I reckon we’re coming to the end of the summer now, but wouldn’t be surprised if we had an extended dry period through September and into early autumn. The weather this year has been great in Wales, and we’ve become a little too used to it. I’ve had some rides and runs in the rain recently and they’ve been warm and fairly comfortable, so I’m not looking forward to the inevitable cooling due in a couple of months’ time. I am looking forward to eating lots of cakes & biscuits around that time though, to compensate.
I haven’t talked about a couple of races this year, so I should mention them briefly. After the British Championships in Liverpool I sneaked into the World Triathlon Age Group Championships with a roll down qualifying place (based upon best time, and the GB team have a few extra places in each age group this year because it’s a home championships).
The race in Liverpool didn’t go well for me. The swim was fine, and I had a good tactical splash which is about all I can muster this year. I lost my bottle (literally, not figuratively) at the start of the bike as it bounced out of its cage, and the bike course was a mess; a 10km loop with new cyclists shunted out every 5 minutes as new waves finished the swim. Nightmare groups formed and got larger and larger like candy floss going around one of those, er, candy floss making machines.
It was impossible to pass at times, impossible to get away from them, and the draft advantage even at a draft-legal distance behind them was noticeable & no doubt measurable. I followed my own rules to be clear that I was avoiding drafting and fortunately avoided any penalties, and my data showed an uncharacteristically spiky cadence graph afterwards with lots of soft pedalling and no pedalling. It sucked. The bike should have been my strength. The real problem with losing the bottle (and 35g of carbohydrate) showed up on the run, and although I ran my arse off my time was down on where it would normally have been relative to my peers. We were all running our arses off as times counted for roll down spots for London. I was hanging from the barriers at the finish, but it sucked. Shame, I was really looking forward to that. The rest of the weekend was great though.
Neither of my World Champs qualifying races went well this year, but nonetheless the competition this year has been excellent. We’ve seen a lot of fast athletes racing in big olympic distance triathlon races this year. Great to see.
Last weekend we had the other race I’ve been really looking forward to: the Cardiff Triathletes club championships. Last year I broke my clavicle and couldn’t compete, and this year the guys have been getting really fast and chasing me hard. It should have been a great race.
The week before I went away with the family to a quiet part of Scotland to finish off an extended training block (ow – that was really, really tough) and then to chill out, have an easy week with a bit of walking, exploring and relaxing. Well, as much relaxing as you can do as a triathlete with 2 children. It was good, but I drove 500 miles on Saturday and had to get to Porthcawl to register that afternoon. Not great for my gluteus muscles but we made it.
On Sunday morning the family got up early with me to watch me race. When I got to Porthcawl I had to park in the car park by the harbour, but didn’t notice the low barrier at the entrance. Which ripped my bike off the roof of the car. And smashed it to bits. Well, parts of it. Enough of it to make it impossible to race. Not happy. This triathlon thing is just too hard sometimes. I was already tired, and feeling worn out so late in the season. We went home.
I checked out the bike, made plans to get it ready for London (you can do lots with duct tape I reckon) and went out on my mountain bike. Never give up. Do something different. Get a good workout. “Those trails you’ve been thinking about look great, and the weather’s awesome”, I thought, so I got out there. I was enjoying myself too, and the trails were working out well. I got out above the upper Lliw reservoir, eyeballed my route to the next trail and started up the final part of the hill. And my chain broke. For various reasons I didn’t have my usual multitool with me that would have let me fix it, so I had to tramp for miles through sheep infested fern and grass jungle to get down to junction 46 of the motorway and a lift home from the missus. Of course I didn’t have a roof rack to put the bike on any more because I’d ripped that off at 6:30 that morning in Porthcawl.
Not a good day. So we went fishing.
London is a couple of weeks away, and although I was a little soft when away in Scotland training’s pretty good at the moment. Students are back in the University next week for the new medicine intake, the kids will be back to school, so the usual routine will resume. Kind of. I’m in a peak and taper phase, and much of the hard work has been done. I’m faster this year than last year, and I’m faster now than I was at the start of the season. If all goes well and everything gets there ok I’m planning to enjoy racing at London. Closed roads in one of the biggest, busiest and most famous cities of the world for us to race on. I don’t think I’m going to be so dedicated to my aero position. I want to look around and take in what I’m doing. I guess this is what we’ve all been racing for this year, so take it in! I know I only sneaked in a qualifying spot so there are already a bunch of faster guys than me in my age group just in the GB team. It’ll be fast, but it’ll be fun!
