This was my third time racing at Holkham. Last time I won my age group, but this time it was the British Championships, so there would be lots of fast competition, including Donald Brooks, so I knew, barring incident, I wouldn’t win this time.
However, I had a more important target – my ongoing battle with Giles. He was 2-1 up in our head to head races (if you count races with punctures, triathlons turned into duathlons and furnace blasted landscapes…). From recent form we knew it would be close between us! Unfortunately, due to Giles’s swim not being up to my magnificent standard, we were in different waves – Giles’s starting 5 minutes behind mine.
I’d been improving my swim times recently, courtesy of swim coaching in an endless pool. My cycling had also been improving, with a big difference in aerodynamics after a visit to a wind tunnel doing some testing for EZGainz.
However, my running hadn’t had enough time to recover after an injury – posterior tibial tendonitis. I’d been doing well improving and increasing distance, but hadn’t actually got back up to half marathon distance.
I had a pleasant evening camping with banter from Giles, Donald, Clinton, Rich, Ali and Dylan (who stole my chair and used it as a bouncy castle)…then it was race day!
We were numbered based on our estimated swim times. I’d put just under 30 minutes and was number 132, and so in the second wave (100 per wave, but with a timing mat at the start you entered the water in pairs).
Even though it was the British Championships and there were over 1000 people racing, I knew 132 was too low – there had obviously been a lot of over optimistic times submitted. I thought I should probably be about 50th. And so it proved… I think I overtook about 40 people! Including someone doing breaststroke…
Off the start (I actually managed to dive in without losing my goggles!) I started overtaking. I soon moved into people from the first wave and continued overtaking! The lake had a nice clear path where the weeds had been cut (which you can see in the photo below) and I stayed in this up until the island where you turn back towards the start.
At this point the weed cutting stopped around around the island, or maybe I was just out of the clear area. It got thick enough that I found the fastest method was to grab some weed and pull yourself along…
Fortunately I got back into clear water on the way back and had no more hassles and really enjoyed it. I didn’t manage to draft anyone, but did manage to get my first official time under 30 minutes (including about a minute out of the water to get to the timing mat)! 29:23, 48th and 4.5% of the field.
Strava link (truncated as my watch cut out)
Onto the bike and it was immediately hard! The route went uphill out of the estate for 4km on a bobbly track, and then out onto the roads. I was trying to average 280 watts normalised power, but wanted to front load it as I knew the course, with the wind direction, would be fast and easy on the way back.
I started off holding something just over 290 watts and was overtaking (although not as many as on the swim!) Occasionally someone would stay with me for a bit, but each time they faded after a while. I began to worry that I’d been putting too much power down by about a third of the way round, but at this point saw a group ahead that I was only slowly gaining on.
Riding in a group is beneficial because even at 12m apart (how far apart you need to be to stay within the rules) you get a drafting benefit. It’s hard though, as it’s easy to get closer when you go up a hill (so you’re moving slower – the same time distance is closer together). I figured I join the back of the group and let my average power drift down for a bit.
However, when I got there I saw some pretty poor attempts at keeping 12m apart. Piss poor. It didn’t take long till I got fed up with this – I decided to try to get into 2nd position in the group so I could ignore this behind me. So when a gap opened I took my opportunity and moved up to 2nd (you can’t just slot in unless there’s a bigger gap than 12m).
After a little while I figured I should just push on and leave them behind, but at that point, going up a hill, someone came past quite a bit faster. I went with him (still at a legal distance!) which I struggled to do going uphill, but found it a bit slow on the flats/downhill. The group also followed, and I realised I wasn’t going to break away from them, so figured I just stay where I was. I think this decision cost a few minutes on the bike, but saved energy for the run.
Turning on to the fast return, Dan of Triathlon Dan fame launched a blistering attack, but didn’t get free (probably my fault as I worked back up to him – sorry!) And then the same guy from earlier went to the front. It was mostly slightly downhill with a few long gentle climbs. On this section I don’t think I put out more than 200w excluding the hills, and was averaging around 50kmph! I loved riding this course!
The route had changed from previous years towards the end. It was slightly shorter, but had some nasty hills on small roads. Dan’s bike made a nasty noise – he stopped; I thought he’d got a puncture 😦 However, he caught back up before the end (it turned out his chain had dropped, but I was mostly confused about this till after the race – sorry Liz for the duff information!)
Coming into the end I’d hit 279 watts normalised! Perfect!
Rolling down into the estate I could see the athletes running up the hills. I couldn’t see Donald, but given he’d had a 5 minute head-start it wasn’t surprising he’d already left that part of the course (meaning he was at least 15 minutes ahead).
2:17:32 – 33rd and 3.1% of the field.
Onto the run… I figured I’d be something like 6 minutes up on Giles, so had something like 18 seconds per km I could afford to lose to him. Every second of which I knew I’d need! Holkham is a hard course to pace with 3 laps of a long hill, gravel roads, forest, and somehow an elevation profile that feels like an Escher painting with not enough down for the ups.
This is my excuse for going too fast and getting slower each lap. The first lap wasn’t too bad, and I felt like my nutrition was good throughout. But my lack of running training really showed up. First lap 4:13 pace (normalised 3:52 – waaaay too fast). Second lap 4:25. Third 4:30 (despite a 4:00 last km). 4:25 pace average somehow.
It was all pretty frustrating to see the time seeping away.
1:34:02 – 122 and 11.6% of the field.
Soooo then there was the wait for Giles. I didn’t know exactly when he started, but I was near the front of my wave. It needed to be more than 5 minutes… And it was – 7:30 – but that still left us none the wiser, other than it was close! We had a nice ice bath drinking (sadly alcohol free) beer to relax.
It really was close but I’d come out just ahead this time! We thought Donald was first, I was second and Giles third. With results online only, and Norfolk’s dodgy mobile signal, it was hard to find out, but it turned out a later starter finished ahead and bumped Giles and me down a slot, which was a shame.
4:23:27, 53rd, 5% of the field, and 3rd in age group.
I stuck around for the awards. Which meant waiting 6 hours; by that point not only had everyone finished, but also left. The party had finished. The food trucks shut down. I’ve no idea why the organisers think this is a good idea. It was a bit of a lack-lustre affair with just a few of the winners still there. I wouldn’t bother waiting around again for it even though for me it was only a 2 hour drive home. For those further afield it really wasn’t an option.
Still, I got my British Championships bronze medal and massive wooden trophy!
Note something odd happened with these results a few days after they were originally published. I didn’t have time for a nap and a cup of tea in the transitions… The times in this blog are correct though, as is the overall time in the results, which turns out to be the same as the last time I did this! So that’s promising if I can get my running sorted…
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