My first Triathlon this year went pretty much as expected... no real
surprises as per my recent training.
Prior to the race I wasn’t nervous at all which from my point of view,
this is never a good sign: it means you don’t really give a crap about the race...
...if anything I was only worried about
the temperature of the water as it was my first open water of the season in
IRL.
Swim:
It was a rolling water start... so I stayed in the middle of the group
before entering the water. Not a good strategy as I had to swim over 200 swim
caps on my wave start... Silly mistake that frustrates everyone: myself and the
swimmers that get overtaken so early in the race.
Half way through the swim, I already started passing tens of yellow
hats (previous wave) every minute and I clearly positioned myself at the front
of my wave.
I then swam in the wrong direction (I was following the previous wave
swimmers rather that eyeing the buoys and I had missed a buoy so I had to go
back about 100-150m to go around it... not a biggie but pretty annoying as I
was leading the wave.
In the end I left the water 5th of my wave and 38th
overall.
Bike:
Due to my recent Achilles injury I knew I hadn’t done many miles at a race
pace lately, so I took it easy and decided to stay in control. I lowered the
watts considerably and cruised along.
The race course even though is really flat (according to my Garmin 400m
of elevation gain); it doesn’t really suit my non-existing cycling skills. There are quite a lot of bends, T junctions,
Speed bumps, sharp corners, etc...
It’s a shame as I kept loosing positions on the bike at every single
corner.
The changing weather didn’t help either... we hardly had any head or
tail wind. Most of it was coming from the side. This forced me to move from
side to side every now and then as I was riding a disc. Nothing major, but when it’s wet (it rained a
couple of times while I was cycling) I freak out.
At the end, I clocked very similar watts as last year in Collinstown
70.3 but this time with a very disappointing speed average of 34,5km/h.
I lost quite a few positions (understandingly) to a 22nd of
my AG and 97th overall.
Run:
My run strategy was simple: Keep on running at a pace you’re
comfortable and can control throughout the race without jeopardizing my
Achilles... and so I did; I started at the 4:30 pace and I maintained it
practically for the first two laps (14kms) of the run course.
At the end of the 1st lap, I saw my god old friend Matt
Molloy just 400mts (about 2mins) ahead of me. I need to confess that going for
him crossed my mind but I quickly abandoned the idea for two reasons:
1.
I didn’t
want to injury trying to catch him.
2.
The lad is in some serious form this year ...
even If I lowered my pace by 15secs, it would take me about 8kms to get to him
and that would be assuming he was running at my speed. I would’ve been
incredibly bollocks by the time I’d get to him and then I’d need to maintain
whatever pace he would throw at me. No way!
I always love racing with Matt as we have a very similar level of
fitness (obviously not today!) and we always finish so close from each other.
On the 3rd lap, I struggled a bit with my pace so I slowed
it down for 4kms. I also started to notice that my Achilles started to bother
me again, so I took it on the chin and cruised at a slower pace.
Then at the 18th km mark I went back to the original pace
and finished the last km just above 4:00.
Not the fastest run I’ve ever done but very pleased with it as not only
my Achilles held up like a champion but I also felt great throughout the run
(specially the first 14kms which felt quite easy).
Finish:
I finished the race in 4h49m28s which is nowhere near my PB but happy
enough due to the circumstances and the lack of speed training since mid April.
In the end, I finished 19th on my Age Group (out of around
400 athletes) and 95th overall (out of
2,460 athletes)... so in the end it wasn’t that bad.
Legs feel very fresh as I write these lines, so tomorrow I’m back to my
full Ironman training (with an easy 8-10k run, of course). Not sure how I’m gonna double this distance.... Just the thought of it, makes me wonder why I signed up for another one.
Thank you all the supporters on the course... they definitely made the difference
today!
Ernest
