When: 31st May 2014
Organiser: EnduSport
Distance: 1.9km lake swim, 90km closed road bike and 21km trail run
Marshalling: excellent, almost to the point of being excessive.
Facilities: all you can think of.
Technical: chip timing
Freebies: Tech T-shirt, swim hat, rucksack, pasta, mid-race nutrition, finisher zone with beer, ice-cream, burgers, fruit, etc.
Ben apologised for the length of his report I think, I won't. I apologise that it's taken so long to get it up here, but you'll soon see why. Give yourselves some time to read it, a week should do.
I was a relative latecomer to the party, picking up on a spare slot when Mumma Weeks decided to bow out and focus more on racing in Weymouth in September. Having gained the necessary WAT approval to proceed I got my name added to the roster through the exquisite multilingual skills of our very own middle eastern peace envoy and so started the torrent of abuse and calamity that has been a constant feature of the trip ever since.
Artur was an outstanding organisationalist influence on things, and to be honest, without him there would certainly have been almost 0% chance of the rest of us actually making it to the right country, let alone racing. Amongst his diverse attempts to form a coalition, there were t-shirts, books about polish characteristics, flight research, accommodation research and booking, regular updates on what the locals were saying about the race and course, restaurant bookings and that was all before we went! I say this without any reserve, the effort that he put in was outstanding, undeserved, and under appreciated. Thank you Artur, a lot.
So, anyway, I managed to survive the fairly high dropout rate of the group and found myself collecting a bike box from my LBS the day before I was due to leave. Having emailed them a couple of times, I was surprised to be charged almost double the hire cost that I’d been quoted, and over double the deposit! But it was too late to worry about it, I figured I’d pay and sort it out when/if I got back.
At home, Peej decided to go out for the afternoon and left me to pack up my bike and all my kit, along with looking after the 3 kids for a few hours. Needless to say, this did not go all that well for me. I tend to find that I start to get stressed about a week before a race, my patience (which is notoriously good, no really) wears a little thin and I get pretty snippy. This was very evident at this point, even to me, so I decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle and I WAS NOT GOING! Then I grew up a bit, not much, but enough, and started to take the bike apart. It wasn’t an easy fit and I had to remove my bars from the stem, and then the aerobars off of the base bar as well in order to get it in. but get it in I did! And with half a sofa’s worth of additional sponge to protect it too, so when Peej got back I was running around the garden with the kids and slightly happier about life. I got all the rest of my kit together that evening and packed it all up into a bag, convinced that I’d forgotten something. Peej and the kids went off to school and work etc in the morning, and after I’d visited the village bakers for a breakfast roll I loaded the car up and set off. I had elected to fly with everybody else from Luton, so stayed with some friends in Beaconsfield overnight in order to save myself a stupid early morning drive, and got treated to a very nice pork casserole.
The drive to the airport in the morning was incident free, and I found the parking place pretty easily, despite Sar telling me that the sat-nav wouldn’t work and that we were all doomed. A nice lady in the office sorted me out so that all I had to do was get my bags out, post my key in a box and get on the bus.
My bike box didn’t fit on the bus.
FFS!
Between myself and the driver, we managed to get it into the rack, partly. After about 20 people had walked over it to get onto the bus, he decided to set off. I was convinced that every time he went around a right hand bend, it was going to slide out and destroy the woman in the wheelchair opposite.
We arrived at the airport with everyone intact and disembarked. I discovered within the first 5 yards of the walk to the terminal that my bike box didn’t like paviers, and was heavy, very heavy. I struggled in and met up with Sar and Ed, tucking into breakfast. Leaving them to their vittels, I wandered around the corner and was greeted by Lanky Laws himself (which was wonderful as I hadn’t expected to see him there. I knew he was due to go of course, but come on, it’s Ben) and the delightful Mr. and Mrs. Kwiatkowski. After a small treat from Burger King (XL Bacon Double Cheese meal and an Angry Whopper) and a second one from Starbucks (Caramel Cream Frappucinno, Lemon Cookie and a Cinnamon Swirl) we had to go and check in. then began an hour of waiting in a highly dull queue, where the only entertainment was the fact that the Jelly babies had arrived behind us, and that our line was moving faster than Sar and Ed’s. We got the bags weighed in and were directed towards the oversize baggage area for the bikes. It was noted with interest (and not a little amusement) by Artur that with a 32kg limit on the baggage, my bike weighed in at 31.6kg
The girl running the desk for oversize bags was a little slow and stroppy, which combined with the fact that she was berating us for being late, as the flight was now boarding, sent Sar into a little spin. Hoping to avoid an international incident, we got them checked in and headed off for the x-rays. I cheated a little here and tagged on to the back of Sar and Ed in order to jump the queues and get a little ahead of the game. Through the checks and looked up at the screen in departures to check which gate we needed, only to find that the flight was delayed for an hour. Sar managed to almost contain her fury, so we sent her off to the toilets, and waited for the others to come through.
