Born to Run?

Someday girl I don't know when were gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go and well walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us baby we were born to run

Or not, as the case may be.  But I did walk in the Sun!

Despite Battersby’s Bane I decided to start the Gower Sprint Triathlon. This was mainly because we had planned to camp down there anyway for an extended weekend with family and friends from afar. Also, as I can still swim and cycle, I thought I might as well get some more race experience. The plan, like at the Cymer tri two weeks before, was to swim and cycle hard and just see what happens on the run. I would walk or pull out of the run if necessary.

We camped at the Carreglwyd camp site which is right next to Transition. We camped there because we were staying for a few days more and its user friendly for kids. It also is very convenient to rack you bike as we were only about 200m away from transition. I was up early when transition opened and got the first rack position closest to the bike exit. As Sam Webster of Cardiff Tri commented “no one’s going to miss your bike”.  I went back to bed for a while before a leisurely breakfast and then wandering back to finish transition preparations. I wish all tri starts were like this.

Happy campers but Saturday evening clouds look a bit menacing

I’ve done the Gower sprint tri a few times before so I thought I would at least be able to compare my swim and cycle times to previous efforts. However the tide was further out than in previous years so it meant a shorter swim, a running beach start and worse (for me), a longer run to T1 in bare feet. Not exactly what I wanted with my Achilles. I was pretty happy with the actual swimming bit. Normally, for deep water starts I have a good sprint out to clear the pack and can be in the first few, for a few metres anyway.  With this run start and my running issues by the time I was actually swimming I was mid pack but I soon cut through without too much difficulty and progressed forward during the whole swim. Again, quite a few passed me on the long run up the beach and into transition. Apparently I was sort of limping along into T1. Overall in the swim I was 19^th out of 310 finishers which isn’t too bad and was faster than previous years but that doesn’t relate to anything. If it had been just a 750m swim (and short distance to T1) I might have just made the top ten.

Me about to get passed by more triathletes before I get to my bike

 I had a good cycle, which was directly comparable to previous years. I improved my cycle course PB, which I set last year, by 4 mins 4 secs. That is pretty pleasing and I was 26^th overall for the cycle.  Then the run!  OK, it wasn’t really a run but more of a “walk in the sun”.  Whilst I knew I had to go slowly, it was still quite demoralising being passed by so many, especially by fellow age groupers who I’d beaten earlier in the season. As I was quite recovered by the end of the run I thought I would do a good “finisher” pose down the finish tube.

 

 

 

 

 

I ended up 52^nd overall, but still managed to finish 2^nd in my age group in the Welsh Grand Prix Series.

Last weekend I met up with some friends in London for a lads night out. I took the opportunity of getting up early on the Sunday (ok, with a bit of a hangover) and cycling into central London on my mountain bike to check out Hyde Park and the sprint cycle course for the World Champs. I’m glad I did this because it hit home quite hard the enormity of what is going to happen in three weeks.  The cycle course, because the sprint race is during the week – Friday, is all inside Hyde Park and I was a bit concerned about the track surface, 90 degree turns and 180 degree dead turns at both ends of the three lap course. But the course is fine. It’s actually on the perimeter road that is all inside the park (South, West & North Carriage Roads) which are as wide, or wider, than normal roads and a good surface. With my Achilles I guess it is still touch and go if I manage to finish the run but it has got me exited.

 Hyde Park - Looking down at what will be the swim exit, run course & finish in a few weeks time

Over the last few weeks I’ve been practising my T1’s and trying out all sorts of things. I’ve come to the decision that I’m not going to attempt shoes clipped in the bike – flying start out of transition. The reason’s being that I know that I’m going to get a groin strain jumping on the bike; I’m then not stable (enough) before engaging my feet with the shoes; but the biggest reason is that I get cramp in the foot when I try and put my feet into the shoe whilst on the bike. It happened EVERY time I tried it over a couple of weeks, which was more than 20. So I resigned myself to losing 10-15 secs by putting my shoes on in T1. But will try and claw some of that back by making my T1’s as fast as I can, importantly, getting up to speed as quickly as I can (whilst hopefully passing those less successful in getting their feet in the shoes!).

This weekend is the Welsh Triathlon Championships at the Tuska sprint tri at Porthcawl. It’s also Cardiff Tri’s club championships as well. So just like the last few triathlons I’ve done I’m going to do it for more swim/bike and transition experience. I’ve done Tuska quite a few times before so hopefully I can compare my times. This time on the run I really must be careful and not over do it. I have to consider a DNF because I do want to make it to that start line in Hyde Park in three weeks.

Whats going on

What's going on (Marvin Gaye 1971)

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 3^rd 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 3^rd 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!