The pressure was on for this race big time.
After my Last blog post filled with Smack talk and calling out all and sundry I felt like I had to deliver a half reasonable performance. I knew that I was going to get a good ole Ass Whipping from most of the Guys in the Club and that there would be some tight contests with the rest of them.
This was my first attempt at the Titanic Triathlon and my first time over the Olympic distance in three years. I was looking forward to giving this distance a rattle again and also a bit wary of swimming in the River Lagan, which is never renowned for its cleanliness.
The Trash talk certainly stirred things up a bit and thankfully everyone took it in the manner in which it was given.
The Swim
After getting all set up in Transition, we headed over the bridge to the start point for the swim which started on the Odyssey Arena side of the river and it would be an out and back loop of 1500M, getting out of the water on the opposite bank.
We seemed to spend a really long time treading water before the start but once we got going things turned out to be pretty tight. Even though the race was in wave starts, the effect of funnelling the swim between a span of the bridge meant that it got a bit congested. This combined with the murky water and blinding sunlight on the right side led to a problematic start in terms of sighting and getting some open water to swim in.
It thinned out a bit after about 400M and I started doing my usual trick of drifting left instead of swimming straight.
The water quality was surprisingly good but it was incredibly salty. Probably the saltiest water I have swum in. Every mouthful was disgusting and I just hoped that the high salt content would kill off all the other bugs that no doubt lived in the water too.
As I rounded the first buoy to swim across and then back, I was glad to change direction as my breathing to the right meant that I had been getting blinded by the bright sun the whole way up this stretch.
Shortly after beginning the stretch for home I saw my mate Donald swimming alongside me. He didn’t see me at all but I tried to keep on his toes and managed to do so for about 300M but then I drifted left again and lost touch with him. Pity, as he came out of the water about a minute ahead of me and I’d love to have been getting out with him.
Getting out of the water proved to be almost the hardest part of the day.
The ramp up was semi submerged and incredibly slippery.
I got half way up and literally slid back in to eh water again. Second attempt was no better and I wound up desperately clinging on to the side of the ramp but again slid back in. The helper who was there shouted for me to grab his hand and at the third attempt I managed to get out of the water. I must have looked like a right Dipstick or drunk but I couldn’t believe how hard it was to get out.
There was a decent crowd of people at the side of the water coming out and I got a few shouts of encouragement along the way, including one from Captain Awesome! (You know who you are!)
T1
T1 went relatively well for me. The time was not fast but a lot better than I would normally do.
The Bike
Out on to the bike and the curse of the dodgy Garmin fitment hit me again. As I fiddled to get it snapped in to place I knocked the button and moved it in to Transition phase – which meant that I would not have any data for the bike ride as I went along. I was also very slow on actually getting on to the bike as I was doing this and it didn’t go unnoticed by two of my non competing club mates. (Who incidentally were upset at not getting called out in the smack talk blog post!) So thanks to Nelson ‘The Fall Guy / Admiral / I get chicked’ Shanks and Arran ’Hey Wonderboy is your collarbone really broken of is that an excuse to cry off a race?’ McKee. It’s worthy of note for Nelson that the Chicking is by his Girlfriend, the very talented and fast Jenna ‘Don’t shout at me on the bike in case I fall off’ Henning. Jenna was also competing and going bloody fast as she always does.
I could hear Nelson shouting at me “You’re meant to start riding now!” as I ran alongside the bike trying to connect the bloody Garmin.
Eventually I got out on the two loop course and tried to go pretty hard. It was hard to tell how hard I was going without the Garmin but I felt like I was putting in a decent effort and couldn’t wait to see how close I was to the other Guys.
Throughout the bike I just couldn’t close a gap of about 4 minutes on both Donald and Brendan but was managing to just hold off Ian, Stuart and Mark.
The bike went pretty well I thought, despite having my energy bar shaken out of my tri suit pocket on a speed ramp right at the start and just having to survive on a gel and hoping that I wouldn’t bonk later on.