All met up again and headed to Pret for the others to grab a bite to eat, Artur then went shopping for a new t-shirt, having thrown his food down himself, and wisely chose to come back with a white one. We finally got called through for boarding and headed down toward the gate. Having queued up for about half an hour whilst those with priority boarding went through, we were informed that we were going to a different gate so had to pack up and hike across to the far side of the terminal. Having arrived, and gotten into the queue, we were told to move the queue and found ourselves suddenly at the back again. This did at least give us the opportunity to watch our luggage being loaded onto the aircraft (as well as the crew getting off, going to a different plane, then coming back, at least twice) and see the poor man struggling to lift my iron bike onto the ramp.
When we finally got onto the plane, Artur had let us down completely. Instead of the lovely group of first class seating that I had been led to expect, we were split up and made to sit in with the great unwashed of the general populace, I felt right at home.
An hour and a half of Wizz Air piloting and we were in Poland, albeit with a sense of dread as to the state that our bikes would have arrived in. The trip through the airport was fairly straightforward and we seemed to have all the bags etc so we headed for the car rental desks. Considering that we had pre-booked everything (ignoring the fact that JB forgot his driving licence) this seemed to take an inordinate amount of time. When we finally got the keys and headed outside I was just about ready for bed. I mentioned that Artur had booked a restaurant, well we were starting to look like we would not only miss our reservation, but that the place would actually be closed by the time we got there. Ben and I loaded ours, Ed and Sar’s stuff into our tour bus (a Renault Traffic) and then watched politely as Artur exclaimed that the boot on his Ford Focus was ginourmous and that he wouldn’t even need to drop the rear seats. We then watched hysterically as he failed to even get the box through the opening.
Somehow, he and JB managed to get the box into the car (with the seats down), and hopped in. Mrs JB and Mrs Kwerty jumped into their Vauxhall Corsa and the rest of us boarded the tour bus and a the convoy set off. I managed, in the space of a 500yd journey to the barrier, to lose the ticket that I needed to get out and caused a minor delay but then we were away.
The roads were pretty good, but then we were on a dual carriageway, by an airport, on the edge of a city. We soon passed a team of roadworkers doing some line painting. I say passed, but narrowly avoided is probably closer. Talk about efficiency, they pulled up, hopped out, stuck 2 cones in the road, painted, and left! 5 minutes for what would probably take half a day or more in the UK. (We didn’t stop and watch for the whole job by the way, I observed this over the course of the trip, they were just the first example.)
We followed the ladies, who followed the boys (just like when I was at school really) and proceeded on out into the polish countryside. It was a particularly pleasant landscape, and despite the fact that it had been a long day, I was feeling pretty good about things. I spotted what I thought was a deer in a field and pointed it out, only to realise that it was a rhea. I didn’t know that they were native to Europe at all, and still have to find time to look that up…
The drive to Sierakow took about a hour, when we turned onto the bike course (Artur had pre-warned us of where this was) my jaw dropped. If anything the roads had improved since leaving Poznan, but this was like silk. Proper HRA (for those that understand) and it couldn’t have been more that 2 years old at most. Immaculate. In fact, I noted later that there was only one pot hole on the entire 22.5km bike loop. The course looked great, just gentle rolling up and down, and gorgeous countryside. Getting closer, we spotted the lake and the beach that we knew we were starting from, then as we rounded the corner to the main drag by the T1 exit there were barriers on the roadside, triathlon flags, banners on bridges and a huge sense of excitement in the tour bus.
Accommodation was 10km outside of Sierakow (or about 30km according to Mrs JB) through a lovely woodland area. We found our way easily enough and Artur did a shady deal to get us all in the same block of cottages, away from most of the other guests. We located Kris, our norweigan ringer, and shot off for dinner at the restaurant that we expected, by now, to be shut. Rocking up at about half 9 for an 8 o clock reservation, not only were we allowed in, but they stayed open late just for us. We were treated to some polish hospitality with a selection of treats as picked out by our resident expert, and as a true Englishman, I have no idea what I ate and made no attempt to even try and learn any lingo, but had a great night.
Getting back to the accommodation, Ben and I were given our own cottage. I think that people thought we might need some privacy to rekindle our love, and they were right. At one in the morning we were building bikes in the lounge, and loving it.
The house was basic, but clean and had everything we needed. There were 5 beds, in two bedrooms, a lounge with sofas, woodburner and TV, a dining table and chairs, kitchenette with sink, microwave, fridge and kettle, a toilet/shower room, and a verandah with table and chairs and a bbq.
