Holkham Triathlon 2023 – British Middle Distance Championships

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.

Strava link

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.

Strava link

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!

Full Results

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…

Abu Dhabi Triathlon World Championships 2022

Hot. A simple word to describe a race. Maybe it should be inferno? Not that it was a surprise, but racing, particularly running, in midday sun in the UAE was toasty!

I’d travelled to the race alone, arriving at 2am the day before, which made it all quite hectic. But was lucky enough to be staying in the same hotel as some friends; the irrepressible Giles and rubberneck Tom. Despite the gutter-level banter, it made the whole experience a lot of fun! A significant amount was about someplace in Hawaii Giles had been to recently…

I just about had the time to do all the pre-race faffing; rebuilding my bike, getting to the race venue, registering and finally racking my bike.

This left enough time to watch the elite women’s race.

And try on some silly leggings.

I also met up with the other awesome athletes from Cambridge Triathlon club

And there was an opportunity to go out on the swim course. There were some large jellyfish, but they seemed to be a little deeper than swimming depth. The exit was next to a huge head and pair of hands.

We had an evening meal. I was feeling a bit bloated after travelling, eating meals at odd times and being on the wrong timezone. I was being careful what I ate – not too much, carbs, not much fibre. Unlike Giles, who had 5 desserts. Might have been 6.

My race started at 9:17am. This meant a relatively civilised alarm time in the morning, 6am, although that was 2am UK time. However, it also meant I’d finish around 11:17am. Did I mention it was a hot race?

Tom, being a superb swimmer and irritatingly younger than me, started earlier and got off to a great start. It really looked like he had a good chance of being in the top three Brits in his age group! (There were only two…)

Meanwhile, I had a cunning plan for my start. The 3 athletes who’d beaten me in the European Championships were racing. Two of them, Donald and Artur were 3 minutes faster than me swimming, but Patrick was only 1 minute.

Unlike that race, this would be a non wetsuit swim – meaning I’d likely be even further behind. However, my swimming had been improving, so I figured I might be able to draft Patrick. So I stuck next to him at the start.

With a quick “Attention, Go!” we were off! Patrick swan to the right of one of the start buoys but I had to go left. I squeezed past someone else and set off in hot pursuit. Well, thrashed around more quickly than usual and hoped I’d catch up to him.

I started to gain and got within about a meter. Drafting at that distance certainly helps, but it’s not as good as 1cm! Sadly, my thrashing about was no longer making inroads and I was working too hard.

Fortunately, being in an age group with 60 people, unlike in Poland, there were other athletes around so I had options.

There was someone off to my left that was a little further back, so I switched over. Now I could get to 1cm drafting! I spent the next km trying to tickle his feet, which worked pretty well, only interrupted by slower swimmers from the previous wave, or when we got to a turn. Either his or my speed was a little erratic, so I occasionally had to sprint a bit or ease off, but we were moving faster than I’d manage by myself. I found out afterwards that this was another friend, Gary – I hope I didn’t irritate him too much!

Just before the last turn we somehow joined up with another swimmer from our wave, a German athlete. He and I both spent a while trying to draft Gary, but at this point, we seemed to slow down.

I tried breaking right while the German went left, but I only got level by the time new guy was completely ahead, and the original tucked in behind him and I stopped gaining ground. I shrugged (mentally – actually shrugging would definitely have slowed me down…) and got back behind him.

We did the last turn towards the enormous head and were now overtaking a lot of the previous wave.

The water wasn’t particularly rough, but there was a little chop and lots of splashing from other athletes; despite being happy breathing either side I still managed to swallow quite a lot of sea water.

Coming up to the exit I started kicking harder and flexing my calf muscles. It slowed me down a bit, but got me ready for the run from the swim to the transition; 500m barefoot, quite a bit slightly uphill. Then transition itself must have been another 200m.

I’d done the swim in 23:20. I measured the course as being slightly long, and that time includes getting to the timing mat. Going by my hat watch, I’d actually done 23:05 by the end of the actual swimming – 1:29 per 100m pace for 1548m – a massive non wetsuit PB!

