I’ve raced in the TTG Gloucester triathlon for the last 2 years (this is my 3rd season in triathlon). It’s a pool swim, so has 1 minute or 30 second staggered starts. It’s a proper time trial from start to finish, you never really know who’s doing what behind you, or what’s happening up front. The top handful of places are often separated by handfuls of seconds, meaning you have to get it all right or risk missing out. And it’s full gas to the line. I’d been struggling all week to recover from the last block of training that ended with the race at Llanelli, but Gareth at Swansea Health Solutions worked on my legs on Wednesday evening and they were starting to come back a little by Saturday. The swimming didn’t start to feel good until Friday, and I hadn’t even tried to complete Wednesday’s session. Very unusual for me.
Kim and her dad came to watch, which was very nice, and it was her birthday. The bike course goes past my mum and dad’s house twice, so my kids and much of my family and some friends were camped out there too. A great home race for me! On top of that one of my clubmates had also decided to race after I’d mentioned it last week (his parents don’t live far from Gloucester), and a couple of med students that I’ve taught were also racing.
The swim start was much better for me this year, and Alistair (med student) and I were the only 2 in a lane at the end of the start list. Last year the swim was really busy and I got slowed down by a couple of things. The first thing I did wrong was slip and fall in the pool just before my start time. It was a bit slippy. Oops.
I didn’t crack my noggin on the side though, so I survived and had a pretty good swim. A little steady, and in hindsight I hadn’t swum in that top without a wetsuit before and it was very draggy. The small 2XU tops are too tight around the top, and the medium tops are too baggy around the waist. Time to switch brands and to a single piece trisuit I think. Alistair swam well too, and made it look easy.
A slow walk from the pool (mandatory) and then a very fast run to my bike, transition was fine but there was a long, long run to the mount line. My shoes were on the bike and were skipping around, and started to unship the chain. Luckily I was paying attention and paused to roll the chain back on to the big ring. Not perfect though.
The strategy for the race was fast transitions with fast runs (because they were long), bike hard, and hit the little climb almost as hard as possible. I started ok, then got stuck behind a tractor pulling a hay trailer that was stuck behind a slower cyclist. The start was pretty late in the day (11.41am) and it was a sunny Sunday so there was a lot of traffic. I got held up on roundabouts and all sorts. Oh well. More reason to ride hard. It turns out that I biked pretty well as I had the fastest bike split for the day and picked up all the Strava segments on the route on the first lap, and then again on the second lap. It was a pretty big effort, and if you compare my average heart rate at Gloucester (178bpm) with Llanelli (167bpm) the week before you get an idea of the difference. Gloucester was probably warmer too. I did this all on feel though, and the data was just collected for later analysis.
It was a good sign that no-one overtook me on the bike, but unfortunately I had to hit the run hard too. I eased up a touch on the way into transition to try to freshen the legs up a teensy bit. After the dismount there was another long run to the racking, and this time my right shoe pinged away, out of the pedal in a bid to slow me down. I had to turn around, recover the shoe, and somehow leg it to the racking with my bike and a loose shoe, lifting my bike over curbs. Sheesh. I think I’ll tighten up my pedal clip out tension and go back to elastic bands to keep the shoes level for long transition runs in future. The backs of my shoes could probably do with some duct tape too as the posh, expensive carbon soles really get worn away with these things.
Dump lid, shoes on, stick glasses back on face, grab GlucoJuice, run. The GlucoJuice had been sat in the sun so was really, really warm but it was still welcome. I’d put a bottle on the bike too as it was going to be a warm day. I don’t normally bother for a sprint triathlon but I reckon the horizontal bottle between the tri bars is more aerodynamic, and the water was welcome. A GlucoJuice at the start of the run, even a short one that starts super fast, seems to be working for me.
As usual the run was all about pain, effort, suffering and driving on. I had little idea what anyone else was doing and there was no chance to take it easy. A fella that started ahead of me that I had caught on the bike overtook me at the start of the second lap. I wasn’t sure if he had started 30 seconds before me or 1 minute so I needed to keep close to him, but my legs didn’t have enough speed to stay on his heels. Towards the end of the run I counted a 21 second gap to a lamppost and hit the final climb back to the finish as hard as I could. He later said he struggled a bit there so I think my pacing was ok. I drove all the way to the line, and died right on it.
A couple of guys that had raced and been watching the results started chatting to me and told me I was in the lead with just a few more people to finish, but to be honest I barely knew where I was let alone who I was or what I was doing there. Proper, full on, lie on the floor and breathe or die. I struggled to think, answer questions, speak like a human or raise my head. Good effort then!
I found the water station and soaked my head with water (I’d done this on the run too), Kim found me and looked after me and I told her my placing. She kept an eye on it on the timings computer for me, and after 5 minutes or so it was clear that I’d won the race. Kim and I celebrate our anniversary on her birthday, and this time we celebrated 20 years together. That, and that it was her birthday were certainly in the back of my mind when I was pushing hard. I thought it would be cool to win on that day, and I know Kim gets as much of a kick out of a good result as I do. It was great to have her dad there too, to see what I get up to. Jack was pretty impressed at how fast I cycled past my parents’ house too! (Better than any Strava segment).
Alistair finished 10th overall, I think Steff was in the only relay team (I didn’t see the results for the teams), and Andy won the vets category race too. A good day for results! There was only a 5 second gap between 2nd and 3rd place, again showing how close this race can be. Pretty satisfying.
Links:
Garmin data
– swim
– bike
– run
Flickr photos
TTG Gloucester Triathlon 2012 results (& pro photos)