Having grabbed a room each we eventually went to sleep.
The morning saw us all congregate for the first time in Chalet Kwiakowski. Artur had been shopping and collected some coffee and #mmmcake for breakfast, along with some sausage breadrolls, and porridge oats. So we filled up and laughed at him when we noticed that he had also fallen into the fold and built his bike the previous night after seeing Ben and I doing so. We grabbed our wetsuits and id’s and headed off to Sierakow to register.
The preparations for the tri were continuing, with zebra crossings being refreshed, the pontoon being redecked and more flags and banners going up everywhere. We signed on and were given our race packs. We had proper numbered competitor wristbands, race numbers, numbered swim hats, a bag of pasta, a bag of crisp type things, a pen, a rucksack, a glossy brochure and a timing chip. We could see the barrels of beer lying around ready for the following day, and I could tell that everyone was starting to get thirsty. We had a quick look around the expo, and Ben managed to limit himself to just getting some CO2 and an adapter.
A short walk downhill to the lake showed us just how unfriendly the run to T1 was going to be, 500yds with the first 50 being near vertical. But the lake was beautiful, simply stunning. Mrs JB decided that she wanted to go for a run, so decided to do the 10km back to the accommodation whilst we swam and shopped, so she trotted off, we got sorted and went in for a dip.
I have to admit that I struggled with swimming at this point.
I couldn’t catch my breath properly, my suit was uncomfortable, my goggles leaked, I couldn’t swim in a straight line, and I just generally wasn’t happy with my ability.
We swam out to a boat that was sitting about 300yds or so out and then decided to go back. I managed to swim the whole way in to the shore much better than I had been doing until then.
We reconvened back on the lakeside and separated into a shopping team and a racing team. Those of us who deemed ourselves to be true athletes did a tour of the bike course in the tour bus and then headed back to the accommodation and got our bikes ready to bring them back for racking. I think that it was about this time that I decided that I probably wasn’t going to do very well, but it wasn’t worth worrying about. I started to chill out, despite the fact that to Bens enthusiastic piss taking, I had managed to destroy one of my valve extenders and was struggling like hell to get a tyre inflated. Fortunately my lanky lover had a couple of spares and catastrophe was narrowly avoided.
The shoppers got back with some food for teatime and asked how Laura had got on. We hadn’t been around to the back cottages so hadn’t seen her. We got back to Mandering with the bikes.
About half an hour later, Artur and JB pulled into the car park and asked us if we’d drive back toward Sierakow to see if we could spot Laura, as she still hadn’t made it back. I’ll be honest, JB looked a little panicked.
We shoved the bikes inside and jumped into the bus. It wasn’t really your ideal search and rescue vehicle, although it was probably the same size as some of the Thunderbird craft, and the same colour as Thunderbird 1 too actually. An hour and a half of driving around some very lovely countryside feeling more and more sick was interesting. I don’t really fancy doing it again. Ben was my communications officer and was in near constant contact with JB, although the messages we were getting got more and more erratic and illegible. Finally we got one that said they’d found her, to say that I felt relieved would be a minor understatement, but we headed home.
Laura was pretty apologetic, but I was just glad that she was ok really. I did comment that I was more relieved that I hadn’t rescinded my request to ‘don’t get raped by a bear’ but that was only half true.
The BCTTT assault team saddled up and headed back to Sierakow with the bikes. There was definite difference in pace between the group members, which was partly added to by two people riding in with their rear brakes bound on. Most of the journey was done at a steady, sensible, pace but then Ben woke up and started riding in his usual style, sprint for 30 seconds and then blow up. For some reason this prompted Artur to give it a spin up as well, and that was just a red rag to me so we played for a few km’s.
Just outside transition the Shimano Poland crew were doing tune ups, so we made use of their expertise to remove a load of packaging from inside of Kris’ forks and then went to rack. Entry to transition involved having your numbers written on arms and legs and a photo taken with your bike, although Ben insisted on just marching in and upsetting the poor lady. Once in it was fairly easy to locate the numbered positions, which each had a small box in which to deposit your kit. I racked the bike and left my helmet in the box and we went off to the race briefing. This was largely unintelligible, mainly due to the fact that I don’t understand Polish, but you got the general idea. We decided to skip the pasta party, so as people charged toward the poor serving girls at the back of the hall we went back out to meet Anna with the car. By shoving Kris into the boot (where he managed to fall asleep) we all squeezed into the gigantinourmous Focus and drove back to a glorious pasta and bolognese dinner.
I think it would be fair to say that a fair number of nerves were in evidence, and I am fairly sure that Artur was the owner of most. Me, I just grabbed all my kit, shoved it in a bag, and relaxed.