Strava link

I knew there were helpers with water bottles here and really wanted one to swill my mouth out and get rid of the brine. I spotted one and tried to take the bottle he had, but he wasn’t looking and was trying to take the lid off.

I missed it and actually stopped, race back and grabbed it. I got the top off, cleaned my mouth and had a small sip. Then I spotted Juan’s young family – obviously I splashed them with what was left. It was a hot day after all!

I could see the people I’d been swimming with a little way ahead and considered chasing them down, but decided I would rather make sure I didn’t break my calves, so just jogged as quickly to transition as seemed sensible.

My bike was at the far end of transition. In the morning, I’d practised making sure I knew exactly which row to run up, and where it was in the row. I spotted one lady looking for her bike looking confused. Ha! I’m far too professional for that!

So… obviously I ran up the wrong row. Fortunately just one row too far, and since I was at the end I could just scoot round. The lady came past me with her bike at that point…

I got my socks on. Look I know it’s controversial, but I’ve got it down to a fine art. I do it standing up, toe then heal. It only takes a couple of seconds, and I look after my delicate feet!

Then I was off onto the bike! I’d been looking forward to riding my bike on smooth fast roads in the sun for ages, and it didn’t disappoint! I was flying along and was soon overtaking everyone in sight.

I passed my swimming buddies and just kept hunting down each person ahead. I looked at my speed and was traveling 46kmph. On the flat! My power reading wasn’t high enough for that! I was worried that as the day had heated up since I’d calibrated it, it was now reading low and I was going to overdo it.

However… At the first turn around it became clear that it was actually due to a tailwind; going the other way was slower. And actually despite not really doing the speed that much into the wind on the straights, there were lots of dead turns, one bridge with a little elevation and short technical bits that dragged the average down. So as usual I was fighting a personal battle to keep the speed above 40kmph.

This was made all the more difficult as I was paranoid about overheating and dehydrating on the run. I was trying to drink regularly, but feeling sick every time I did, waiting till the feeling passed, then trying again. I was also capping my power down to 285watts (normalized), which is 90% of my FTP, about 5% lower than I’d normally do for this distance.

I saw Giles a few times going on the opposite direction. He was a couple of minutes back at this point; he’s a better runner than me, so I was hoping to have a bit of a bigger gap at the end of the bike to avoid the patented Giles “bum slap” if get if he overtook me…

I had two 800ml bottles of half strength beta fuel, with half an electrolyte tablet in each. I managed to finish one, but only had a few sips of the other by the end of the bike. I was feeling great aerobically by this point, and the sick feeling had gone.

I did a flying dismount with no issues and got to my racking spot first try, like a pro…

Happily I’d just managed to average 40kmph.

Strava link.

I should probably mention at this point that I have a homemade 3d printed toolbox on my bike and that it was so hot this actually melted. And my GPS watch’s screen was glitching because of the heat. It really was hot!

However, it was time to run. Time for all those turbo sessions dressed up in 5 layers with no fan, and stupidly hot baths to pay dividends. All those practise races with ATW. That and the serious acclimatisation I got from having arrived a whole day before the race.

Nope. I knew I was in trouble from the moment I started running. I could run, but what felt like my threshold pace was about 20 second per km slower than what I’d managed at home in the cold. And with 10km to go in this heat, it was not a sensible time to try to push it.

So, I ran sensibly. Boring! Every aid station I had a sip of water and poured the rest over my head, stuck a cold wet sponge down my top, and held another in one hand for a bit later. There were 3 aid stations on each of the 2 laps. Even so, I really could have done with twice as many! I was melting! Surprisingly I was mostly overtaking, with just the occasional athlete overtaking.

At the end of the first lap was an out and back section. I saw Tom running towards the finish; I was properly jealous! Close behind was Giles. Uh oh! He was about 90 seconds back. A bit of dehydrated maths later and I figured that if I could up my pace by 10 seconds per km, I could stay ahead.

