Johnny Hall's Travels and Travails

When I originally had thoughts of getting into triathlon (around this time last year), this was the event that drew me in. It seemed to be everything that would interest me about triathlon - challenging, unusual and revolving around a mountain. So, yesterday, a year later, I got to compete. The event is a non-standard distance. A mile swim (1600m) in Ullswater, 38 mile cycle around Helvellyn and finally a 9 mile run up and down the mountain itself. Each discipline has its difficulties, to some extent. The swim is fairly standard, although Ullswater is cold (I didn't really notice it myself, having braved the North Sea a few weeks ago). The cycle is bumpy for a triathlon, and culminates in a climb up and over Kirkstone Pass from Ambleside, which has a section of 25% gradient near the top, aptly named The Struggle. The run doesn't involve a great deal of running for the first half as you manfully plod up the mountain via Swirral Edge. My preparations for the event had unfortunately been hit by the arrival of Esme in the last few weeks, which has affected my ability to get out for longer than an hour or so at a time. In fact, over the last few weeks, I think I only trained longer than an hour once, and swam very little due to the requirement to travel to the pool. If I'm honest, my motivation has wavered a little as well. I had no idea how much my endurance would have suffered over the last few weeks but enough that my rough guesstimate of how long the race should take me had gone up somewhat. I travelled down to Glenridding on Friday to ensure I got a decent camping spot (too poor for a B+B or hotel) and it was just as well I did, since there was also a motorcycle trials event on in the village and the campsite was crawling with (very noisy) bikers. Unfortunately, some of them didn't seem to be too concerned with others and the site was very noisy all weekend. During the day the riders would be revving their engines continually, and in the evening there would be children screaming ('til midnight!) and music blasting. There's not much can be done about it - it's the price you pay for camping. I managed to sleep ok despite it all. On Saturday, I had thought about going up the mountain, or going for a ride, or going to Ambleside but in the end, I didn't nothing more than register, sit in the sun and read the papers. I did meet a fella (Adam) that I had trained to be a teacher with in Leeds, who was also competing (for the fourth time) in the event. He was with his wife, dog and new baby, which made me wish that the girls were with me but that would have been too much. Adam is still a teacher after 13 years. I only lasted 3, which is the average apparently. Race morning involved getting a thousand things done - up with the larks, breakfast, washed, sort out kit (lots of it), fill bottles, put the camping gear away (damp) and get down to transition to rack the bike. Transition was a bit chaotic, since the bikes didn't have numbered areas. I managed to squeeze my bike in but I'm sure a couple of other racers weren't too happy. Oh well. After a very long pre-race briefing, we made our way to the Lake. We had to swim over to the start, which was a useful warmup. This was my first in-water start, and it was much better than the free-for-all of my last 2 events, which involved running into the water. As I hadn't been swimming much recently, I decided not to go too hard, so I just cruised round nice and easy. I probably went a bit wide but it wasn't too bad, if slow. My swim time was around 36 minutes. A reasonably quick transition and I was onto my bike. I'd decided to use my Cervelo (tri bike) rather than my road bike, despite all of the hills. It turned out to be a good choice. I got up the hills no problem (aided by my road bike's compact chainset) and I must have overtaken a hundred riders or more. I had the usual feeling of sore legs for the first 20 minutes or so but after that I felt pretty good. My neck was giving me bother (lack of miles on the tri bike recently) and I got held up by traffic in a couple of places, which was annoying but apart from that I went well. The Struggle was just that but my low-ish gearing got me up better than most people. The biggest problem I had was holding onto the bars with sweaty hands and no gloves. The were a lot of people at the top but I didn't pay too much notice because my HR was maxed by that point. The ride down into Glenridding took longer than I had expected but I got back into transition in about 2 hours and 9 minutes, perhaps a little slower than I'd hoped but but too bad considering. Another quick transition and I was off on the run. I was wearing my fell shoes rather than my road shoes and my feet were sore due to the lack of cushioning. I probably could have got away with my road shoes but in the end I don't think it mattered. Very soon, the path reared up for the first steep section. I wasn't feeling too strong, so I just plodded along. I got overtaken by quite a few people on this section. After about 30 minutes, the path flattened out and rolled along until the climb up to Swirral Edge. I started running here and took back a few places. Once on to the edge, I overtook some more people - I guess most of the runners would have been unused to such terrain but to my mind it was very straightforward. Soon enough, I was at the top, which was swathed in cloud and wind. There were a few walkers up there in, fully wrapped up in waterproofs, watching running go past them with little more than a lycra shorts and vest. It wasn't cold and just a little damp, so I know who was dressed inappropriately. After a short climb, the downhill began. I'm not a great downhill runner, so I expected to be passed by a lot of folks but to my surprise, I did most of the passing. I managed to get a stitch with about a mile to go, due to all of the pounding on the hard track but I stuck it out and finished well. My run time was just over 2 hours. My overall time was 4 hours and 51 minutes (plus a bit) which I was more than happy with. I was 202nd out of about 600 entrants, I think. I'm planning on using this event to kickstart my training again before doing the Ben Nevis (Big) triathlon in a couple of weeks. That event should take me about twice as long as Helvellyn did, which is a sobering thought.