It would be disengenuous to claim that I slept well.
I didn’t.
About 3 hours I think I got, but I guess that’s better than nothing.
Out of bed, trisuit on, calf guards on, tracky bottoms and a fleece jersey over that. Porridge breakfast. Coffee (with caffeine). Ben insisted on squeezing additional tattoos onto me, so I ended up with one on each knee and one on each hand. Bags out to the bus, everyone else arrived and we set off.
The others were going to meet us later, so we parked up near the HQ and wend off to transition to sort out the rest of our kit. There were some seriously fast looking people hanging around, and surprisingly I didn’t class myself as one of them. I had decided that although I’d set myself a target of going sub 6, I was more realistically looking at about 7:30, based on how I was feeling, but that idea of just relaxing and enjoying the event had taken over and I knew that as long as I finished, and enjoyed taking part I would be happy with 8 hours.
We took our bags and clothes back to the bus and locked them up. I suggested that Kris take the key and pop it into his kit in transition as he would likely be first back. Having struggled into the wetsuits, we popped to the ToiToi’s for a quick pre-race drain down. I decided to test drive the facility to the full, and following a fairly mild attack of AD, emerged to find that not only had my companions diappeared, but so had everybody else too! Thinking that I was likely to start this race in a similar vein to Swashbuckler, where Scotty, JB and I were all so late to the start that we weren’t even in the river for a deep water start, I headed down the mountain toward the beach.
I caught up with the others at the bottom and we milled around on the sand for a bit, I obviously would have had time to go back to the ToiToi again, had I so needed. But fortunately that was unnecessary, and soon the support crew arrived. Kisses and cuddles were duly bestowed and we marched ourselves proudly into the start pen.
There were a lot of people there, both racing and watching. The atmosphere was fantastic, and the music that the organisers played just heightened the tension.
I must admit that, as many odd outfits as I saw, I never noticed either the cannon, or the 2 guys in fancy military outfits that fired it, but fire it they did and there was a mad dash for the water. As a fan of the old tale of the tortoise and the hare, I calmly walked down and into the lake, wetted my goggles and put them on, and when the water was waist deep I dove in and started swimming.
It was sh!t.*
After the race there was a well set out finishers area screened off from the general public so that you could recuperate slightly before needing to be carried home. I had passed Artur and Kris sunning themselves on the handily provided deck chairs here earlier on my way through so was able to easily locate them and collapse into a chair myself. I soon had to force myself to rise, however, in order to go and claim my free burger, to which I felt entitled by now. There were tables laid out in a marquis with rows and rows of water and sports drinks, and tray upon tray of fresh fruit, but the main queue seemed to be for the burger, beer, and ice cream which each competitor was awarded. By the time I had finished my slice of cow, Ben was making his way to the finish line, and I enthusiastically cheered him in, spraying my last mouthful of food everywhere, only just realising, and still not quite believing, that he hadn’t lapped me earlier on the run after all. That just left Sar out on the course, suffering.
Ben too had had enough by the finish. He looked absolutely ruined, and greeted us with ‘I’m never f*cking doing that shi*t again!’ He went off to find a burger and a beer, and I collected my ice cream, and my beer (which I passed over to Artur – still going strong on that front at least) and we returned to the relative comfort of the deck chairs to wait for Sar. A marshall came round and jabbered at us that we had to get our bikes out of transistion as they wanted to start racking for the next days race, I think Artur told him that we were still waiting for Sar and he wandered off. I have to say that that was the only disappointment of the whole event, I understand wanting ti give people time to get set up, after all we’d had it the day before, but there were still people racing and it didn’t seem really fair to be pushing us already. Sar came rocketing into the finish looking about as happy as James Corden in a slimfast advert, and the feed regime was repeated again before we headed off to collect our stuff.
We hobbled our way back to the tour bus and removed the front wheels from the bikes to get them into the boot, I’m pretty sure that Artur was as nervous that his bike was going to get damaged on the way back as he was about his race earlier in the morning. But loaded up, we made our way back to the houses, where we were soon met by the support crew (who had been fantastic all day) and the welcome news that there were a dozen pizzas ordered and on their way soon.
Ben grabbed the first shower, which I gladly ceded to him, however, in hindsight this was a huge mistake as by the time I went to grab a shower, there was absolutely no hot water left at all. Let me just impart a piece of very, very, important knowledge here. After a really tough half ironman, when you’re tired, hungry, and basically feel near death, a cold shower is not a pleasant experience.
