The battlefield, Allerthorpe Lakeland park, home not only of this event, but the Allerthorpe Classic (August's event) and the Sundowner (the grand finale in September).
Jon's verdict:
Battle of the Dinosaurs
Stage 7
Allerthorpe Sprint Triathlon
Near Pocklington, just outside York
Flat scenic course, marshals on corners/junctions
Technical T-shirt
Time waits for no man, as we arrive at the next stage in the BotD. A nice Open water sprint triathlon, 750/20k/5k. Held at the lovely venue of Allerthorpe boating lake. It is only a small lake, but clean, shallow, plenty of buoys to aim for. I have raced the sprint and the OD here before, so course details are on previous race reports.
The race would be close, given the previous triathlon and recent TTs. With the race being run in three waves, starting at 9:00am and then at five minute intervals, I would be off in the second wave and Jack the third, and with the run being an out and back, we would be able to judge our relative places as we pass each other on the run. As Jack has been doing Park runs, and his time at the last triathlon, I could hazard a rough estimate when we pass as to who had the advantage.
For the preceding week, I had been working on the variables, race strategy, and the approximate crossing point, however, deep in the recess of my mind I had a niggling thought that as soon as I hit the turn around, I would be met by Jacks smiling race, as I dropped to my knees, arms raised aloft, shouting " Nooooooooo ". Whilst Barbers' Adagio for strings starts playing in the back ground.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bY3art3_eF8
We met up at race briefing, and discussed, well discussed things.
The swim.
The swim would be a one and a half lap affair, in order to prevent bunching, and to spread the field out, the second wave would be set off just as the first wave had completed a lap, and the third wave just as the second wave had completed their first lap, which wouldn't be five minutes, but slightly more, so reassessment of time gain would be only a best guesstimate.
The first wave went off, and we waited for them to do the circuit, as they passed the start, we we're let loose.
Basically, I had a lousy swim, you can't win a triathlon from the swim, but you can lose one. I just didn't get in the groove, a coughing fit, had one of the safety canoeists asking if I was okay, gave them the thumbs up, and carried on, it was laborious, no smooth motion, just a bad swim. Time lost in the swim, can't be made up, no point in gunning it on the bike, the run be a nightmare. Best pace for best time.
Exiting the water the time showed a dreadful swim.
T1.
Rather than blast through transition, I opted to re focus and not let the swim play on my mind. Relax, be methodical, take my time, re focus. So slightly slow transition, but it played its part.
Bike.
A flat course, is not an easy course. There is no respite, just constant effort. For such a flat course, it is surprising how many competitors treated it as a social ride, hands on the hoods. No one passed me apart from one rider which I had over taken around the nine mile point ( drafting ? ). For those doing the Sundowner, the path from transition to the road is a gravel path covered by a blue carpet, this carpet is getting thin, you are warned.
The wind was fickle, at each turn you expected a tailwind, only to be met with a stronger head wind, the joy of the lazy Yorkshire wind. Other than the rider behind me, I didn't see any evidence of drafting, as the swim waves were a mix of various age groups, and the numbers didn't correspond, drafting would be pointless. So a fair race.
All too soon, back to race central.
T2.
In, rack bike, helmet off, out.
Run.
Out and back course, exit the water park, hobble down the road and take a left, I wanted to be passing Jack going in the opposite direction before this junction,on my return, to be sure of race victory. I was consistently over taken by other runners, not my greatest moment. The day was warming up, the run route took the runners down quiet rural roads, plenty of room, to pass if needed, 2.5km the turn around, water if required, but declined, and back to race Central, no sign of Jack yet, 500m to the next turn, around the turn and still no sign of Jack. Could I get to the junction before him, had he had a great swim and a blistering bike, still looking, 600m to the junction and I see Jack , not the comfort zone I needed. We mumble a few words and go our separate ways. I was going at my best pace, unable to go faster, speed up a death of a thousand knives would be swift.
Quick wave at the event photographer, and totally ruined the photo for the runner in front, oooops.