So I upped my pace. Nope. A really big fat NO; I was definitely at my limit already. So I settled down and waited for the the inevitable…

Sure enough at around the 8km mark the run, Giles came past. I actually saw him coming and ran for a bit with both my hands covering my bottom, but still got the bum slap of doom…

I lost most of my motivation at that point. But plodded on. However, a little bit further on I spotted Patrick up ahead. Walking! He’d been in a close race with Artur at the start of the run, and was now paying for it. I didn’t slap his bum on the way past, but did said “Hi” and tried to look like I was running OK!

I eventually got to 10km. Of course, there was still 500m to go as the run course was long (unlike the bike, which was short; not my favourite combination) but I made it. I even managed to try to run with good form along the blue carpet up to the finish. If you look closely you can see how wooden it is though!

I’d managed to average 4:13 per km, which was frustrating compared to what I was hoping for (3:52), but much better than it felt! I’d come 7th in my age group.

Strava link.

Full results

There were buckets of ice at the finish, which was awesome. There were even ice baths, which I’ve never tried before. I may have screamed like a child getting one, but it did wonders for lowering my body temperature!

It was lovely chatting to people afterwards.

And of course meeting up with the EZ Gainz crew.

After a very sweaty ride back to the hotel, we got on with some serious recovery. And yes, those are Mango Mojitos. Also, try not to look at Gile’s shark…

Norwich Olympic Distance Triathlon 2022

Norwich triathlon is held at a really beautiful location; Whitlington Country Park, with the swim in Whitlington Broad (you know, party of The Norfolk Broads!), the bike section on rolling country roads, and the run around the Broad.

I’d been lucky enough to stay with friends nearby the night before and there was a good group of us racing from C-Squad. There was much talk of super fast runs and aerodynamic mustaches!

It was a self seeded rolling start. I had a plan to draft one of the super runners, Ali. He had a plan to draft me… Rich meanwhile had a plan to blast off the front and leave everyone behind! Accordingly, we positioned ourselves at the front, guaranteeing some quality photo opportunities!

When it was time to start, one by one we lowered ourselves into the water (no diving – it’s pretty shallow!) and set off, the first 3 swimmers. I was sure that Ali was faster than me so was behind him.

For some reason I seem to have decided to do some pre race yoga…

I managed to start drafting Ali, but was going flat out to do so. I didn’t think I’d manage to keep this going for the full 1.5km, and was a little worried that I couldn’t actually sight well enough into the sunrise to see where we were going! However, the pace eased off and I was able to catch my breath.

After a little bit I thought I could go a bit faster, but  often it still makes sense to draft unless you really think you can go quite a bit faster. A number of times I’ve tried to overtake only to find that I’m going slower when no longer drafting despite trying harder!

At this point I noticed someone swimming past over on my left, so abandoned Ali and swam over to their feet instead. I was hoping Ali would spot this move and join me, but it didn’t happen.

This felt like a challenging pace; perfect! Although we seemed to be going quite wide. Another swimmer joined us and those two swapped places a couple of times, but I wasn’t fast enough to do anything other than draft.

We went round the last buoy and headed to the sandy exit. I did it in 23:08 (23:36 to the timing mat), and measured my distance as 1590m, giving 1:27/100m. I was in 6th. Rich had the fastest swim of the day.

Strava link

Oh yeah. Flattering!

Transition went without any drama, and I left it in 4th. I ran past someone who stopped to mount, so was in 3rd, and was up to 2nd within 200m. I didn’t know that at the time, but I did know that Rich would be somewhere up the road.

The bike course was effectively a triangular route with a tail, with the first third mostly uphill into the wind, the second mostly level with a crosswind, and the last mostly down with a tailwind. I say mostly as it was all rolling hills.

I went harder on the first leg (as that’s what you’re meant to do!). I didn’t see anyone else racing, and kept going expecting to see Rich at any moment. After Grafman I was expecting to see him around 10km in, but got to the end of the first section without seeing him.

Then the end of the second section, again with no sign of him! The third section was pretty fast even backing off the power. There was one particularly fast section towards the end, with a sharp left turn into a minor road, which has a marshal pointing the way. Still hadn’t seen Rich.

At the end of the road there was a right turn where you don’t have right of way, so you have to stop and put a foot down (you get disqualified if you don’t). At this point I finally saw some other competitors – sprint distance athletes going the other way. I got going again although it took a while to clip in again.

