The awful weather had given me just the excuse I needed to put in a really poor week of training ahead of the Burnham-on-Sea Sprint Triathlon. I even bailed out of my traditional 80mile bike ride to Burnham the day before the race because I feared the cold, wind and rain of Exmoor. I opted for a safer 36mile plod to Puffin Billy and back instead.
Come the morning of the race the weather was just as predicted - bloody awful!!! The first waves had the worst of it, they were off at 6am and not only had the monsoon conditions but the early morning cold too. As a lot of these were the slower/fun athletes I really felt for them as I was sat in the warm, dry caravan eating breakfast while they were struggling round.
Come the morning of the race the weather was just as predicted - bloody awful!!! The first waves had the worst of it, they were off at 6am and not only had the monsoon conditions but the early morning cold too. As a lot of these were the slower/fun athletes I really felt for them as I was sat in the warm, dry caravan eating breakfast while they were struggling round.
I made my way down to the pool and I really wasn't feeling it, had I been at home the night before I'd have seriously considered not bothering to travel at all, but I was already there so it had to be done.


Phill's lane went off, then another lane was called before finally it was my turn. There were only two of us left, there was only two in our lane, we were the final starters in the race. This turned out to be a good thing as Rich, the poor lad sharing my lane had found himself there due to a clerical error and his swim time was over 2mins slower than mine. It worked out fine though because although I overtook him three times we managed to get through the swim without ever getting in each others way. It was as good a solo swim as I could have expected, although I'm sure a bit of company and some pressure would have helped me swim faster.
I was only 2mins into my 500m swim when I noticed Phill had already got out. I knew straight away that the chances were I wouldn't see him again until the Finish.

It's funny how race mode affects you once the mist comes down. I remember only really getting held up in traffic once, I remember spending lots of time in the middle of the road avoiding huge puddles of standing water, I remember the awful headwind in the last 3 miles, I can't actually remember whether it was still raining or not though. I'm sure it must have been as it didn't seem to stop all day, but suddenly, when here is a number on your back, you ignore little things like weather and just focus on getting round the course as fast as possible while staying in one piece.

The out leg of the run was fine other than the sand being extreemely soggy, but even though I hit the sand dune onto the golf course at a good pace and my Garmin recorded the first mile at 5:47. Sweet!! I cruised around the trail section watching my footing, taking special care on the well soaked and slippery wooden bridges and trying to conserve a little energy for the return along the beach where I knew the headwind would be evil. As I climed the dune back onto the beach my Garmin registered mile 2 at 6:09, better than I expected. The last 1.3miles was simply torture! My legs started tying up as soon as I hit the wind so I tried to stay upright and focus on my form. Then from nowhere, just as I was struggling the most, somebody came flying past me. "Where the hell did he come from?". I felt real deflated as he simply ran away from me. Then I had a word with myself!! I was the last to start, so I'd obviously passed him somewhere before, he had to have started in an earlier wave so I didn't actually need to finish ahead of him to beat him! With that I got myself back into gear and started an attempt to chase him down. He was tiring and must have looked over his shoulder for me at least 5 times, I was feeling strong again and working hard. I was gaining, but by so little it was hardly worth it. The Finish Line was too close and I wouldn't keep this pace up much longer anyway. I crossed the line around 20 secs behind him.

Next up is 'hopefully' a solid week of training followed by the Goldcoast Aquathlon on Saturday. That'll be all about having a bit of fun and getting in my first Open Water Swim of the season. Brrrrr. Better go and dust off my wetsuit!
1 comment:
Nice work dude. The laziness pays off as usual.
Youd probably have won if youd cycled the 80 miles to the race. ;)
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