Madrid European Triathlon Standard Distance Championships

This year the European Championships were being held in Madrid, which was pretty exciting for me as it meant I could visit a friend who lives there (Hi Mark!)

It’s an amazing city, with a great metro for getting around, but with a local train system which has terrible timekeeping and information.

After a nice holiday, it came to the race weekend, with all the faff associated.

I had a look at the course. The lake was small and quiet frankly, didn’t look very inviting to actually swim in. No one local could believe we were going to swim in it… Note how you can’t see the nearest part of the ramp despite it being only about 6 inches under the water.

The bike course was through the Casa de Campo park, and around the outside of it on some dual carriageway. I didn’t fancy going on the road with all the cars (it would be closed for the actual race), and took an electric scooter around the park.

It looked fun, pretty technical and fairly hilly, although nothing steep. It also looked pretty narrow for the amount of people racing, and there was one scary, sharp, sandy turn at the bottom of a hill.

The run course was in the same park, reasonably flat and had quite a lot of shade (which was going to be important given my race started at midday). The park itself is a really nice place!

The GB team had a race briefing the day before and a team photo. It was great to catch up with triathlon friends and share some banter.

Race day dawned bright, sunny and windless. Whoop! It was going to be hot though. However I started getting messages. Due to the weather, the swim was cancelled, and it was now to be a duathlon. Damn.

Due to the weather?! There has been some rain the evening before (same as most days that week), and apparently that has caused some problem with the water quality. Even now I’m still not clear what. An algae bloom probably.

The format was now – 5km run, 38km bike, 10km run. The run course had changed so that it could be 1.25km laps – a simple L shaped out and back. Since doing Box End Triathlon, I’d had a calf issue which took a week to heal up, so hadn’t done much running since then, and really wasn’t looking forward to 15km of running!

Running isn’t my strong point anyway, so I knew any chance of getting on the podium was gone. I was gutted, but determined to enjoy the experience. Plan B then. Sensible first run. Blast the bike as hard as I could and enjoy it. Do the best I could after that on the final run.

Not the fastest plan, but that didn’t really matter any more!

After a bit of a panic about start times changing, it was showtime! Off the start, plenty of people were ahead of me. I settled into 3:50 per km pace, which was a little optimistic it turned out; the course, while pretty flat, had some minor ups, it was hot, and we were at a sight altitude (646m – turns out that costs about 5 seconds per km).

Mark and his family had come to support and they were amazing at spotting me and being in good viewing positions! And taking photos and videos!

I could see Patrick, an Irish athlete who I’ve had good races with a little ahead, and Giles of “bum slap fame” further ahead again.

At the end of the 5.5km (why was it long?! It’s just a turn around point that could have been anywhere!) I ended up averaging just under 4 mins per km. Which felt OK, but I probably should have been more conservative.

Strava link

I could see both Giles and Patrick leaving as I was getting my stuff on. Giles should have been long gone, but a) forgot where his bike was (schoolboy error!) and b) fell over. A man of many excuses… 😛

The bike course started in the park, and was, as expected, busy. I hadn’t looked at this part of the course, and it was hillier than I expected. Despite that, I was immediately overtaking a lot (I’m heavier than most triathletes at this level, so don’t normally do well with hills).

I caught up with Patrick and overtook him after about 5 minutes, which was a great boost.

The course came out onto the dual carriageway after about 5km. This too was actually pretty hilly and was great fun! The second part was more downhill, and I started to ease off to save my legs a bit. The part of the course I had looked at had a long, steady hill that I wanted to be able to power up and cut my potential losses on it.

This actually worked and I even continued overtaking people on the way up! Once at the top I eased off a little, but not lots as it was still rolling hills. Then coming down back towards the lake I could finally take a proper break. This did required lots of concentration though, moving fast past other athletes on narrow winding path. And I knew there was that sharp, sandy turn at the bottom. I navigated this OK, and then was on to the second lap.

I caught up with Giles here and actually was able to slap his butt for once! We overtook each other several times, and caught up with another friend, Matt, once we got to the dual carriageway and he joined the dance.

We had enough breath for a tiny bit of banter each time one of us passed the other. It was great fun! I’d more or less given up worrying about drafting as there were sooooo many people out on the course, but for the first time found myself in a group. We were moving so fast that as soon as someone overtook, you got a big speed boost, so I kept trying to get to the front of the group to avoid spending time too close to anyone in front.

Coming up to the hill again, I did my same leg saving in order to put some more power out going up it. Giles came past going up it as expected (unlike me, he doesn’t weigh much). As did Matt.

But then I started gaining, and overtook them. And left them behind! On a hill! I knew I wasn’t doing myself any favours for the second run, but that was the plan… I even said to Giles as I overtook him that I wouldn’t be able to run off of this! I got a fair gap and didn’t see them on the bike again.

Once I got past the sharp corner I finally started considering the run properly. Oh dear, this wasn’t going to be good! I hadn’t overdone it in terms of average power, but the big spikes for going up hills were going to be costly.
Strava link

I couldn’t find my racking spot in transition (schoolboy…) despite having memorised markers. All I had to go on were shoes, which were in boxes, so I’m my defence it was pretty difficult!

I still got out with a bit of a lead on Matt and Giles, but I wasn’t moving fast. Maybe 4:45 per km. It only took 1 km till Giles came past. Then Matt a little later. I didn’t see Patrick – it turned out he pulled out on before the second run to save himself for the sprint triathlon the next day – he’s a great swimmer so was thinking a duathlon didn’t really suit him either. I can’t even imagine getting 2 bikes there, let alone racing twice! Sadly that got changed into a duathlon as well at the last minute 😦

Slowly my pace came up, but not a lot. Mark and family cheered me up each time I saw them, but I really struggled with this run! It became a matter of just trying to keep going rather than worrying about pace.

A combination of over-biking, heat and my lack of run training really showed here. It sucked!

By the end of the second lap, Giles was 2 minutes ahead. Donald, leading the race, lapped me near the start of the 3rd lap. I tried hard on the last lap as I could see Oliver Rodwell, who I’d beaten at Box End, closing on me. But it didn’t make a lot of difference to my pace!

At the end of the last lap I was still ahead and pushed hard to the line. 11.5km (Strava record is a bit short as I started my watch late). I was properly shattered!

Strava link

I came 11th in my age category, which was probably better than I expected as a duathlon, but a lot worse than I was hoping for in a triathlon.

Full results

There was an athlete’s area with free beer (real beer, not alcohol free!) and massages. There was a good level of banter and we hung around enjoying the free beer for far too long. We had some more at a café by the diseased lake, and finally managed to eat at about 7pm.

Overall I’m still gutted it wasn’t a triathlon, but really pleased I got through 17km (plus about a km of barefoot running in transition) without injury. I do really hope I can get some consistency with my running now though, particularly with a view to racing Holkham 70.3 later on the year.