Seven Days to London

Seven days to the Aquathlon World Champs on Wednesday. It’s all approaching far too quickly now. For the Aquathlon my race number is 10640 and my start time on the pontoon is 10.20am for the M55-59 age group. However I’m pretty sure I’m going to be the first DNF for the Pru Health world triathlon championships. At this point I’m only planning to do the 1000m swim and then withdraw. My Achilles won’t be up to two 5km runs in three days so I guess I should save my one shot for the triathlon on the Friday.  In reality it’s a risk just doing the swim as having seen the Serpentine a couple of weeks ago there is a good chance you could catch something in it, and I don’t mean fish! But I’ve paid my entry fee so I might as well do it. A DNF gets listed on your athletes’ page at triathlon.org, whist DNS does not.

Yes, Battersby’s Bane is still that. Although, after a particularly bad weekend where it was more swollen and painful despite doing absolutely nothing except resting, the swelling now seems to have gone down a bit and I actually walked today without limping for the first time in 3 months, What an advance!  If it can stay like that for the next week my chances of finishing the sprint tri are looking better. As the footballers say “I’ll take it one day at a time”.

Due to the aforementioned Battersby’s Bane I had my first ever “Did Not Finish” at the Tuska Triathlon in Porthcawl. I’ve competed in all sorts of events; tri’s, marathons, long distance swims, cycling etc, so I guess I’ve been lucky to get to my age without a DNF against my name. Although I had planned to pull out of the run I had a good swim and a really good bike that put me around 10-12^th overall into T2. For a short time I did think about jogging around the run course. Luckily for me Alan Kerr of Pencoed Tri was marshalling by the run exit. Alan is an experienced triathlete (a former AG world champ I think) and in my sprint age group in London. I’d met him the previous day at registration and where we’d compared our various ailments. When he saw me limping out of T2 he shouted – “do you really want to do this before London”.  And the answer was definitely no. What he said registered with me and I realised how bad I was limping and how sore my Achilles was, and I’d only just started on the run.  So I pulled up after about 200m, walked back and handed in my chip. End of race. Even so it had been a good race for me. Although I could have actually swum a bit faster I was really happy with my tactics – start position, sighting and swim line to get the best of the tide & current which I’d studied from previous Tuska races. Only thing was I didn’t get to draft off anyone as there was from the start a gap between me and the swimmers in front. Although, I found out later, it appears I dragged along quite a few behind me from the 1^st turn buoy, including Dan Miles of Cardiff Tri. I didn’t mind this as Dan has been faster than me in the swims. He was 30secs better than me over 1500m in Turkey. Even with no flying start on the bike I did a fast T1. I then flew past 3 guys/girls weaving all over the place trying to get their feet in the shoes. None of them caught me.  Again, I was really happy with my cycle. I only got passed by one person near the end, James Manson of Cardiff Tri, who is a good couple of minutes faster than me on the bike. In an almost direct comparison to previous years (slightly different T exit/entry) I set a cycle course PB by 4 mins 34 secs. Also good is the fact that I think I can go faster still on the bike.  OK – after that it wasn’t so good. Screwed up my dismount into T2 and then ........ the rest is DNF.  As an aside, although I thought my DNF was disappointing it wasn’t as bad as Sam Webster’s DNS. I wondered at the time why Sam wasn’t racing as he was in contention for being Cardiff Tri champion. Just found out from his blog he wrecked his bike on the roof rack driving under a barrier in the car park before the race start. Now that is a bummer! http://www.dontbeasalmon.net/archives/2013/08/end-of-the-summ-1.html

As I’m sure anyone reading this would have already surmised, I’ve written off any chance of actually doing well in London a long time ago. My aim for the last month or so is just to make it to the start, complete the course and hopefully enjoy it. As the entry fees, travel & accommodation are all paid for there is not much else I can do. That’s just the way it goes. A few months ago I was thinking I might be competitive, whilst not getting near a medal (there are a lot of seriously good triathletes in my AG) at least vying to be one of the first three Brits. How underdone am I?  I keep a training log and in the 10 weeks since the Llandudno tri (29^th June) I have run (actually not run but jogged or limped) a total of 22.27km. That’s an average of only 2.23km a week!  Not exactly peak performance training. On the other side looking at the logs I’ve swum 75,57km in the same period. I’ve swum over 3 times as far as I’ve run!

The one saving grace in all this is that I somehow “peaked” in time for the Nottingham tri and became British AG champion. That gives me pre qualification if I want them to both next year’s euro and world champs in Kitzbuhel and Edmonton respectively.  That’s If I can get my Achilles sorted by then.

I think there are ten Cardiff Triathletes at the world champs representing Great Britain and NZ. Some of us managed a photo in Cardiff last night. No doubt we make another photo opportunity when everyone is there together in Hyde Park.