As I came over the bridge and in to T2 I got the fright of my life as my cleat would not come out of the bike and I was suddenly faced with the prospect of looking like a Dick for the second time today.
(Some would argue that it was WAY more than just two times!)
Thankfully just in the nick of time the cleat came out and I managed to get off the bike with some degree of dignity.
My good friend Brian was down spectating and he managed to get a really great photo of me as I passed by the Harland and Wolff crane. I love the big Cranes because of the family history with the Shipyard and I just love the photo he got. Definitely one for the scrapbook.
T2
T2 went just as well as T1 but the pressure began to mount as I was joined by Mark and Stuart who had clearly closed the gap on me on the bike and I left T2 just behind Stuart.
I was really looking forward to the run as it has been the part which has been going really well for me. I haven’t run a full on 10K in quite some time but pre-race I had a target in mind of staying sub 50 minutes and a dream run would be around 48 minutes.
The Run
Out of T2 and Stuart managed to slip ahead of me and I could see him about 20M up ahead. I managed to bridge the gap and by about half a mile in I had caught up to him and passed. Instantly I regretted this and thought that I was going out too quick and that Stuart would pass me as I lay in a confused and Bonked out state at some point later in the run.
I put this thought to the back of my mind and just focussed on staying uncomfortably comfortable. (runners will know what I mean by this.)
Another half mile in I caught up to Keith ‘hard as Nails’ Bradley. (Another who I forgot to slag off in the smack talk) Sadly for me Keith was on his second of the four loops.
I just kept pressing and noticed that I was passing more people than were passing me. The ones going past me seemed to be ahead of me in terms of their loops, so I was comfortable that I was making progress in my wave anyway.
As I got half way round my second loop I caught up to Aaron who was on his third loop. We also got passed by Mark at this stage too, he seemed to be really steady and I decided to retain the gap at about 10M if I could. He did the occasional surge and I had to push on a bit harder to close the gap. Aaron dropped off about midway through his last lap and that left me with just Mark up ahead of me to focus on.
As we got on to the fourth loop I decided to make a bit of a move and upped the pace a bit. It brought me up to and past Mark and I thought at this point I better try to press on a bit and open the gap.
It seemed to be working although as I got to a turn and looked over my shoulder he was only about 5M behind me. At the next turn I decided I would press hard out of the turn and try to open up a bit of space between us as I really didn’t fancy a spring finish between us. Although the idea of a sprint finish is great, the reality for me may have been a vomit inducing hurl across the line. Not good at all for a finisher’s photo.
Coming down Chichester Street for the last time I was checking the reflections in the office windows to see if I could spot Mark behind me but I couldn’t see him, so I hoped the surge had worked.
With about 500M to go I sensed someone on my shoulder and I thought it was Mark, so without glancing round I really hit the pace as hard as I could and the person dropped away. As I rounded the last corner and looked over my shoulder I saw that it hadn’t been Mark at all but I just keep the pace up for the last 100M.
It was nice to see some familiar faces at the line and I was delighted to have finished in an overall time of 02:38:49 and most pleasingly of all I managed a run split of 47:23. The run duel with Mark was really enjoyable and I know that it made me press on when I might not have done. Mark finished about 20 seconds behind me with an almost identical run time. It was a great contest.
Summary
Overall I’m pretty pleased with a 15 minute PB at this distance but it has reinforced for me that I am too slow on the swim and bike and in reality the most gains can be made on the bike. I really need to work out a way to get faster on the bike. On a positive note, my running (which has been limited recently) is still in decent shape and I should try to build on this to get it to another level.
The best part of the day by far was the turn out by Lisburn Triathlon Club. IT’s fantastic to see how well we are doing with over 20 out racing and the Club celebrating its’ second birthday last week. It speaks volumes about the people in the Club.
Next up is the Stena Triathlon in two weeks’ time and this will be my last Tri of the season and I’m really looking forward to it. Goal. Sub 1H20Mins. Let’s see how that pipedream goes!
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