That done, I threw some compression tights on and a little additional clothing for the sake of modesty, and with the arrival of pizza the team congregated on the verandah of our little house and tucked in to some really good junk food. I think I probably demolished a whole pizza and a half myself, and these were not small, individual ones! With the sun starting to fall to the point that it was causing more blindness than anything else, we adjourned to the back premises, Chez Kwerty where there was a concerted effort to persuade JB to race in the morning. He seemed to have gotten a bit of an itch from watching us during the day, and with the application of copious amounts of Polish beer and a lot of winding up, Laura deciding to do the swim, and a vast collection of borrowed kit, we got him to the point of a commitment to give it a whirl in the morning.
That done, we all retired to our dorms for a good nights rest.
Nope, crap sleep again.
But I was pretty sure in the morning that I felt better than JB. He’d had a reasonable intake of beer, which combined with an excess of sun, I was fairly sure would have him feeling tender. Artur had gotten up early and taken JB and Laura in to Sierakow to get ready, so after a quick nosh we followed after in the bus. We parked up fairly close to the HQ and walked down to the beach with plenty of time to go. There was some inter-Kwerty texting going on to try and locate Artur and the JB’s, but to no avail. Then we spotted them in the start pen, doing a little dancing. Laura looked really keen and excited, JB looked poorly. The music and build up to the start was the same as the day before, but it still seemed to be just as atmospheric and when the cannon went off (and I’d seen both it and the crew this time) the rush to the water was great to watch. Our two champions seemed a little more leisurely in their start, ambling down, dipping a toe, slowly wading out, and, with a final high five, beginning their splash. I wondered if I had managed to get in as leisurely the previous day.
Within seconds, it became impossible to pick them out of the churning mass of arms, legs and heads, so having watched the second wave start we wondered over to a purveyor of nutritious delights and purchased ourselves some #mmmcake. Coffee and waffles is a great second breakfast, fact.
Our renewal of fuel stores managed to see us through to meeting up with Artur, twenty yards away at the bottom of the slope that was part of the swim exit to T1 torture trail. There were a few people already coming out of the swim, looking fresh, and running up that hill. The sort of people that make me feel sick with their enthusiasm and ability, you know, people like Cregg. The ones that remind you just how fat, slow and unfit you really are. B*stards! Anyway, about 2 or 3 hours later, JB emerged from the water, like Shamu attempting to splash everyone in the front row. He came around the corner smiling and joking with us, I think to hide the fact that he knew he now had to not only climb this flippin mountain, but that he then faced the prospect of 45km on Sar’s shopping bike. The look in his eyes as he turned towards the climb was haunted, and I think that at this point my wetsuit was probably in a state where had it been poked with a pin it would have burst like an over inflated balloon. We watched JB drag himself, seemingly on hands and knees, away to the transition area.
Laura was out of the water not long after and despite confusing the hell out of everybody by walking back into all the oncoming traffic, looking for a way out of the race, she managed to escape successfully and was able to join us in our trek up to the roadside. Laura looked pretty fresh after the swim, and seemed to have really enjoyed herself.
We got up to the road and positioned ourselves about a hundred yards before the bike entrance/exit, meaning that we would see people pass us at the end of the loops. It wasn’t long before the first bike shot past like a rocket. It was a bling racing tandem, with the events only blind competitor as a stoker on the back. The speed of the thing was incredible, but then both riders looked like they were properly fast athletes.
A procession of bikes passed us, both expensive TT types, and 1970’s steel road bikes were represented, as was everything in between. The majority of people seemed to be on road bikes, and about half of them had clip-on bars added. My favourite bike was probably the lovely blue Speed Concept with the guy doing one leg drills due to only having the one crank attached to the bike. It was a tense wait for JB to arrive, but eventually, arrive he did. He still looked terrible but put on a great show for us, even getting out of the saddle and giving it the beans as he passed. To my disappointment, he managed to not fall off the bike in front of us, and carried on to his second loop. We watched a few more people pass and then meandered over to see the faster of the guys starting out on the run. This involved a brief stop off for another burger as well, before finding ourselves a spot to stand for the runners.
We started out by the T2 exit and waited patiently for JB to come through. Obviously he’d had a full loop of the bike to complete still and it took a while before he came into view, but when he did, he was a sight to behold. He had changed from the comedy walrus costume into a more becoming outfit of club tri shorts and red event t-shirt for the challenge of riding a purple, child size bike, and had clashed horribly, but now with a white hat and trainers he looked formidable. In fact, as I picture him now, I think that he would have only looked better had he been able to tear the t-shirt open and expose some chest rug, making him look more like a short haired BeeGee, or a racing Hobbit. Outfit aside though, he exuded power. This was where his transferable fitness from the weightlifting would come into its own. This was his moment. This was when he realised that 40 minutes of lunges the day before was a complete mistake.
