I’m not going to go on about it, but my injury has now been
renamed “Battersbys Bane” - as an injury that triathletes get. I don’t know this
Achilles guy but he seems to have his own problems. I’ve been on to Wikipedia
and the definition will be up soon. Anyway, for my Battersbys Bane problem the
physio is still ongoing, doing the exercises, flexi-icing all the time and not
running. Although trying to keep going with various step machines. The outlook
for London looks bleak.
Anyway it’s been an interesting few weeks. I’ve spent a week
in Germany. The family have been staying at the in-laws for a while so I drove
over to pick them up. I took my mountain bike with me as there are some great
trails in the area. I’d forgotten how pleasant cycling is in Germany. The area
where the in-laws live is semi rural but there are hundreds of km of joined up
cycle routes that are all good quality and you rarely come in direct contact
with cars, and when you do they don’t just slow down, they actually pull over
and stop as you go past. Even in the towns the bike paths are all nicely set out.
There’s a new bike path built only a few years ago joining the two major towns
of the area. It’s about 10km long double bike path set off parallel to the main
road on one side. So it’s not just an historical thing they actually spend
proper money on these things. This is why most people who can cycle – do. Anyway, as recorded by my Garmin, I managed
to do 270.9km on the mountain bike for the week. Not bad.
I could put up any
great photo of the bike trails but here is one of an amazing wild flower meadow
by the side of one of the trails
With my “Battersbys Bane” on-going I still decided to do the
Cymer off road triathlon. The idea was to do the swim and the bike and then to
jog, walk or, if it was really bad, pull out of the run. I wanted to do it as
I’ve never done an off road tri and I really didn’t know what to expect on the
bike leg. I have a reasonable mountain bike but for the last two years it’s had
a child seat on the back and a basket on the front! So to not look too ridiculous I did actually
remove them for the race. Cymer is a little village up one of the valleys north
of Port Talbot in South Wales. It’s very pleasant and picturesque with the Afan forest and
mountain bike centre set all around it. The swim was a 600m (24 lap) 25m pool
swim. As I’m a reasonably fast swimmer I prefer open water swims but normally
these pool swims go ok, but not in this case. There were four lanes with 3
swimmers in each, with staggered starting i.e. when the last of the first 4
swimmers across the lanes gets out the next wave starts and so on. It’s
supposed to be seeded with the slowest in first and fastest (based on the time
you provide) last. So obviously at it goes on the swimmers are getting faster
and there is the need to pass the slower swimmers still in the lane. With three
in a lane this is normally not too difficult to pass at the end of a lap or
overtake down the middle. I started and passed one swimmer within the first
couple of laps. I then came up quite quickly to the second swimmer in the lane.
I followed him to the end of the lane expecting him to pull over but he didn’t.
So I thought I would have to pass him in the lane which shouldn’t have been
hard as I was quite a bit faster. He was actually swimming near the middle of
the lane so I waited until the 3rd swimmer had gone passed and moved
out. But then he completely moved over to the other side blocking me. Again I
had to wait until the end but again he just pushed off. Up to now I hadn’t
touched him but he knew I was there, but again this lap he did exactly the same
thing. I’m pretty tolerant in these sort of situations and this time when I
knew I wasn’t really racing for an overall position I left it hoping he would
mend the errors of his ways. I would say if I was racing and it was important I
would have swum right over him by now, water polo style. This lap I tickled his
feet but again he moved out and blocked. Now this was deliberate. Next length I
waited for the 3rd swimmer, who was actually going at the same speed
as this guy, to pass (it had nothing to do with him and I didn’t want to hinder
him) and I forced my way out and passed. He had moved over again to block so at
the tumble turn at the end I made sure I was “strong” and gave a really hard
push off and came up. I’m hoping it looked like he was flicked out of the water
like you see in those whale/seal nature films but I was probably more a
glancing blow. He wasn’t happy. Until he
got out I was gaining one lap out of two on him without too much effort which
now really irritates. I’ve put it down to just one of those things; an unlucky
draw. But I still can’t understand this guy’s thoughts. It was obvious I was
much faster. He knew I was there and he could have moved over without losing
any time and in the end he finished middle of the pack (I worked out who he
was) so he wasn’t racing for any podium position or anything.
The WORST thing was that because of all this I had
completely lost count. When I came to the end I was looking for the “2 laps
left” board from the official, but nothing. So off I went again. Next lap I
knew I must have done more so I stopped. The official said I had done two
extra! I asked about the 2 lap left board and she said she had put it up. It
turns out from others that she had – when I was up the other half end of the lap.
Not really very helpful. Glad I wasn’t really racing!
Compared to the swim the bike was uneventful except for my
own incompetence in going downhill fast on a mountain bike. I put too much air
in my tyres and on the hard gravel/rock fire roads I was bouncing all over the
place. My hands had already gone numb and I was hanging on for grim life going
too fast approaching a 180 degree bend on a steep hill when I struggled to
reach the brakes. For a few seconds I thought I was going to go over the edge
until fear made me reach those brakes. The 24km bike finished much sooner than
I was expecting so I guess I should have ridden up the hills harder. I did finish the run
but it was really a slow jog, getting out of the way of the fast racers on their
second lap looking for victory. I was about 10mins slower than I would normally
be for 5km. But with plenty of energy left I did manage a “victory”
wave for the camera. Overall I really did enjoy this format and will do Cymer, or some other off road tri next year.
Next up is the Gower triathlon in Port Eynon. As I write
this, “Battersbys Bane” hasn’t got any better so again it’s going to be a swim –
cycle race for me followed by a walk in the sun. It’s a nice out and back sea swim which I
normally like so hopefully no swim rage. We shall see!
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