The Race Report
Okay, the build-up didn’t go quite according to plan for the Harris Gang, when Graham cut his foot during our last scheduled OW swim yesterday. The rocks at Cass Bay are volcanic (read “bloody sharp”) so when he came out with blood dripping from the sole of his foot, it didn’t omen well. Being the good wife that I am, I almost fainted, so I left him to do the cleaning out while I made a dash to the chemist to buy whatever I could to patch it up. It appeared quite deep, but fortunately the cut went into the foot on an angle rather than directly in, so with some oinkment and some strapping tape keeping it closed, it was a matter of crossing fingers for today. If it all turned to custard, the plan was he’d do the swim and cycle, and DNF at T2 before the run.
We headed down to Ashburton after the kids got home from school, dropping Louis off at Mum and Dad’s on the way through. Registration done, it was off to the motel to trash the place with all our crap. The NW wind on the way down was wicked – I was watching the bikes flexing up on the car roof through the wing mirrors, grateful that I wasn’t doing Teva this weekend and trying to get a kayak up to Methven yesterday! I know what it’s like to have a kayak shunted sideways off the roof in strong winds – very stressful.
I had a piss poor sleep last night. Mental note – don’t stay at a motel on State Highway One, with a railway line across the road. But it did mean I was wide awake when the alarm went off. My stomach started churning as soon as I got up, but it was nice to be able to key off Graham who remains outwardly pretty calm before events.
Timing
This is going to be a screwy race report, because while I was something like 5.25 minutes quicker than last year (5:39.32 hours this year by my watch), I can’t quite account for where the improvements were made. When taking off my wetsuit at T1, I changed modes on my watch (a mode I’ve never seen or used before!!) so I was a little blind with my times. All I know was that I was (I think!) four minutes quicker on the swim this year, and I thought I was quicker on the cycle and run, but the times don’t add up (unless I stuffed around for FAR too long in transition – highly probable!). I was also hitting my lap button wherever I could, but I wasn’t terribly consistent with where exactly I pressed it each time (or where the organisers considered transitions stopped and started etc).
Swim
Roughly 37.40 minutes – last year 41 minutes-something.
I entered the mosh pit! Yes I did!! While I was reluctant to start too far back, I was also mindful that the thought of being in the mosh pit is pretty bloody terrifying to me! But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Graham and I got separated at the start, but partway up the first leg, I realised we were swimming side by side. We swim at the same pace, so it was good to ‘catch up’. He only clouted me a few times – I’ll get him with my rolling pin later.
My damn goggles got rather fogged up so sighting was quite difficult. I was going off course a number of times – I’d look up to see nothing but clear water, only to realise all the swimmers were heading in the opposite direction! I wasted a bit of time and energy getting back on course, but on the last lap, I found a woman to draft off and she was excellent at keeping on track. She towed me all the way in to the swim finish without my having to sight once.
Graham had got away on me because of my wayward tendencies, but he was still in T1 when I arrived. He then cleared out and I got myself organised.
Cycle
Somewhere between 2.54 and 2.58 hours – last year 2.57 hours.
I didn’t feel quite as gung ho to start with on the bike as I did last year. I glanced down at my computer to find it wasn’t working. Bugger bugger. I’m firmly of the view of “What you can’t monitor you can’t manage” so this was a real blow. I never toyed with the idea of stopping because that would have just wasted time, but decided instead to go with Paul’s “comfortably hard” recommendation without being able to monitor what this meant speed-wise. My HRM wasn’t visible in this mode either, so for the whole race, I didn’t know what the bod was doing. In hindsight, I think I’d do that again – instead of holding myself back, I just went with how I felt.
Once I got going, I felt pretty strong. As I exited Lake Hood on the bike, I saw Nadia go past at the end – she’d just completed the 3.5km down to the first turnaround and back before heading off on the 40 or so kilometres of the first lap. I still had that 3.5km to do, so I knew she’d had a good swim when I saw her there!
