When: 30 May 2015
Organiser: One Step Beyond
Course details: Lake swim, perimeter road bike/run
Distance(s): 750m swim; 20 km bike; 5 km run
Marshalling: Load woman at mount line
Facilities: Water sports centre facilities, free parking, toilets,
Technical: Chip timing
Freebies: T shirt (cotton)
This was my second (and last) attempt at qualifying for Chicago, I did the race a couple of years ago in my attempt at qualifying for London (viewtopic.php?f=15&t=8951) and having read the report got a few of what I thought were tips. Following St Neots a few weeks ago I had a few demons to slay in the swim as well, demons that would haunt me until the start. The few days before the race weren't great, with many niggles manifesting, arms, shoulder, knee, ankle all hurt at times. After a long drive up, interjecting with collecting Jude, and stopping to have a coffee with Si we arrived at the hotel at dinner time, after chicken, steak and chips chilled in the room before bed. Slept OK, but not great then at 6:30 time to arise, packed the car then made hotel breakfast, a novelty for a race morning!
We made it to the lake, got a handy little parking spot quite close, registered, usual faff with those tattoos they insist on using now, got stuff out the car, walked around, stood in a long queue as buffer time slipped away and racked. Having read the last report I decided given I was 10m from bike out to not put my shoes on the bike again. Then I left to get wetsuit on. Went on nicely and after a little help zipping up was time to go through and get in the water. Had a good warm up, and positioned myself so I'd be on the front of the line on the outside. My strategy for avoiding a panic attack was going to be to go first, go hard and fight to keep clear water. Finally the horn went, legs were pulled, people were kicked (a lot), but I kept a patch of clear water in front, and avoiding the breathing troubles that plagued St Neot's. The turn buoys seemed a long way away, held a pretty good line, overall and uneventful swim. Well apart from losing my outer hat and getting a cold head.
Into T1 and then things started going wrong. Wetsuit came off fine, got my feet into my bike shoes, and then ran out to the mount line, pass it then some stupid woman keeps shouting at me to keep moving. Put my leg over and can't clip in, my pedal was upturned, and as one of the new keo blade 2s they was no purchase to try and ride on top with shiny carbon soles. Eventually got my feet in, felt an idiot, especially after spending 45 minutes practicing flying mounts 3 days earlier.
Out on the bike and tailwind first, was flying along at 300+ Watts and 30+mph. Almost lost it on the corner at the top when I leaned in too much and went caught deep sections side on
then a struggle into the headwind back. Power was quite low at 250-260W, but speed was still 32kph+ Course was a bit congested and played leap frog with a few people, got a little reminder at one point about why you keep your head up; lots of geese and goslings about and they don't care about bikes when they want the grass on the other side. A bike a couple in front swerved and the guy drafting him narrowly missed a gosling. After a few more goes at the ride, actually went by pretty quickly, it was time for the dismount, except I almost forgot as I was too focussed on runners and working out how far behind I was.Dismount was fine, racked, then fumbled with left trainer, my feet were numb and hadn't realised little toe was caught on outside of shoe so foot wasn't going in. Eventually shepherded feet into shoes and out running.
The run was, well, it was running around Nottingham rowing lake, desolate, boring, hot, windy, went on forever. Thats all to say really.
Times:
swim: 13:01
T1: 01:09
Bike: 32:17
T2: 57s
Run: 21:17
Overall: 01:08:41
A little conflicted by the result, it was good improvement on St Neot's (at least 3s/100m in the swim, 5% power improvement on the bike, no difference in run performance) and was 3% closer to AG winner. Pleased with my performance, it just wasn't as good as I needed it to be, which is disappointing. Overall time wasn't a PB, but given the conditions at the lake I think it was more than 30s slower on the bike with the wind this time, so I'll take it as an improvement.
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