We provided him with the obligatory rousing cheer, and watched him trot off into the woods, before moving to a second part of the course nearby where we would be able to see him again. I think we may have been the loudest group of supporters at the event, which is unusual for a BCTTT crew, but despite that we appeared to be a welcome sight to many of the runners, who took a visible lift from our support as they ran towards us, and then slowed again when we stopped cheering the instant they were past. It was all going well for a while, then whilst attempting to film the incredible chest motion of some few participants, Kris decided to start removing JB’s competition for him. We had been given some plastic, clappy hand type, noisemakers by one of the sponsors, and had been utilising then to great effect in our jubilations. Kris, however, found a way to get nasty. As the poor victim approached our location with an increasing level of deafness from the cheering we provided, Kris savagely assaulted him, by launching one clappy hand directly into the fellows forehead. I haven’t looked at all of the finishers pics, but I have no doubt that there is one of a gent with a small hand shaped imprint, smack bang in the centre of his forehead looking quite glassy eyed and hunting down some medical aid. Kris of course tried to claim that the device had broken accidentally, and that it wasn’t malicious, but I saw the look in his eyes, and I know different.
Assault and battery aside, I think that our little pod of madness was quite well received. We managed to spot JB from about 50 yards away and cheered him on through. He seemed to have decided to strip off halfway round and had removed a tri top from underneath his t-shirt, and took the opportunity to fling it to Artur on his way past, who looked delighted to have such an item slapping him in the face.
We soon found that the hardest thing to do, was to get away from the position we were in because we didn’t want to be seen to be not supporting people, and every time we went to move, someone else appeared. Eventually we just broke and ran, moving back up to the top in time to cheer JB through again on to his second and final lap. He got past us to the aid station then slowed to a walk for a bit, but I was confident that he was hiding his true form. We moved back to the lower path and continued to deafen everyone that passed. Some weeks later JB got around to our position and we delightedly greeted him. Kris had gotten mischievous again though, and under the pretence of trying to film him with the GoPro, managed to run alongside him and nearly push him off the path down the hillside. How JB stayed upright I’m still not entirely sure.
We moved back up the hill again to the finish chute area, and having laughed earlier at the fast finishers tripping over the barrier hidden behind the inflatable archway at the turn around, I was pleased to see that these had now been removed and the way was clear for our hero to finish cleanly and triumphantly. And what a finish it was, he strode into view like a goliath, a magnificent specimen of a man. If I though for a instant that I had a chance of winning, I would have fought Laura at that point to have him for myself. He was just majestic.
Turning into the final straight, he moved across and high fived us all (though I could tell that there was more love in mine than anyone else’s) and belted his way to the line. A glorious finish.
Once JB had claimed his burger etc, and we had all treated ourselves to more food, we collected kit and vehicles and headed back to the housing for a quick refresh and some frantic dismantling and packing of bikes. Then it was all aboard the bus for a trip to Poznan, which had an absolutely beautiful central square, with a collection of statues (one of which was gracefully imitated by Ben and myself) and a couple of nightclubs called GoGo, and Deep GoGo. I feel that should we ever return, we must make every effort to explore the local culture and sample some Deep GoGo. Artur had booked us a table at a restaurant, so after a drink at one of the numerous bars in the square, we made our way into somewhere that seemed far to posh for the likes of us. An evening filled with great food, great beer (for everyone but me) and great company, was highlighted with exceptional value. Four courses with drinks came in at only £22 per head!
We finally headed back home, arriving back about midnight, and began frantically packing as Ben, Sar, Ed and I had to leave at half 3 to get back to the airport. Funnily enough there wasn’t a great deal of sleep that night either. I had found that my right foot had become quite painful in the morning and had gotten a bit worse throughout the day. I had struggled a bit with the walking around Poznan, and more so with the drive back, but it got much worse whilst I was packing and it was that, more than anything else that kept me from sleeping. I found myself almost crying with pain at one point. I knocked back some painkillers at about 3 and hoped they would help.
The drive back to Poznan was bad. My foot was agony all the way, but we got there, and then I decided to ignore the satnav instruction to turn right and we ended up hacking our way through some sort of ghetto to get back to the airport. We arrived, disembarked and headed in.
Sar kindly dropped the keys back to the rental desk at the other end of the terminal for me, as I was struggling to keep up with the others, and Ben was no help as he was too busy laughing at me. In fact he took every opportunity to make us walk as far as possible from then on. Only pointing out the toilets at the far end of the lounge, making us get on the far end of the plane, and then move back through the length of the cabin again etc. Wizz air did their thing again and we got back to Luton fairly promptly.
