I raced a race! - Llanelli Sprint Tri Race Report

Last Sunday was my first triathlon of the 2013 season. It was a sprint tri in Llanelli, the town where I grew up. I’m very pleased with the way it went. I managed 2^nd in the Super Vet’s category and, more importantly, smashed my PB for the course and that’s with the swim course being about 1min longer this year. So it looks like all my training since I got serious is starting to pay off.

The swim finish (Photo: courtesy of Owen Evans wife of Cardiff Triathlon club)

I guess since I started racing triathlons (properly in Australia in the late 80’s) I’ve never been a contender for winning anything and consequently I’ve only ever really competed to do as best as I can. My objective has always been a PB rather than winning anything or beating anyone specific so I’ve paced races to finish as fast as I can. I can’t remember a time where I have actually gone for a sprint finish to try and be one or two places up the finishing list. However now with this plan of training, trying a bit harder and competing on the international age group stage I actually thought through what I would be like if it did come to some sort of sprint finish against one of my fellow age groupers trying to qualify. My observation was that I probably wouldn’t be very good. I normally don’t hold anything back in the swim or cycle and I’ve never been good or comfortable in the run, always seeming to be in pain from the start of the run to finish. My aim on the run is to get it over with without over straining myself. I’ve also never previously been concerned with who I’m racing, in my age group or others. This season, again with my targets in mind, I thought I should take things a bit more seriously. So before Llanelli I had a look at the start list. As for just about all tri’s this year there were a lot more entrants. In fact, 310 recorded finishers against 236 for last year. I had noted that I’d finished last year (in a PB) 6^th out of 20 Super Vets (50 -60 year olds), 11 mins & 28 secs behind the winner from Celtic Tri Club. He had again entered this year. I noted that last year I was second out of the water, 3 secs behind him. So I hatched a simple plan. As my swim is a bit faster this year I will try and get out in front on the swim and then just see when he passes me on the bike and see how close I can keep him. So the night before I even tried to remember his race number. Things in the swim went to plan. I was in the second of three waves with all but one of the +50 males and most of the +40 male vets.

The Melee of the swim start (Photo: courtesy of Owen Evans wife of Cardiff Triathlon club)

 I got a good start and led the 2^nd wave swim from start to finish. The first wave was all the females plus a few men and I’d already caught quite a few on the swim. On the bike I was slowly picking athletes off on the way out to Kidwelly. I was quite surprised that the first person that passed me did so quite late on in the cycle and it was a +40 man with a low number. But last year’s winner caught me just before T2. This, together with an abysmal T2 for me trying to get my run shoes on without getting cramp in my feet meant he was way in the distance when we got on the waterfront.

 Start of the run for me (Photo: courtesy of Owen Evans wife of Cardiff Triathlon club)

 

This is the bit about racing. I was slowly starting to catch him and in fact got to about 10m behind him at the 2.5km turn. So now what? I was slowing down and thinking I should just follow him till the finish and save everything for a sprint. But I don’t have a sprint finish! Eventually I thought, what the hell, this isn’t a qualifying race and I will probably do a slower time if I don’t run as fast as I can now so after the only little rise on the run I went passed him, as fast as I could trying to give an air of this was easy! Of course he then speeded up and followed me. Oh what pain. I just ran as fast as I could and went hell for leather for the last 400m. I beat him by 9 seconds. I was a bit of an embarrassment at the finish dry retching as they were trying to hand me my t-shirt, goodie bag etc. I have no idea how I didn’t actually throw up. For a little while I obviously though I had won my age group. But it was not to be. The one guy in my age group who started in the last wave was a couple of minutes faster. He was a “younger” guy who had just moved into the age group. This year I was 2^nd in AG out of 26. Overall I was 34^th out of 310 finishers; compared with last year where I was 71^st out of 236.

So all’s well that ends well. A second place AG trophy and a £20 voucher for a tri shop. I guess that now makes me a professional after all these years! 

It wasn’t all good though. Once again I got my specific problem at every triathlon of cramps in top of the foot when putting on both my bike and run shoes. It probably set me back about 30 – 45 secs in total in the transitions.  I’m now accepting this and put it down to getting older and some arthritis. Although I used to do it a few years ago, I won’t be now doing a flying start again with my bike shoes attached to the bike. The risk of getting cramp when inserting the feet when on the bike is too great for me. The other problem I had was that I couldn’t stay in the aero position for the whole bike leg -probably only about half. It’s the first time I’ve raced my new Trek Concept tri bike in anger (see previous post). I found that being in such a different position when compared to the aero’s on my training bike i.e. further forward; I was starting to get cramp in my forearms and had to drop down quite often. I’m hoping that with some specific exercises and more time on the tri bike this won’t happen again.