Race Reports 2007
10th March, The Ballbuster
The Wednesday before the race was my last training run, 5 hilly miles in a years
best time of 36 minutes so things were looking good. But on Thursday I was in a
lot of pain with a lower back problem, the physio said it was a stuck sacroiliac
joint and after some discussion about the options I had it freed up. Friday morning
I could hardly walk but he said it'd clear up by the evening and I'd be fine to
race but he did say the joint has been stuck for years and several important muscles
have failed to develop correctly so freeing the joint would bring them into play
and I'd need to go through six to eight weeks of strength work to balance things
out. Saturday morning things seemed fine with very little pain from the area so
I decided to race.
Warming up for the race everything felt fine which was a relief, weather was good
with a fine sunny spring day but there was a cold wind blowing over the hill, temperature
at the start was about 6°C. The race set off, with a smaller field than the autumn
race of about 140 people. I noticed straight away that I was having to work quite
hard to run at my usual pace, my breathing was heavy and effort levels high. Once
up the first gentle hill which goes on for about 2 miles you take a sharp left,
up another hill and then a long downhill section of about 3 miles. Even running
down the hill I was still working hard and basically struggling but figured that
I'd probably clock a time faster than an hour for the first run which I would have
been happy with. With the hour in mind I pushed it a bit up the Zig-Zag hill and
back to T1 with a time of 1:01, slower than my November time! Changed shoes and
collected the bike and set off for a cycle. Again, it became quickly apparent that
I was working hard to cycle at race pace and I all but stopped once I got to any
hill. I made good progress through the field on the down hill sections but lost
a load of places on the hills. The hip was slightly sore when on the tribars but
still working fine. Back to T2 and I was feeling knackered, something was clearly
going on that I couldn't explain. Setting out for the second run I took it easy
for a few minutes but basically I had nothing left, I felt totally knackered, but
I put my head down and got on with it. It was very hard to keep going but I maintained
pace and even over took a few people. The hip started to make itself known and by
the time I was at the end of Narrow Lane the muscles on my right leg were firing
off in the wrong order. I was having difficulty bringing the leg forward so it seems
by body had found another way of doing it. But I've had that before and did a lot
of hip flexor damage so I called it quits and jog/walked in to the finish. Not that
I'd have been able to run up Zig-Zag hill anyway, I was done.
After the race I felt pretty low. All that training over winter, pushing myself
hard in training and I clocked slower splits in each section when compared to the
November race. I can only guess what went wrong, it wasn't feeding as that went
well enough (had 6 gels, one every half hour washed down with plenty of Nuun/water),
it's not illness as I haven't felt ill for a few weeks. Maybe it was something the
physio mentioned, that getting the sacroiliac joint freed would bring certain muscles
into play that weren't developed and would need strengthening before being able
to match the strength of the quads and hamstrings. Weak muscles mentioned were the
glutes and core muscles. Whatever went wrong, it doesn't leave me feeling confident
for the season ahead.
Results
Run 1 (8 miles): 1:01:35
Bike (24 miles): 1:31:46 (including T1)
Run 2 (8 miles): 1:15:15 (including T2)
Overall: 3:48:36 (103 out of 135)
Conditions: 10°C, sunny with a cold breeze.
8th September 2007, The Vitruvian
Listening to the race briefing and putting on my wetsuit I thought I'd have plenty
of time to get ready for the start and quietly get in the water all calm and ready.
But with 5 minutes to go I went to put on my swim cap and, on checking my right
wrist, realised I'd lost my hair tie. While this might not sound like a disaster
it most certainly is, without it my swim cap will fall off and then I'd not be able
to breath as the seaweed monster gets me. There was little choice but to run back
to the car to get another. In full wetsuit I ran to the far side of the car park
and collected another and ran back to the start line just in time for the starter
to make the final call for 35-39. Blimey, I was really hot and out of breath. Quickly
sorted my goggles, got in the water and tried to calm myself. Made sure the wetsuit
was on properly and found the original hair tie on my left wrist – doh!
Hooter went and I knew I was aiming to the right of the sun. It was hard to spot
the buoy but easy enough to see the sun, no need to sight, just look forward for
the bright light. After the initial biff it settled down and I found space to practice
my crap stroke. Turning left at the buoy and I had no idea where I was supposed
to go next so just followed everyone else. Eventually we turned another buoy and
then it's back to the boat, out the water and around for a second lap. I was pretty
much alone for the second lap until the faster yellow hat people started coming
through. It was busy at swim exit with the woman's wave exiting for their second
lap, the slower blue wave (ie, me) and a few yellow hatters going around again.
But off into T1 and a calm and casual Ironman style change into bike mode.
The plan on the bike was to hit it quite hard. I like this course and enjoy overtaking
people so quickly got up to speed and held heart rate in the mid 150's (compared
to an average HR of 139 for IMUK). The top road was pretty windy so I tried to get
as low as possible to get out the wind. While this was working well it meant my
back was taking a hammering and complaining a bit. I'd taken pain killers before
the race so didn't expect it to annoy me to much. The bottom road was done with
a tail wind and I must have made up about 10-15 places and it felt good to be at
speed again, it seems to be ages since I did anything like that. But on the left
turn up the country lane section the road goes up hill and my progress was tragically
slow. I must have lost at least those 10 places I'd gained and possibly more. The
second lap was similar but was getting more complaints from the back and by the
time I'd hit the A606 for the last time, heading back to T2, it'd had enough and
I had to sit up. Just want you don't want to do into a headwind. Back into T2 and
another casual change of shoes, TT visor on and set off for the run.
I knew the run was going to go wrong as my last training run on Thursday went very
wrong but I expected to last a little longer than I did. Got to the first cattle
grid, about 500 metres outside T2 and had to stop to catch my breath. I felt like
I'd just done a super hard interval session and was totally out of energy. Walked
over the first hill to recover then jogged a bit until HR/breathing went mad then
walked a bit and that's how it went for the next 20km. Totally exhausting and I
considered pulling out after the first lap. My feet were going numb and I wondered
if I was damaging nerves with my back injury. Obviously there's no race that's worth
that so I figured I'd get back to transition then call it off. But on one of my
many walk sessions I looked at my numb feet and thought my laces looked a bit tights.
I loosened them off and my feet came back to life. Without a decent excuse to stop
I went around for a second lap and collected my T-shirt.
Despite being another tragic race I still enjoyed the weekend, meeting the TT crowd
and shouting encouragement to the many TTers in the race. It's a great race and
I'll certainly do it again. But I'm also glad that this is the end of the season
and I can put my feet up and get over it. It's been one problem after another and
with a few weeks of downtime I can hopefully get some things sorted. Top of the
list is my poorly back and my bloody awful swim 'ability'.
Results:
Swim: 48:25
T1: 3:43
Bike: 2:48:43
T2: 2:02
Run: 2:24:51
Total: 6:07:58
Conditions: Very warm for the time of the year, wind picked up
for the bike but no problems on the swim/run.
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