...pretty depressing really. We did manage to get out and do the bike course though so I was pleased with that, especially considering that it looked like it was going to be a pretty fast course. There was only a couple of hills and they did not seem to be too much to worry about. The swim also looked like it was going to be pretty easy as it was almost a simple out and back in the lake.
Come race day, I was feeling pretty upbeat about things, my legs felt strong and I felt like I was going to have a good race. Last year I was quite intimidated by the whole big event thing, but this year things felt a lot more relaxed, especially considering the swim, which I was actually looking forward to.
The 30-34 AG finally got into the water at 8:00am for our 8:10 start...
What followed can only be described as comical. The starting sound that they use in these events is something akin to a horn so when you have a boat nearby who decides that sometime close to 8:10 he will set off his horn, the inevitable will happen and 130 athletes will go sprinting off in the lake. The funny thing was, this happened twice and one the second occasion we did actually get quite far out before being turned around for the "real" start.
Out in the water I felt pretty good and was sure that I was having a pretty decent swim I thought. I went very slightly off course at the top, but was able to sprint back in and not lose to many place. In the end, I was out the water in 23:19, which considering the course was a bit long, was just about where I thought I would be.
Not sure what was going on with the swim hat/tea cosy..
The first transition, as seems to be the norm in World Champs was stupidly long and with my now numb feet from the swim, it hurt quite a lot as I ran the 500m to the bike. Still, I was looking forward to getting out there and really seeing what I could do now. I had already decided that I was not going to totally kill myself on the bike as I was planning on having a much better run.
Out on the bike though and this is where things started to not quite go to plan. I knew that I was going kind of fast, but just felt that I was missing that top end of speed that I normally seem to have. The gears I selected were lower than normal as well, perhaps a good sign that things were not going totally to plan. Still, I tried my hardest to concentrate and just worked on catching people up and overtaking them. I knew one of my mates was about a minute up the road, so he was my main target for the rest of the bike. In any other race, I probably would have been able to catch him in not much time at all, alas today that was just not to be.
Coming back in the from the bike, I knew that I was going to have to do a brilliant run to keep up with my mate who had managed to come in off the bike at the same time as me...albeit, he has beaten me in pretty much every run that we have even done together.
Out on the run though and I was able to keep my mate within sight so figured that if I just kept him there, I would be able to have a pretty decent run. In the end though, I got to about 3k and I just wasn't feeling the love. I think I lost concentration for a bit and then let my friend move away a bit. My legs were not feeling that good either. By the time I was coming up to the finish, I was pretty sure that I had not had the best race in the world.
So, at the end of the day, two out of three ain't that bad I suppose. I had managed to get to the World Champs fit and uninjured...for some reason, I was just not able to put that into practice and race as well as I should have. I suppose it is just one of those things.
The final results show that I was the 10th Brit in my age group and that I was 32nd overall for all countries in my age group. At the end of the day, that is a massive improvement from last year's 60th overall and one of the last Brit finishers in my AG. I
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!
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!
This weekend saw my return to Wakefield for the National Triathlon Championships...the same event that saw me make a number of mistakes last year and yet somehow still manage to make the GB team...thanks last year to someone else dropping out and opening up a slot for me.
A while back I had decided that this year I was going to race this race as well as I could and actually do the course justice...especially as this is pretty much the toughest course in the triathlon calendar, with the bike section taking in some 25km of climbing and some fast descents.
At the end of the day,my race preparation was just totally rubbish...I had become slightly complacent on the back of some of my recent times and I had made the foolish assumption that qualification (a finish in the top 8 of my age group) was pretty much a given...I just could not believe that I would be that far down. During the week beforehand, I had not really got enough sleep and on Wednesday, I probably ended up doing over 5 hours of exercise in the day...never really a good thing during a week before a big race. I had also eaten way too much during the week so the combination of all this bad preparation saw me head up to Wakefield, overweight, tired and with a cold coming on thick and fast. Still, I believed that it would still be okay and that a finish in the top 8 should be a breeze.
I woke up on race day and I realised that I was still feeling tired and my blocked nose was telling me that this was not going to be too much fun. We all headed down to the lake though and set up our transition area. I did this way too quickly and just paid the price for this later on.
Still, in the end all the 30-34 got into the water for the swim.
The swim for me started off really well when I realised that I was going round the first buoy after 300m in about 3rd place...probably my best ever position in a triathlon of this standard - things were looking good. On the long straight to the second buoy though I made one of the biggest mistakes in traithlon - I allowed someone else to sight for me. I stuck with some chap for about 200m before looking around to see that I had totally gone off course and now had to make my way back to the rest of the group. Obviously, I had lost a fair few places though and hence only got out the water in a little over 24 minutes...pretty much exactly the same as last year.
I always knew that the bike leg on this course was not going to be much fun. On a flatter course, I can pretty much always assume that no one is going to come past me for the entire 40km's of cycling. However, on a course like this, being a big lad makes it a bit harder going up the hills. Alas, I was passed by someone in my age gruop pretty early on and he just seemed to ride away from me. I passed a few in my age group as we made our way round, but a few passed me as well so my age group place at the end of the bike was about 1 or 2 places down on when I came out the water (6th).
Into transition 2 and I paid the price for not spendning much time setting this up in the morning. I got in and could not, for the life of me, find my running shoes. Queue some hunting up and down the rack trying to find my shoes. In the end, I wasted a whole minute in there before I found the shoes. Two of my age group enemies went straight past me in transition so heading out on the run, I was pretty despondent...this was just not gonna be my day. I started to think about what else I can do if I don't make it to the World Champs this year.
