I completed my first "proper" triathlon on the 17th of June at IM UK 70.3 at Wimbleball Lake in Exmoor. 70.3 is the total distance of the triathlon in miles - 1.2 swimming, 56 cycling and 13.1 running. It's also known as a middle distance event (long distance is Ironman, standard distance is Olympic).
It's a hard course, with 52 hills and 5000+ feet of climbing in the 2 laps of the cycling course, and the run follows a similar pattern.
I decided to use my road bike instead of my triathlon bike for a couple of reasons. I hadn't been able to ride it much in the previous two months, so I wasn't accustomed to it yet (I'm still not); my roof rack doesn't like it; and the course was hilly and climbing on a tri bike is a p-i-t-a. It turned out to be a good decision, since 90% of the other competitors I saw with tri bikes and tri bars weren't using them. I plan to use my tri bike for my next triathlons but I need to put some time in on it, to make sure I'm as efficient as I can be.
I travelled down on the Thursday afternoon, so that I had enough time to swim the course and do a cycle recce on the Friday and then rest on Saturday before racing on Sunday. I was camping, which probably isn't the best way to get some proper rest but it work out pretty well. I met some cool people at the campsite, who kept me company (and fed me!) and took photographs during the race for me, which was good of them.
I went out for a run in the evening and decided, stupidly, to go around the lake, not realising how massive it was. I turned around after 45 minutes but I got back to my tent in the dark with tired legs.
I was up with the larks on Friday morning to swim the course. It's 1900m which looks a very long way when you see it set out in front of you. When you are in a pool, everything is broken down into 50m sections, so it becomes a little bit more manageable in your head. I'd never swam that distance before continuously, and I was expecting to struggle, and have to take regular breaks. To my surprise, I got round relatively easily. Once I had got some sort of rhythm, it was ok. I took it easy and came out of the water in about 45 minutes, I think. Very slow but I felt it was a big achievement, particularly since I was struggling in the water only 6 weeks previously and was really toiling in open water.
In the afternoon, I went for a recce of the course with another fella who I knew through the Tritalk forums (hello Steve). He'd been round the course before, which was a big help, since the map of the ride was very poor. The weather was very poor in the afternoon and we get soaked about halfway round. After about 15-20 miles, I was beginning to think that I'd overestimated how hard the course was going to be, but then I hit the big hills on the homeward stretch. There were 3 of them, none particularly long but they were all pretty steep - around 14-20% in parts, which meant climbing in a very small gear (and still having to grind the pedals round). 32 hilly miles in the rain was hard work and I decided to take the rest of my pre-race time a bit easier.
Saturday was warmer and sunnier and I went from being concerned about the rain to being concerned about the sun - running in the sunshine is hard work. I spent the day going back and forward to the race village from the campsite - to watch the swim practice, go to the cafe, get some bike maintenance done and to organise my transition (lots of bags). I got to bed nice and early in anticipation of an early rise.
Race day meant a 3:30am start to get breakfast done well in advance of the 6am race start time. I was over to transition nice and early (I thought) and got my wetsuit on before joining the masses for the walk down to the start at the lake.
It was pretty exciting walking down to the start - there were a lot of people lining the route and at the start - family and friends mostly, I would imagine, but it made for a good atmosphere. My swim wave was about 300 people, a lot less then the 2000+ that will be entering the water together at IMCH next year but still a lot when you consider I'd never been in the water with more than a handful of people before.
I had a bad start, really. I seeded myself too far back and got caught behind some breast strokers and flappers and it took me 10 minutes to settle down, trying to stay calm and relaxed. I'll need to learn to swim in a group, I think. The rest of the swim was uneventful - I got round in about 42 minutes, which was fine, and I wasn't winded at the end of it - I felt pretty good in fact. I could shave a lot of time off that, just by swimming straighter, staying tighter to the buoys marking the course and by making a more positive start.
The run to transition up a grass slope for 400m was hard work and I had to walk to make sure not to get over-exerted. My transition was slow because I decided to ride with socks and gloves and by the time I got on the bike, I started to have stomach cramps (I get them regularly after swimming). This held me up for the first few miles until I could get rid of the trapped wind (ahem). Cycling after swimming is very odd - it's unlike the bike-to-run transition where you get jelly legs that refuse to work properly - my legs just felt a bit dead because the blood was circulating around my upper body after the swim. It probably took the better part of an hour before I felt they were working properly again and I could push it.
My original aim had been to get around the bike course in about 3:15, which meant about a 17.5mph average but after my illness and lack of training I wasn't planning on going too hard. However, I managed 3:18 in the end which was pleasing. I pushed pretty hard but I was hoping I had something in reserve. The secret of long distance triathlon is the cycle - if you can ride hard and keep something in reserve for the run, then you'll do well. That works for me because I'm not a quick runner.
The run was tough but that's always going to be the case after 3-4 hours of swimming and cycling. I just decided to run to my HR and not to go over my lactate threshold (about 165). That plan worked well but it meant I was running very slowly at about 9 min/miles. I didn't seem to slow down too much over the course, which had a very hard hill on it which had to be covered 3 times. In fact, only one part of the course was flat and it didn't last very long. I didn't resort to walking the hills either, which a lot of people had to do, which was nice. My original aim was to go under 2 hours (which is pretty slow compared to my best half time of about 1:36) and despite the lack of miles in my legs, I managed 2:02ish.
When I entered the race last year, I wanted to go under 6 hours but that assumed my swimming would be better than it was (very ambitious) and that I'd have been training well. Despite everything, I managed to do 6:12 and finished in 329th place, out of about 850 finishers and 950 starters.