No acceleration towards the finish, but across the line, and start the stopwatch.
The aftermath.
Time expansion and contraction is a known phenomenon, lose time when you need it, gain time when you don't, want time to pass quickly, it never does. Five minutes goes by, six, seven, I am working on ten minutes between waves not five, as ten minutes passes by, Armen Van Buuren's Adaggio for Strings comes over the P.A. Oh the irony, eleven minutes and a flash of yellow goes streaking past, taking one runner, holding off another, glancing at the watch, it would be close.
Time sheets collected and we compare notes.
A very narrow victory for Jon.E, an excellent race by Jack, I was lucky, very lucky.
What positives can I take from this, for me it was a hollow victory, I got some time back, but not enough, the run did provide even splits of 7:56, 7:55,7:53. So the pace was even. But I just need to reassess the next Battles.
Basically, I am behind now, reconfiguring the projected times, and I would happily bet money on the opposition, extinction beckons as the bell tolls.
And now for JH:
The race venue is a great one. Roads are quiet, facilities nice. Big camping ground. And it is pancake flat.
Early start on race day. Alarm at 4:45. Breakfast at 5. Working on eating 4 hours before race start for tris. Lovely day. Temperture already at 14 degrees, and rising to 16.5 by the time I arrive at 7:10am. Plenty of time to drive round the bike course. It's technical, and I want to get a feel for conditions. The plan is to go without any spares. So I want to minismise the chance of getting any punctures. Which means getting a feel for road surfaces and potholes. Most of the course is on little country lanes. A bit of nice tarmac to a motor sports venue. Very twisty and poor surfaces through a village. A few corners and junctions that I will need to get off the tribars for. I set the trip meter to 0 and got a feel for the distances and where the turns were. Definitely a short 20k at just over 11 miles. Into the car park, register and make the final decisions on what shoes to use etc. Get racked, relax in the sunshine before getting the wet suit on and heading to the briefing. Meet up with john talk about random stuff. Then move to the start.
So, here I am lining up for another open water swim race. The fifth I have done.
I needed to by a new wetsuit for this year, as the old one fell apart during the relays in 2011.
What I really wanted was free speed. So exploiting some of club discounts, I got a good deal on about the most expensive on the market - still rather a lot though.
I had the chance to test it before, and ended up with steamed up goggles and a fairly miserable time. All good prep. So, really got to grips with the anti-fog spray. Given the googles a few treatments over the previous 24 hours.
I probably should have been nervous about the OW swim, but with the Iron distance swim in the lake district looming over me (just three weeks away!), it seemed all too insignificant.
Essentially, this race was about having a practice "race pace" swim. I wasn't going to treat it like a 750m sprint, just get used to swimming at Iron Man pace. But just get out after 20 minutes, instead of 90.
In terms of the overall BotD race, I've basically played my hand. All the victories should go to Jon.e now, as we have events that play to his strength. He had taken 3 minutes out of me over the 400m swim in the last tri, and this was nearly double that. So I wanted to limit my losses to five minutes in the swim. The hilly course of the previous tri suited me. At about the same height and 2.5 stone lighter, I float up the hills, relatively speaking. So I would probably lose a minute or two on the bike, and the advantage in the run would be diminished. And then there are the transitions.
I had put a guestimated time of 20 minutes for the swim. This was enough to get me in the remedial wave, 3 of 3. Fastest off first, then a long wait to ensure that the waves would smash into each other, with each wave needing to cross the path of the other - one to exit, the other to carry on round the loop. The time seemed random and a lot longer than the anticpated 10 minutes, as the let the swimers get around 2/3 the way round the course before setting of the other wave. This would mean that working out where our relative positions were when we passed on the run would be impossible.
