When: 12th June 2011
Organiser: Chester Tri Club
Distance(s): 1500m River swim, 42km bike and 10km run
Marshalling: Superb
Facilities: portaloos -
Technical: up stream for 700m, down stream for 800m , single lap bike, 2 lap run
Freebies: A superb technical T, bottle of water, gel and some little bits and bobs.
Myself and the good lady had decieded to make a weekend of this, agreement was to head to Liverpool, spend the day and night in Liverpool and then over to Btown followed up by checking into Chester for the Sat and Sun.
I have had a quite a facelift on the Trek, Mike persuaded me to do something quite radical with the Interceptor and I have to say it does look rather nice. All but some of the Red on the bike has gone. I was also heading to over meet Caroline who was fitting me with my orthotics, and they were wicked for the time they were on. One of them needed slightly trimmed so she took them back to trim them up. So we checked into the hotel at Chester and I had been keeping one eye on the weather all day as I knew it was to be bad on Sunday - I couldn't believe it really as Sat was so nice. Anyhow, there was registration on the Sat but I decided to give it a miss as we were both shattered and I thought if I get there early enough then it will be fine.
I was absolutely gagging for this race. I had high expectations that I could do really well here,I know my swimming has fallen behind but my biking has come on leaps and bounds since being injured - the run for me is about survival at the moment. So I had in my head that I needed to do what I could on the swim - murder the bike and then survive the run.
So time for bed - I never sleep race night, I was actually quite excited but dreading what the weather was going to be like. What I hadn't banked on was that the Saturday the racing was on chester and that Chester would be full of drunking knobs shouting and making tits of themselves. I actually think that half of them were sleeping in our hotel as the noise was incredible. I know I don't sleep but I do try and rest up. No chance...3am..noise...4am...noise...5am still noise and I'm getting up now. Tossers. Lookeed out my room and some idiot had poured the contents of a Maccie D's all over the corridor... I mean what fun is in doing that???
Okay so I'm up, checked the weather - still shit but outside its glorious. Could the weather reports be wrong? I hoped so. Loaded up the car and arrived at registration and it was empty so registration was a doddle. So the bike was racked and I seriously was looking forward to racing it - I was getting plenty of compliments for what can only be desrcibed as one fine cracking looking bike.... shame about the rider cause he's an idiot
So it was a 5-10min walk to swim start and I decided to get the wet-suit on.Now a triathlon for me has to included a cluster fuck somewhere along ths line, if its not forgotten tri-suits, torn tri-suits, lost timing chip then its a torn wet-suit..... yes thats right - my wet-suit which is only 2yrs old has developed a shit load of cuts/ tears in the neoprene. Some were only slightly others were right through. I take good care of my stuff, the wet-suit had been hanging in a spare wardrobe in the dark all winter. I should've checked it before I went but I just assumed it would fine. Well it wasn't. Normally this would do me in and I would hate going forward, this time I just went with it, nothing I can do now except get in the water and go for it.
So the swim start - you have to jump from a pontoon into the water and swimto the start boy. I was in Wave 1 and the waves were 10mins apart - which was just right. So I jumped into the water ( SoS - take note if you read this, this cab happen to anyone) and the water so cold that my chest tightened right up. The feedback from the registration tent was the water temp was 17deg - yeah right. So chest has tightened up - and I'm asthmatic so this is not good. Got on my back and relaxed, just sculled about then once I felt okish I got the face in water. Klaxon goes and I'm off. I felt okay but the wet-suit feels terrible, like a badly fitting glove. Its really really tight on the shoulders and now water is pouring into it. I had sealed it best I could but this was like pulling a massive nappy around with me. Long story short - my shoulders, legs and arms took a complete pounding. The upstream swim was a slug fest, although very little current with the suit full of water I was fighting a losing battle. Downstream I just tucked up behind another swimmer and drafted, this was now about survival, fuck the time I needed to get to the end. At the end of the swim there was two guys pulling you out of the water and swear on my dogs life I could not pull myself out of the water. I was done in - after the swim....wtf.. I normally run to T1 - not this time. I'm walking, taking the wet-suit down to waist. My plan has gone to ruin from just the swim...oh well time to revert to plan b - turn on the afterburners and nail the bike. I didn't know my swim time at this point but it was 33mins....this is seriously crap for me. I can only look towards the wet-suit so much but this is by far my slowest 1500m swim ever.
After T1 - I'm on the bike, which is pretty uneventful. My legs were done in trying to kick in the swim and my quads were burning like buggery on the bike. Out of T1 and I span my legs, to try and get rid of the jelly legs from the swim, I was struuggling for pace for the first 2miles I had a look at my garmin data, I think I was working to 85-90% of my max HR. The bike course is fairly flat but Plan B went to pot when about 6miles into the bike the heavens opened up. It went from a sunny morning to a nasty headwind/ sidewind and pissing rain. So I got the head down and started chewing the rubber on the tyres. I settled into a pace and then something happened - I got chicked..... for a whole 15secs. Not a chance. Cranked up the pace from 20mph to 30mph and nailed it for 6 miles into time trial mode. I'm not getting chicked, ever. I also had a biking battle with a guy on Spesh.... that was fun as it was clear he was much fitter than me but it was skill versus will and I wanted to beat him. The only problem was that I knew that I was doing myself damage as the pain in my quads was intense, my legs were burning but I just kept going. There was one place where it was about a 2-3mile stretch of road and I had to spin my legs off. So I put the bike into 53/23 and span at 100rpm for a while until my legs recovered and then I nailed it again. Back home in 1hr 16mins. I could've gone quicker and I was hoping for a 1hr 10m bike split which I know I'm capable of but the weather was not helping. I was happy with the bike split so into T2.
The weather by now is completely terrible, it was freezing cold from the wind, the rain was pouring down. I did actually feel ok for the run so off I went on the two loop course. I was holding any decent pace and it was run/walk for me. after the first 1k I knew I had left everything I had on the bike course but I can say this, I was struggling to get any sort of run as I could feel my right calf/ankle being really sore. I struggled to 4/5k and I stopped dead. I then took off my trainers and my right calf guard, I also did the same with the left and put the trainers back, stuffed the calf guards down the front of the tri-suit. After a little while any pain I had in right calf was gone. Totally gone... I then started to pick my pace up and the last two miles were a doddle. I had a decent cadence and I felt good, got back up the finish line in 2hr 52mins.
My expectations were to be in the 2hrs 40mark, although a little bit of me says and knows that I can do shit loads better than this, especially with the running but here's how I'm looking at it - I have very little base fitness which is slowly coming back, I have no proper conditioning yet and the knee is finally starting to recover, had I not had to pull a giant nappy around with me, and not used the stupid calf guards, then I might have got closer to my expectations. Still this was an Oly PB for me so all is good. I'm not using the weather as an excuse as it was the same for everyone - it was tough going on Sunday, really tough and my lack of fitness stuck out a mile.
The event is brill and I would recommend it to anyone, the marshalling was superb, sound system in T1/T2, fruit and recovery drinks at the end and a buffet/ cafe tent for the people supporting you. I think there would have been better crowd support had it not been for the weather but it was still a cracking event. The support of other races in triathlon never ceases to amaze to me, at one point just before pulling off my calf guards some guy shouts at me - COME ON BRIGTOWN... KEEP GOING..., that put a massive smile on my face, not just because he was trying to help but people were noticing the awesome race kit.
A picture paints a thousand words.... here's the finish photo my missus took. I was shattered, need to find some more fitness from somewhere... haha