It has to be said that the staff at arrivals were a completely different breed to those in departures, and couldn’t do enough to help. Having negotiated the biometric passport machines (which are a damned sight slower than going through the normal check, cue more laughing from Ben) we were eventually reunited with our luggage and made our way out to the bus pick up for the car parking. Getting 3 bike boxes on the one bus was interesting, and we ended up just putting them into the disabled spot opposite the racking and Ben stood with them to keep them in place. We had a fairly amusing trip, due to the fact that Mr Angry, the bus driver, had turned on his little PA system so we could all listen to his rant about how unfair it was that his son couldn’t get a job when he had applied for at least three in the last six months!
That done, and back at the car park, we collected keys, loaded up, and went our separate ways.
This trip was an amazing success, mainly down to the efforts of Mr A. Kwiatkowski. He organised the unorganisable, enthused the unenthusiastic, and was a generally good egg. I absolutely loved everything about the trip, and as soon as I get WAT sign off I will be entering again for next year.
Thanks Artur.
* I suppose I ought to expand on this a little…
I said earlier that my early swim the day before had been a little mixed. Well it had led me to expect the worst in the race. As it turned out it was ok.
Starting slow, at the back had given me some fairly clear water around me to get settled into a rhythm and I had an easily identifiable crown to follow toward the first buoy. I quickly found myself overtaking people and told myself to reign it in a bit, as I was likely to blow up if not. The first buoy seemed to take an age to get to, and as we got nearer, I found myself getting squeezed up a bit more by others starting to move in closer for the turn. Amusingly, I did at one point find myself lifting my head to sight and nearly kissing the back of someone’s head as I had swum up over the top of them without realising.
Around the turn, things spread out a bit again. I found this the hardest stretch because I seemed to be out on the left hand side, with nobody else there to reassure me that I wasn’t going the wrong way, and no even sided shoreline nearby to sight off of, meaning that I had to keep taking my bearings off of the distant buoy. Confusingly for me, every time that I raised my head to sight, I was still pointed dead on the right bearing. I still can’t believe this, I must’ve been snaking everywhere, but it just happened that my sighting coincided with being pointed the right way.
Around the second buoy was much easier, and I headed for the swim exit. This was easy to sight on and I found myself swimming alone (or so it felt) towards the shore. I swam right in until my knees were almost hitting the sand and then stood. A quick wake of dizziness hit me, which was a first, and surprising as I felt I had been kicking way more than I normally do. But two strapping lads grabbed me, and near flung me out onto the concrete. I was pretty sure that running up that hill was not going to happen for me so started walking my way toward transition. I spotted the cheerleaders on the side, who told me that Ben was a few minutes in front. I wasn’t surprised. At the top of the hill I made sure that my wetsuit was down around my waist, and broke into a trot. Well maybe a canter. Into transition, noting that Bens bike was still there (the lying toads) up to my spot and started my routine.
Now, it may be that it’s a good idea. It may be that it’s because I’m more used to pool based tris. It may be that I was in a bit of oxygen debt and not thinking clearly. Or it may be that I’m an idiot. But for whatever reason my transition went like this;
Swim cap and goggles into box
Helmet on
Glasses on
Quick swig of nuun
Grab bike
Wetsuit off
Leave
Yes, that’s right. The last thing I did in transition, even after de-racking my bike, was take my wetsuit off.
Still, at least I actually did take it off.
The route out to the mount line was along a section of grasscrete. The organisers had covered this with some carpet style matting but it was still unpleasant, so I didn’t rush it. I had my shoes attached to the bike, so once out onto the road I moved to the left of the couple of blokes that had just stopped in front of me, and with the elegance of a landed walrus I hopped onto the bike and away.
The start of the course is a lovely long, downhill stretch past the first aid station, along a tree lined avenue. Having elected to try a radical new nutrition strategy on the bike I started my race with a bottle of nuun in transition with my kit, but no drink on my bike, just some jelly beans and some dried pineapple. I had planned to grab some Oshee sports drink from the aid station at 20km into the bike and refill from there on, but as I came down the road, the aid station situated almost directly opposite the bike exit was already open for business, so I grabbed one early. Down the road about a hundred yards or so and I got my feet into my shoes nice and easily, strapped up and away.
We had driven the course so I knew where I was going, and exactly what to expect, but for some reason the lovely rolling road had turned into the alps. Each gentle little rise was suddenly a mountain pass and I felt like I needed to get off and walk. By about 5km in I was sarting to feel a bit better, I think the legs were waking up and I started to get into my stride. My Garmin had gone from 15-18mph up to a more regular 25-28mph and I was flying past people. The hills may have been slightly tougher than I had anticipated, but this course suited me down to the ground and I was loving it. My enjoyment was mildly tainted after about 15km when I went to drink some of my Oshee, I hadn’t realised that it was mildly carbonated, and when I opened it I wound up getting covered all down the right side of my face, my right arm and right hand bars and brake levers. Kevy would have loved it, all warm and sticky. Before I knew it I was back at the HQ and the BCTTT support crew were whooping loudly as I flew past. I grabbed some gels from the aid station and continued onward, destroying the field with my ferocity.
