Where: St Neots Riverside Park
When: 10 May
Organiser: Nicetri
Distance(s): 750m river swim, 24km bike, 5km run
Marshalling: Plenty, very friendly.
Facilities: Porta potties, burger bars, Erdinger tent
Freebies: Technical tee
Bit of a fleshed out report from my original post in corporal punishment.
The aim this year has been to get to Chicago for the world champs, a lofty goal and today was the the first shot. Looks like I came nowhere close, but I'm staying positive.
After a good parkrun and a 9 mile TT in the week leading up to the race I was feeling a bit more confident after the setback with illness a couple of weeks ago. After I recovered and a discussion with coach I had a plan that would start working on my speed again. Plenty of new kit on show this year; wetsuit, bike shoes, pedals, rear tub The morning was looking good for racing with just a light breeze, a pleasant change after a blustery day before.
Watched the first couple of starts and having stood around for a while was quite glad when the call to get in the water came, warmed up, then the start was taking a while as we were told another 2 minutes so needed to warm up again. The horn went and the river was a mess of silt, it was like swimming at night with your face in the water. About 100m in I really started to struggle with breathing, very much like the panic attack I had at Dambuster last year, I just couldn't get enough air in, but knew logically that I was. I tried to contain the thoughts and work through it. By the turn buoy I’d settled down, put the Chimp back in its cage and set about focusing on the rest of the race, I began to settle down and banished negative thoughts about time lost. Then I saw a boat in the marina. Do not do a Flavadave. Grateful for the OW swim practice the day before I just set into my rhythm and focused on the last buoy. Swim exit came and went fine.
T1 was far better than it has been in previous years, wetsuit off, almost lost balance, but no sit down needed . Out onto the bike and I was glad for the mount practice the day before, seemed to go alright with the new shoes and had feet in pretty quickly, 180 at the roundabout then out onto the loop, up a nice hill to start... then onto the flats. The bike course was a good loop, some cross and head winds, but just a matter of head down and power on. Forgot the new Garmin I'd bought from IanM for these races, so relying on one I'd borrowed from dad, only had instant power and not averaged, numbers looked good though so I soldiered on. Roads were nice so quite quick. Was playing leap frog with a few guys, and overtaking a fair few from earlier waves. Then a nasty hill, ouch. After a nice downhill stretch was almost back in transition, out of shoes cleanly, off and running.
T2 was going smoothly until I couldn’t get my feet in my shoes, they were a bit numb with the wind chill from the bike, not great. Eventually got them in and off after what felt an age. Run course was 2 laps with a mixture of grass and path. Felt much better than the brick sets as I set off, think they prepared me for far worse! Quite a lot of twisting an turning on the course, and a bit of camber on the surface so wasn't really feeling it on the first lap. Having settled into the groove lap 1 was finally over. Thinking about last weeks Parkrun I knew I was doing alright from the splits the Garmin was chucking out, and would manage to hang in there, lap 2 seemed to go by much quicker (turns out it was a negative split) and before I knew it I was under the bridge and in the last 500m, and on for a sprint finish, beat 1, but lost to another.
Overall / Swim / T1 / Bike / T2 / Run / Overall Time
283 / 0:14:22.31 / 0:01:05.27 / 0:43:00.59 / 0:00:51.34 / 0:19:36.56 / 01:18:56.1
Crossed the line and I was a mess. The bottom of both my glutes was excruiating, went and sat in the car at great pains! Came 33rd in AG, with a time of 122% of AG winner, not ideal, but it was the British Champs so brought out the best of the best Overall an enjoyable race, albeit quite sore afterwards, but means I raced hard. Going to have to hope for a slower winner/better performance from me at Nottingham in a couple of weeks. Already read the report from 2 years ago in preparation!