The final section was busy with athletes going the other way and cars trying to get into the park. I was lucky enough to get through without stopping but when I got to transition, they weren’t ready for me!

There was a fenced section in transition which you were mean to run down, to avoid giving an advantage to people racked nearest the exit but this was still shut! Fortunately I knew what we were meant to do, so I ran the length of it on the wrong side, turned around and then to my racking spot. Well… I actually missed it and had to backtrack – schoolboy error!

I’d done it in 58:25, which was the fastest bike split of the day. I should mention I’m using an EZDisc here – there were quite a few of us with them on the day!

Strava link

I was racked right next to Rich, but… his bike wasn’t there! It turned out he’d missed the sharp turning after the fast section, so had a lovely extra ride to the local bypass and back… But that did mean I was in the lead! The announcer even said something about me being a super fast cyclist!

I made my way out of transition and ran in what I hoped was the right direction along a road.

That way?

After a short distance there were marshals pointing out the path through a meadow. The route then went through a forest and tracked back onto a tarmac path. It then doubled back on a gravel path, which went all the way round the lake back to the start.

When I was going round the lake I spotted the athletes in 2nd and 3rd going along the tarmac path in the opposite direction. I tried to work out how far ahead I was, but couldn’t really do it at the time (it was actually about 3 minutes).

Unfortunately I had some stomach issues. Of the kind that ends up in a stop in the portaloos…  I spent the entire run worrying either that I was going to get caught, or that I’d have to stop in a toilet.

After the first lap, I had no idea how much of a gap I had, and not much hope of working it out as there were a lot of people on their first lap now. However, I did hear Matt shouting out that it’s a “lap of honour”, so figured I still had a bit of a lead.

Towards the end of the second lap my stomach issues were becoming quite “pressing”. I’d seen someone wasn’t too far behind at the last turn around, so I was trying to work out how slowly I needed to go to get to the end without ending up having to stop in the bushes, but how fast I needed to go to make sure I won. There was a lot of looking over my shoulder!

I made it to the finish without being overtaken, or having to stop, which was a great relief! It was awesome to actually have a finish ribbon!

I’d done the run in 40:14, 8th fastest.

Strava link.

Full results

The person I’d seen behind me turned out to be another C-Squad athlete Joe, who was doing the sprint, so I needn’t have worried! After him came Rich, who’d run himself back up to 2nd. Ali came in 4th with the fastest run of the day (and course record!) Ruth won her age category. All in all a good day out for the team!

All that was left to do was to find my shoes (there was a bit of a walk to the start, and the marshals kindly brought everyone’s shoes back).

Oh, and collect the trophy!

Grafman 70.3 Triathlon 2022

The Grafman triathlon is held at Grafham lake – meaning it’s a local race! It’s also now run by ActiveTrainingWorld who run fantastic events and are always very helpful and flexible about accommodating athletes’ needs. I’ve tried to race this once before as an “Aquabike” (swim and bike), but unfortunately that year there was a thick mist so the swim had to be cancelled, meaning, for me, it was a “Bike”. I think it’s run later in the year now, meaning the weather should be better…

However, despite the day of the race being in the middle of some fantastic weather, the forecast was a difficult to predict day, of heavy wind and rain! Pants!

Arriving at the event in the rain, I was consoling myself that the forecast looked like the rain might stop by the start, and stay dry till the end. This was sort of confirmed when it was announced that the bike section would be shortened to just one lap (out of 2) to try to get everyone off the roads by the time the weather closed back in.

This was somewhat frustrating personally as cycling is my strongest discipline, however, it made sense, and the organisers were doing their best to allow the event to go ahead.

You could choose to modify your event however you liked – shorten (1 lap out of 2) or skip the swim, skip the bike, shorten or skip the run (1 lap out of 2). Or do what was left of the full 70.3 – which is what I chose. So 1.9km swim, 46.5km bike, 21km run.

I waited a bit for the rain to stop, and it did, so I set up my bike in the (relative) dry!