I was loving the fact that I was able to pass people, and felt that my work on the bike was probably starting to pay off. Some others were trying a bit too hard in my opinion, and others not enough. Nobody else but me seemed inclined to pedal down the hills, so I was holding much more speed and was going back up the following hill at the same speed that everyone else was coming down. I enjoyed watching one guy coming out of the turnaround point so keenly, that he not only ran wide enough to ride onto the dirt verge on the side, but went almost straight across and started riding his own little cyclocross route for about 30 yard or so.
When I came past the HQ again the cheerleaders had disappeared for some sustenance but I suddenly realised that I was likely to affect my run if I continued on at this pace, so I took myself outside and had a bit of a word, then with a slight lessening of pace I turned my attention toward the third loop. I went a bit easier on this one, and tried to maintain a bit of energy, but it was all too tempting to power up again, so when the final loop began, with cheering hordes of BCTTT’ers egging me on, I gave in to my more carnal desires and ripped up the last loop. I knew that I’d already blown my running legs by this point so determined to get a good lap in and show a decent bike split at least.
About 8km round the final loop, I passed Sar, spinning away quite merrily on her bike. I gave her a little ‘woof’ as I passed, and pressed on, hoping to catch Ben before the end. I really enjoyed that last lap, especially the last 5km, where there are two lovely long descents where you can really build up some speed. I was really rocketing down the last one and round the corner, carrying so much speed in toward the finish, that I clean forgot to take my feet out of my shoes. Realising at the last minute, I hurriedly got myself sorted and narrowly missed riding straight into the back of someone in front as he dismounted. A nimble leap (yeah, right) saw me off and trotting back to the grasscrete. At this point it became a walk, the surface was just too unfriendly for me but I was back in transition.
A bit more organised this time, I racked the bike and sat myself down comfortably to take off the helmet, fire up and put on my Garmin,don a pair of socks and trainers, and have a drink. I then stood up, popped my running visor on and walked out to the run course, turning my number belt round at the instruction given by a marshall – possibly the only time I understood anything said to me in polish.
The run course was brutal. There is no other way to describe it. A mix of tarmac, concrete, paving, dirt trails and sand, with never more than 50 yards of flat terrain before a rise or descent of some type, and a concrete ‘Jacobs ladder’ type wheelchair ramp that even, helpfully, had it’s own false flat in the middle, just to really get to you.
I started out with an aim of running somewhere around 2.45. I’d done under 2 and a half in training, but that was a standalone run, not a tri. Ambling along I realised after about the first kilometre that my Garmin hadn’t actually clocked up any distance. It had started, but obviously couldn’t get a signal, so I’d have no idea how far in I was or how my pacing was going. Then I noticed that there were markers every kilometre anyway, and I could measure off them on my stopwatch, brilliant. I cracked on and managed to hold myself at a fairly steady pace, knocking out both the first and second 5km loops in a Mo Farah-esque 40 minutes each. At about 11km Ben came trotting past me, complaining bitterly about the harshness of the run. My heart sank a little, I was glad that he was suffering too (not in an evil way, well not too much anyway), but I was pretty disappointed to have fallen behind. I think I started to walk a bit more after that. I’d been doing a sort of semi regular run-walk to that point but I think I got a bit low there and the walks started to increase.
Artur came past about 5 minutes later and I gave hime some abuse for taking so long to lap me. Again, I was a little saddened to be shown up so much, but was really happy for him that he was putting in such a strong performance. He looked to be completely at ease, and I told him that if he pushed he should be able to catch Ben by the end. He trotted off, and I continued my miserable trudge.
Somehow I managed to maintain my pace so that I knocked out another 40 minute lap I think, but the last one was not. There was little running involved in the final loop, and there were very few competitors around to give me any sort of mental stimulation. The only thing that got me running at all on that lap, was the fact that with the reduced number of runners about now, the snakes started to come out. I think I saw 5 or 6 in total, but 2 of them were of a size that there was no way I was not running away from them. Sar passed me at about 18km by the aid station, her knee seemed to be holding up and she was still going strong, especially as she hadn’t thought she’d be able to run at all. This was the first time that I felt any real issues, my calves both cramped and I had to stretch them out a bit. I think I was struggling in the heat a bit, but amused one of the Polish ladies supporting by walking blindly on straight into the marker tape, rather than turning right with the course. Finally I found myself on the final stretch and stumbled my way across the line and into the corral.
[Bopo] #poty2014
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