Jon.e had warned me that because the lake is so shallow, people run the first few metres. I was overcome by an unsual sense of confidence. Partly caused by the realisation that I was in the slow wave, and partly caused by the fact that most people looked pretty nervous, the ones warming up didn't seem that good at swimming, and there were a lot of first timers. So instead of lurking at the back, I went to the front. Bit of a waste of time, as I started swimming,determined to make the most of the practice and get a good representative time. While everyone else ran for the first 15 seconds. So I ended up at the back of the field anyway. However, the goggles worked fine. Clear as day. My sighting strategy - 6 strokes, then 10, then back to 6 if needed, or stick at 10 if OK, worked fine. I did pretty well. Soon as I was catching people up. Then running into the wave ahead. This was a bit of a ruck as people in one wave wanted to go from right to left, and my wave need to go from left to right. It thinned out a bit then, and I had a few people to swim along side. This gave me the opportunity to practice vary stroke rate and stroke length, to see which would enable me to pull away (or get dropped), without using too much energy. Rather suprisingly, I found myself able to pull away from people, and catch people up. Lots more contact ensued at the turn buoys.
A bit more swimming and we were out of the water. It went far better than I expected, and, to be honest, was the most enjoyable part of the day.
15th out of 69 out of the water in my wave. A big improvement on being in the last 5 out of the water, as is more usual.
Into T2, off with the wetsuit, on with the shoes and out. Switch on the garmin, and let it locate the satellites on the long run to the mount line. Press start a bit before the mount line, and then away. A swift transition moving up another 5 places to be in 10th position.
The plan was to go hard on the bike, for a number of reasons. The first being that the achilles tendinopathy had been playing up since May, meaning that I can't really run with intensity without breaking. So a hard bike would take the sting out of the run, so that I couldn't run fast. Secondly, I knew jon.e would be going hard on the bike, and I wanted to match up. However, I wanted to get a bit of balance on the bike, wrt the run, meaning that I wanted to achieve the same overall placing on each leg.
I was worried a bit about what the drafting would be like, but things were fine. Soon overhauling the less good bikers. Coming from the bottom end of the field, there were a few on mountain bikes, with most on road bikes. Passed a few with TT bikes,a bit surprised to see that non of them were on the tribars. Can't understand what that is about.
The bike started off into what felt like a stiff breeze. Then the first turn came, and the breeze just got stiffer. This kept happening. It wasn't until we had nearly completely the 11 mile loop that I realised that the initial breeze was as good as it gets.
I don't really look at the garmin when riding. But I have it set to auto lap at every mile. I then look out for two things 1) a sub 3 minute time for the mile (3 mins is 20mph) and a sub 2:24 time (25 mph). I had initially thought of aiming for 26 minutes for the first 10 miles, then relaxing a bit. After driving the course I realised it was going to be a lot slower than that - road surface and all the bends. So was thinking of a 28 minute first 10 miles, then relax a bit. As it worked out this didn't happen. Caught a bit of traffic at mile 10 where the course hits an A road, and the cars were being held up by the cyclists ahead. Lots of riders bunched up here too, so I had to go hard to comfortable get past these. So ended up with the last mile below 2:24, so over 25 mph for that - not the recovery mile that I intended.
Finished the bike in 3rd position in the wave (also caught up a load of other people from the earlier waves).
As I arrived, runners were also arriving - these were the first (possibly the winner) and also told me that wave three must have started about 17-20 minutes after the first wave. It also created a lot of congesting with runners and bikes trying to get down a very narrow corridor - the runners to turn left to the finish, the bikes to turn right into transition proper. Basically I had to queue and walk here. So this is probably where I lost most of the time it what turned out to be a rather slow T2.
I had put a bottle on the bike, intended to get some practice at drinking. Didn't get around to it, so still ended up having a swig of water in transition. Also realised I had turned the legs to jelly, so didn't exactly hurry to get the shoes on. The number had taken a bit of a beating in the wind on the bike leg, so I needed to re-adjust that so it wouldn't fall off (it was getting a bit torn). Shoes on, laces properly tied, and away.
Legs wasted, so not working. Out of T2 and I had lost a place. Down to 4th in the wave. As I left the park a guy shouted out "nice fast legs" they didn't feel fast to me. Down the road, picking off a few runners.