The whole run was subsequently just filled with negative thoughts about how I had not trained hard enough, what to do if if I didn't make the squad etc. In the end, I was just glad to have finished the run. I was pretty sure that I had not made the top 8.
We hung around for a bit after the race and eventually saw the results say that I had finished 10th in my age group. My analysis during the week of all the people racing made me believe that that was it, I was not in. I had pretty much already decided that time trialling was going to be my focus..even toyed with the idea of not doing triathlons any more.
I texted a few of my mates on the way home to say that I was not in and eventually Josie rung back to say that she thought I had made it in. Two of the people above apparently had qualified somewhere else so it would seem that I have got my slot for Hamburg!!
I need to wait for comfirmation though, but as it stands, I am pretty sure that I can book my spot on the "Magic Bus" (4 of us all driving to Hamburg).
So, time now to start behaving more like a triathlete....
I am now back from my five days in Copenhagen for the European Championships and most importantly, I made it round this one without any mishaps...no punctures, no crashing, so all in all, a successful weekend.
Myself and another chap from my club headed out there on Thursday for what was going to be a pretty boring few days before race day. It is perhaps one of the hardest bits about travelling to a race...all you really want to do is go out and have some fun, but at the end of the day, you are there to race so need to save the legs. Thursday was just spent milling around and then on Friday we had to all register etc. All quite boring and all seemed to involve lots of walking around...sorry, sounds like I am some big moaner doesn't it?
Saturday we got to see some of the elites racing and this was pretty good, is always amazing to see how fast they are able to run off the bike. It just seems amazing that someone is able to run a 30 minute 10k after all of that. I was starting to get pretty nervous during their race though as I witnessed about 4 punctures out on the course and I had already made the decision to race on my fastest tires...the ones that have punctured twice in recent races.
Anyway, Sunday finally came round and it was good to put the ol GB kit on again and head down to transition to rack the bike and start getting ready for the race. The conditions were perfect on the day, having had 3 days of high winds and rain on the days before. On Sunday, it was warm, dry and only a little bit of wind - perfect racing conditions.
After a few delays at the start, all of the men under 39 got into the water and before we knew it, we were all off for 1500m of fun. The start was nowhere near as bad as I thought and I seemed to find some clear water quite quickly before the first bun fight on the first buoy. I think that all the open water swimming I have done this season is really helping though as I am nowhere near as timid as I used to be in these situations, I actually quite like the whole rough and tumble of getting round that first buoy now. I finally managed to settle into a steady rhythm with another chap and we pretty much paced each other round the course. I got out in a new PB for me...although, to be honest, it must have been assisted by the tide as I am just not swimming 20:30 pace at the moment.
The bike section was quite fun with 4 laps of a ten k loop which went round Copenhagen. There were 9 dead turns in total so it was hard to keep a steady speed. It was nice to ride through the middle of town though, up and down the main road in Copenhagen. At the end of the ride, I came into transition and I was only 1:20 behind the eventual winner of the entire wave. I had also managed to record the second fastest bike split of the day for all of the age group athletes...gutted that I was not fastest, but hey ho.
The run started off worse than I thought...the legs just did not want to run that much. Still, I'd been here before so just set about keeping a steady pace and trying not to lose sight of the guy in front of me. Thankfully, from about half way round, I had some Irish lad running next to me and we were able to keep each other going a bit. He tried to pull away with about 2k's to go, but I managed to stick with him. I put in some extra effort as we went over the bridge for home with 1k to go but he still managed to stick with me. At this time, I knew what was coming...it was going to be a sprint to the line for the place. With about 100m to go I could see the team manager handing out the flags that a lot of people collect en route to take across for the finishing photo but I decided now was not the time....there was national pride at stake. I started sprinting and soon realised that he was not gonna catch me now...the battle was won.
I had tried at one point to figure out how many people were ahead of me and whether I would have been in line for a medal but it was hard with so many age groups all going off in my wave. I knew that one 30-34 person had passed me and it seemed reasonable to think that there would have been another couple ahead of me. Still, there was always the chance...
When we got to the medal ceremony I waiting around for them to get to my age group but alas, it was not to be on this day. I had finished 4th in my age group, missing a medal by a mere 20s. I was not that disappointed though...a 4th place in a GB kit is something that I am pretty pleased with. It was also nice to see that a medal at a European Champs is not exactly something that is out of my reach....there is always next year.
The magic bus was full to the brim with people, bikes and an extremely large number of wheels....well, we all need training and racing wheels don't we?
Not sure what was going on with the swim hat/tea cosy..
Out on the bike though and this is where things started to not quite go to plan. I knew that I was going kind of fast, but just felt that I was missing that top end of speed that I normally seem to have. The gears I selected were lower than normal as well, perhaps a good sign that things were not going totally to plan. Still, I tried my hardest to concentrate and just worked on catching people up and overtaking them. I knew one of my mates was about a minute up the road, so he was my main target for the rest of the bike. In any other race, I probably would have been able to catch him in not much time at all, alas today that was just not to be.
So, at the end of the day, two out of three ain't that bad I suppose. I had managed to get to the World Champs fit and uninjured...for some reason, I was just not able to put that into practice and race as well as I should have. I suppose it is just one of those things.