I was racing with friends, Richard, Clinton and Ruth. I had plans to try to draft Richard, who is a much better swimmer than me, on the swim for as long as possible. I wasn’t expecting that to be very far, and so it proved! After the start I think I probably managed about 30 seconds before losing him.

Still, that actually left me in a decent group. I think ahead of us were a couple of pro’s (one male, Jack, one female, Rosie), maybe a couple of other good swimmers including Richard, then the group I was in.

The swim is quite fun as it involves an Australian exit in the middle, where you get out of the water, run a short distance then dive (flop) back in. I managed to do that without losing the group, although I think my heart rate skyrocketed!

I kept in the pack for the rest of the swim, although I nearly lost it when I crashed into someone still on their first lap who was almost stationary (I think they were fixing goggles or sighting at the time). By this point it had started raining again, which was a surprise.

I ended up getting out of the water, up to transition and over the timing mat in 31:08, in 7th position (out of 320ish). Strava link.

I dithered a little in transition deciding a) not to put socks on yet as there was quite a run over wet grass to the mount line (they were on top of my run shoes, which were in a waterproof bag), and b) not to keep the visor on my helmet. I ended up with the 7th fastest time though!

I got to the mount line and leapt onto my bike. At this point I should point out that I’d been to a race in Poland the previous weekend, which involved taking my bike apart to travel. I’d put it back together and been out for a test ride on it during the week where everything seemed OK. I had not done a flying mount onto it though, and definitely not done a flying mount in the rain! Unfortunately when I did it now the seatpost slipped down 3cm.

3cm may not sound like a lot, but in terms of bike fit, it’s the size of the grand canyon! I was now hunched over doing my best Quasimodo impression. Any sensible person would stop, whip out some Allen keys and sort it out. Soooooo, obviously not me – I pushed on. I figured if i moved my bum backwards, it would do!

The rain was getting harder, and so was the wind. There were plenty of athletes out who’d done one lap of the swim course – at the first tight corner on the course there was someone who’d slipped over in the wet (they were OK, but giving out warnings!) So, slowly and carefully round the corners it was! Especially since I’ve got rim brakes on carbon wheels – they’re not great in wet weather.

I tried to make up time on the flats. I saw Clinton coming the other way – turns out he’d had a brief sabbatical during the first loop of the swim and joined in on the second! After a while I caught up with Richard. As well as the swimming, he’s also a much better runner than me, so I figured I’d need to try to get some time on him during the bike section. By this point though I don’t think he was that interested in racing anymore. While my body fat was protecting me from the cold, he’s got no such luxury!

On the other hand, I thought I’d finally worked out how he runs so fast; it was his shoes! He appeared to be wearing a pair with wings!

Although… on closer inspection it turned out to be that he’d worn full length neoprene shoe covers an attempt to keep his feet warm, but hadn’t been able to do up the rear zip on them, which left sides flapping down. It was not the most aerodynamic choice I’ve seen in a race!

By the second turn around point I could see I was in second place, with just Jack about 4 minutes ahead. For a little while I lost interest in racing too, as the rain and wind got heavier and there was a slight downhill on a corner that felt unsafe.

My coach Tom was at the race and had wisely retreated to the cafe and took this video, which shows the weather, although at the point above it was, unbelievably, actually worse than this!

I made it through the rest of the bike section without incident – unlike the recovery car which was going round picking people up – it overtook me and then shortly afterwards I came past it as it had pulled over. Due to a wheel coming off!

I got to the dismount line and got off. By this point I was cold and wet and had a sore back from the low saddle and was very, very glad that it had been shortened to one lap! However, Tom was shouting at me that I was 4 minutes back on the leader, in 2nd, and that I could catch him (which seemed very unlikely to me as I normally lose places on the run!)

I’d done it in 1:17:11 – the fastest bike! Even in this weather I didn’t have any issues with the EZGains rear disc cover, or the aero chainring cover.

Strava link

I had a shocking transition. My fingers were too cold, so it was a real struggle getting my helmet off and socks and shoes on. I also couldn’t get my watch on, but I do that while running (it actually took me 1.5km to do that!). Somehow I managed to get the 2nd fastest transition anyway – I guess other people were worse off!