I was disappointed this year that they’d changed the cycle course from 3 x 30km out and back laps, to 2 x 45km blocks. The only time you’d see other cyclists (to key off) was back at Lake Hood at the main turnaround, and the small 3.5km out and back dog leg they got us to complete to make up the 90km distance. Instead, it was just a matter of picking people off one by one up ahead. I passed lots of people like I did last year, which was satisfying, but in the second lap, it got harder and harder to pass people as they were better cyclists up that end of the field!! At the first turnaround at Lake Hood, I didn’t make the tight u-turn and “fell off” my bike. Well, I rode up a shingle bank, quickly unclipped and remained standing while my bike went arse over kite. I was more concerned about picking up all my nutrition (oh, and the fact that several people I’d passed got past me again!).
Until the official results are out, I can’t work out what my average pace was on the bike. I felt pretty strong, even into the head wind we copped on a couple of longish straights. I was able to stay comfortably in my biggest gear at a low cadence throughout – thanks to Paul’s muscular endurance training philosophies for that! But the only idea of my pace I had was a) passing people; and b) looking at the trees, fences etc at the side of the road to see how quickly I was going past them – very scientific it was!
Run
Tentative time of 2 hours – last year 2.01 hours
I so dreaded getting off the bike. The swim and cycle felt good, whereas running off the bike is something I generally feel really uncomfortable doing. However, I surprised myself and headed off at a reasonable pace for me. I ran to the first 1km marker in 5.30 mins, although I suspect the distance was a bit short. I’d taken a couple of Neurofen and a caffeine tablet near the end of the cycle – I didn’t feel them kick in like I did last year, although I felt steady throughout the run. I walked briefly at two aid stations, as the Coke at those stations was still carbonated and it was a bit of an effort to drink it. I’d headed out with a Slingshot bottle of gels, but tossed it to Ella after the first lap as I decided to switch to the Coke – it worked a treat.
Em passed me on the second lap, at around the 10km mark. She was running at a great pace so I could only watch her disappear off into the distance. I think she said she ran around 1.39 and that was with a loo stop – stunning!
The last lap was HARD. Well that’s not quite true – I felt really good on that last lap and was able to pick the pace up a bit, but with around 4km to go, I really put the pressure on myself. I was looking at my watch to see what I was going to have to run in order to achieve a sub 5.40. I started kicking myself for having fluffed around in transition – all three triathlons I’ve done now, I’ve ended up putting pressure on myself to achieve a certain time, whereas the times have been pretty darn tight. I gave the last few kilometres everything I had – my HR (as I later found out) was sitting at 170, which is pretty high for me on a run. My breathing was okay, but legs were running on empty. I came in with 22 seconds to spare (for a sub 5.40) – last year I came in with 7 seconds to spare under 5.45. I must stop doing that to myself – it hurts something wicked!
Conclusion
On reflection, I’m now quite disappointed with my time. I saved four minutes on the swim, but only 5 minutes-something overall. When I was on the bike and reflecting on the swim, I was hoping for around 5.35 hours, because the bike felt pretty good, and I feel like I’ve been running better this year than I did last year. Perhaps that’s good enough in itself, that while I wasn’t necessarily faster, I felt more together and stronger. Hmmm, I don’t quite buy that, but until I see the results, I’ll reserve judgement.
I went into the event with a strong desire to beat last year’s time, but I had no idea if it was possible. It didn’t feel like I’d done much ‘real’ cycling, because a lot of it had been on the indoor trainer. I also wondered if my endurance would be up to it, as my longest session was four hours. But YET AGAIN I needed to show more faith in Coachie!!
Nutrition
- Gel before the swim plus a couple of electrolyte tablets
- Gel in T1
- Three hours of Perpetuem during cycle – divided into two Slingshot bottles
- Two bottles of water during cycle
- Two Neurofen and one caffeine before the run
- One gel in T2
- One gel 25 minutes into run
- Coke at every aid station
- Six electrolyte tablets during run – three each hour
The Boy
Graham went into today just wanting to go under five hours. His swim time was 37 minutes-something (half a minute or so quicker than me), around a 2.35 cycle, and a 1.26 hour run, for a total of 4.44 hours. While he was initially pretty pleased with that, he was disappointed at prizegiving to hear some of the swim times. He likes to ‘compete’, but he’s a bit down that the guys are swimming in the mid-20s and he’s churning out 37 minutes!! It’s just something he’ll need to suck up and I guess it’s par for the course when you only start swimming in the year that you do your first triathlon! But I know how he feels.