It was very warm by this time. And I felt pretty uncomfortable. It would have been all to easy to pack in then. This was not enjoyable at all.
The run is basically straight down the road. Turn left. Straight on. Turn right. Straight on until a u-turn, and retrace the steps. I had it in my head that I needed to get to the last straight before I met Jon.e coming the other way.
This was not to be. Turn the first corner. Soon after that I was over taken by the first runner. This doesn't usually happen; an indication that I was crawling. Breath was very laboured, not sure what the heart was doing, I think I was just in a bit of a distressed mess at this point.
Passed jon.e coming the other way. Far too soon. I couldn't work out if this meant he was 10 minutes up or 5 minutes up. All depended on the unknown gaps in the waves. I knew this would give him a boost, and he would speed up, so I had to try to relax and just run. Very difficult.
Round the turn, then I realised the final stretch to the turn around wasn't as far as I thought. So I must have been closer to jon.e that I thought. But it is hot. And I feel a bit sick. Didn't stop for any water. Didn't think it would do any good at this stage.
Round the turn and I could see the people moving well behind me that I thought I would catch me. Just focus.
In the next stretch another two went past me.
Then round the last corner and into the last straight - just under a km to go. Another two runners past me, making 5 in total.
Can hear a guy trying hard to catch. Relax and run.... Woman in front also starts to speed up - if she can accelerate that much, then she wasn't trying hard enough.
Unto the last four hundred metres. Get into that mind detached from the pain zone. Push harder. Start the sprint. Make sure the guy behind doesn't catch me.
Over the line.
Throw up.
Ended up in 5th place in the wave - so although five had over taken me, only one was from the same wave - so they must have been ones I over took on the bike. No problem, as they had a 10 minute head start on me.
Print out my finish time and go and find jon.e
Quite a shocking result. He may have just won, but victories like that aren't going to win the overall. Shocked to see that I was only just over a minute behind him on the swim, and actually FASTER in T1. Only 30 seconds or so down on the bike. Then the bad bits - a minute slower in T2, and only a minute or so faster on the run. Giving jon.e a win of 01:23.
More telling though, is that a projection out from the swim times give jon a slender 5 minute or so advantage in next month's Iron Distance swim. Not nearly enough for him to take the lead. And nothing like the 20-25 minutes that he should. The swim is going to be very interesting.
Apart from a few differences, jon.e had a pretty similar race:
jon.e jh
S 15:33 16:41 +01:08
T1 01:47 01:42 -00:05
B 32:26 32:53 +00:27
T2 00:53 01:58 +01:05
R 25:30 24:18 -01:12
If we look at over all positions (out of 210)
jon.e jh
S 87 117
B 31 39
R 114 86
So a (relatively) storming bike leg by both of us.
Interestingly, the guy that won, also won the last tri we did (Skipton, 400m swim)
Skipton, results, as percentage of winners time
jon.e JH
S 151% 204%
B 128% 123%
R 138% 128%
Total 132% 135%
This event:
jon.e JH
S 156% 167%
B 113% 114%
R 132% 126%
T 128% 130%
So, overall, jon.e improve by 4% against the winner, and I improved by 5%
More interestingly, my swim went from 204% (over twice as long) to "just" 167%. Jon.e's slipped from 151% to 156%, so not that much of a drop for a bad swim. But the runs were better. The obvious diffence is the bike: with me improving by 9% and jon.e by a whopping 15%!
It looks like we both had a bike race, with a bit of a swim to warm up before, and a run to warm down afterwards
Next up, an Iron Distance swim in the lake district. Will jon.e pull it back to wipe out the deficit and take a lead of 5 minutes, or can I minimise the losses and even keep hold of the lead. Very hard to call, as there is a lot that can go wrong over such a distance.
Still all to play for. I wouldn't want to call it. Advantage still with jon.e though. But only just.
It's worth bearing in mind that I've done five open water swims, longest 1500m. While jon.e has done about 5,000 and several hundred iron man distance swims (well, quite a few at any rate). Experience really does count; far more than a dodgy extrapolation from a single 750m swim.