Since I hadn’t really recovered from the race in Poland (I’d also had a 24 hour bout of food poisoning or some kind of bug) I was planning on taking this as a fun race, not pushing too hard. However, I was in 2nd…

I tried to go at a sensible pace. The first section of the run was across a dam, so was nice and flat. The second section was a gravel path with rolling hills. OK, no one who lives anywhere less flat than Cambridgeshire wouldn’t call them hills, but they’re big to me!

The course had 4 out and backs, so you could check your position compared to others. I was definitely losing ground to Jack, and 3rd was only a couple of minutes behind me. I had a bigger gap to anyone else though. I did spot Paskell, who’d I’d raced at St Neots. He’d come 3rd, just behind me; having lost ground on the swim and bike, he’d been way faster on the run. Given the shortened bike, I was unlikely to hold him off here. Unfortunately he’s in my age group, so I was going to try though, in the hope of winning that!

I couldn’t see Richard but I saw Clinton who shouted that he was still in transition! It turned out he was really struggling with the cold. He showed some grit by getting going again, but took over 10 minutes to get out of there!

I jogged on, holding what I thought was a sensible pace. I dropped back to 3rd about 7km in, then 4th at 10km. I didn’t lose any more places for a while, and it looked like I’d hold onto that position. Tom asked how my legs were at about 11km – they were fine!

However… about 13km it started getting really hard. I think a combination of the cold, the lack of recovery, and more importantly the reduced running I’d been capable of recently was catching up with me. I managed to push on till about 15km, then I couldn’t hold the pace any longer. My pace dropped from about 4:10 per km to 4:30, then to 4:50. I was now rupturing time! It didn’t take that much longer until Rosie overtook. Then at the last turnaround, about 18.5km, Paskell came past.

I saw Ruth, but I wasn’t in a good place to chat! I struggled on to the finish line. Once I stopped I realised not only did my back hurt from the bike, but also one knee. My calf muscles were also shot to pieces. This was particularly frustrating as I’d been so happy that I seem to be getting more robust – I’d been fine after the previous two races!

I’d done the run in 1:30:43 and ended up 6th overall.

Strava link

Full results

I appreciated all the food put on at the finish line, particularly the giant flumps! Clinton and Richard made it safely to the end, and Ruth completed her first (unnecessarily challenging thanks to the weather) 70.3!

I eventually managed to pack up and make my way home for an afternoon of Platinum Jubbly celebrations with a street party.

St Neots Triathlon 2022 (Race 1)

At long last the bleak months of winter had given way to the glorious spring and triathlon season (which is obviously the most important thing about spring…)

My first race of the season was St Neots Olympic Triathlon, run by Active Training World. I had recently recovered from Covid and after that I’d decided to crush a metal bottle with my ribs while snowboarding. However, I’d been building training back up well since then, so had high hopes for a good race.

After a bit of banter about aggressive swans (only when they’ve got cygnets apparently, which is in spring…), it was race time!

The swim was a little frustrating, with 5 fast swimmers disappearing into the distance, and then me on my own the whole way. Apart from a brief bit of company from a swan. Fortunately it wasn’t aggressive! 

I think I was out of the water in 6th in a time of 24:39, a disappointing 1:34/100m pace. I consoled myself that as a river swim, with sections with and against the current, it would be slow. Beautiful section of river to swim in though!

Onto the bike – a fun rolling course with one real hill. First loop round it was easy to get up it. Second time I decided I didn’t have enough gears… Still, I made good time (fastest bike by 2 minutes! Did I mention I’m racing using an EZDisc?)

Photo Credit: jhmimages

I came into transition just behind the leader and could hear the commentator building it up into an epic battle that was going to happen on the run…

I gave everything I could, and on the first lap (of four) didn’t lose much time to him, but then started to fade. It’s pretty frustrating, but I guess I haven’t built back up the run fitness properly.

I came over the line in second, about half a minute ahead of 3rd place who had been absolutely charging on the run.

Another great race by ActiveTrainingWorld; I had a great time, and loved seeing lots of familiar faces (including my parents!)

Full results