Saturday 8th June 2013
Crooked Lake Traithlon
Swim: 00:20:11
T1: 00:03:39
Bike: 00:36:08
T2: 00:01:17
Run: 00:25:59
Overall: 01:27:11
Position 357 /491.
Age Group 50 / 67
Who would have thought it? The one thing that none of us expected was tough hot conditions for the race.
We have been having a decent spell of weather and the temperatures were up at 23 degrees. This was something that I am not used to and it might just throw a different spin on the race today.
I had a great sense of anticipation about this event for a lot of reasons. It was my first Open Water Tri of the season, it was also the event we were using for the Club Championship which meant there was going to be a big turn out from Lisburn Tri Club and lastly, the organisers of this race are the same folks who organised the fantastic Warrior Triathlon that I did last year.
What’s not to be excited about?
Well, for me the only thing was my dodgy elbow. It still wasn’t right and I was seriously concerned about my swim.
I had been down for a practise swim during the week at the lake and the swim had taken me a desperately slow 20mins. I was hoping that the adrenalin of the race and being able to draft off other people might speed me up a bit.
Pre race registration was in Camlough Village and I collected my number and well stocked Goodie Bag. I was also allocated my Swim wave, which was wave one of two.
I wasn’t thrilled about this as I knew that he faster swimmers from Wave two would be swimming over the top of me as they caught me.
As I rode my bike up to Transition to get set up I changed gear and the chain came off completely and wrapped itself around the crank. Nightmare!
Luckily as I got near to transition, I bumped in to Marie Gorman, a friend who I met through Ironman Frankfurt last year, and she pointed out the free Bike Service tent to me.
I made a bee-line for that and the mechanic had me sorted in no time thankfully.
It was so warm in transition that the Tarmac was actually melting on the road. That was a first for me.
Set up complete and race briefing done we made our way in to the water for the start.
Swim
Wave one lined up ready to start and I placed myself towards the back in the middle. Interestingly someone was flying a drone helicopter just above us taking some video of the start. It was fantastic to see this little remote controlled device used in this way. I can’t wait to see the footage.
The gun went off and we were away in the usual washing machine of spray, feet and bodies.
I managed to avoid most of the physical brutality as I was behind most of it.
I just put my head down and focussed on as smooth a stroke as I could manage with my stiff elbow. Pleasingly it was behaving itself and was not too sore.
I knew that in proper fitness the swim should take me about 15 minutes, however the elbow was slowing me down, and in all honesty, my lack of swim fitness probably lso equally accounted for my time too. I exited the water in 20:10. About 30 seconds faster than practice – not great but not horrendous.
T1
My notoriously slow transition was foremost in my mind as I tried to make an effort to get in and out without taking an eternity.
The time of 3:39 was not fast by any means but it was not really awful
Coming out of T1 and mounting the bike I lost my footing on the pedal and did the thing that I hate others doing. I weaved across the road and nearly took out another person mounting their bike. I apologised profusely and got going.
Bike
I had been warned about the bike route being tough for the first few miles and then evening out and becoming a rolling course.
After about half a mile the first hill came at me. It was tough but not too awful and I began to think that people had been exaggerating.
I was wrong!
About half a mile later another sharp little rise hit me, then another followed that.
True enough the hills stayed sharp until about mile 3 then things started to level out and in fact there were some fairly speedy downhills to gain a bit of time on.
Nelson from the Club passed me after about 2 miles. Briefly I though he must have had a shocker of a swim, but then I realised he was in Wave 2 and had caught me!
It is fair to say that the views over Crooked lake and the surrounding countryside were beautiful but I had no time to really soak it in.
There were a lot of people on the bike route as a large part of it is on tight country roads, so a lot of effort had to go in to avoid drafting.
The last 5 miles of the route were flat to rolling and I tried to gain a bit of time.
I seemed to constantly be passing or getting passed by a girl on a pink Ridley bike.
Over the last two miles I put in a concerted effort and managed to drop her.
I rolled through Camlough and up the road towards T2.
The bike course is best described as tough but fair and I was very pleased with a time of 36:08 which was an average sped over 17mph. I would definitely take it on that course.
In hindsight my decision to go with the Time Trial bike over the Road bike might have been a bit of a mistake as the technical route may have suited the road bike better but at most it may have made the difference of a minute or so – so no big deal really.
T2
This was much faster than T1 and I was happy with an in and out time of 1:17. Pretty sharp for me.
Run
As I started running I realised that my legs felt absolutely amazing and completely fresh. I was moving along the first quarter mile at sub 7min / mile pace. Far too fast but I felt good. This feeling was very short lived as I turned right and hit the infamous hill on the course.
It is only about 200M long but it is steep and in the increasing heat of the day it felt extremely tough. I slogged my way to the top cursing my luck that I would have to do it all over again on the slightly shorter second loop, as the course is a two loop route.
Over the top of the hill I collected my wrist band to signify that I had come through the checkpoint for Lap 1 and that I was not cheating by cutting the route short.
I noticed that there weren’t too may people passing me on my first loop apart from those that were on their second loop and it gave me a bit of encouragement.
My legs still felt great but I noticed that my feet started to feel extremely hot in my shoes. The hot day was taking an unexpected toll on my feet.
There wasn’t much could be done about it so I pushed on to Loop 2.
Back up the hill and trying to stay strong and take short sharp steps was working for me and I turned off the hill and round for my final mile.
As it turns out each mile became progressively faster and I ran a negative split for the 3.2 miles and came home in a run time of 25:59.
My goal all day was to beat the disappointing time at the Roe Valley tri of 1Hr 33mins and I smashed that coming home in 1Hr 27min and 11secs.
Overall
I am very pleased with a solid performance on a tough course on an exceptionally hot day. The lack of training definitely takes a toll, and probably more so on the swim as I am still able to get some biking and running it.
The event was superbly organised as I had expected and the turn out from Lisburn Triathlon Club was fantastic.
I loved the day and it reignited my racing enthusiasm and I hope that as the elbow injury subsides, that I will be able to get some decent training in over the summer and improve on these times.
Well done to everyone completing and especially those completing their first Tris from the Club.
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