Reading Triathlon 2019
Reading Triathlon 2016 had been my first ever solo Triathlon. It had hurt (a lot) and I had hated both the swim and particularly the run, but overall I was very pleased with a time of 1:38:55 for the Sprint Distance, especially as the bike and run are both about 10% longer than the standard distances.
Then, in 2017 Stu had gone and beaten my time by 8 seconds. 8 measly seconds. I didn’t compete in 2017 due to other commitments and in 2018 I was injured so I didn’t compete either. The only good news was Stu didn’t manage to extend his lead in 2018, complaining about mechanical issues with his bike.
2019 was the year to take back the lead on our little rivalry.
The night before I sat down and looked at my splits for 2016 and tried to work out some target times for Sunday.
Swim – this had been my weakest point with a time of 20 minutes. That had ranked me 115th out of the 120 male competitors, very poor. This time I felt somewhere between 16 and 17 minutes should be attainable.
T1 – 3:18. I remember it being slow due to issues with socks, gloves and my cycling top. I should be able to shave off at least a minute there.
Bike – This had been my only strong point in 2016 with a time of 42:41, which had ranked me 44th that year. Though I had some good bike form earlier this year I wasn’t sure if I was still any stronger than I had been in 2016. Maybe I could deliver a similar time or if lucky perhaps up to a minute quicker… Maybe…
T2 – 1:54. Not a lot of room for improvement here. Maybe 10-15 seconds. The transitions at Reading involve a long run to/from the mount line, so this is actually a pretty fast time.
Run – 31:03 in 2016 had been a really good time for me considering I had barely run in the previous 10 years. After building on this over the last few years, depending on how I felt after the bike I would hope for something between 27-29 minutes.
Overall that meant I could be something between 6 and 9 minutes faster.
Hmmm. 9 minutes. That would put a sub 1:30 time on the cards – just. That became my stretch target – if everything went well.. My main targets however were;
- Beat Stu’s 2017 time
- Beat Stu
- Go under 1:35
Baring a mechanical or other catastrophic problem I felt 1 was easily in my reach. The question was would number 3 be enough to complete number 2 or would I have to get closer to or hit my stretch target. This year Stu has been going really well. His bike speed was approaching mine, particularly on courses with limited climbing. His swim was still noticeably stronger than mine and he always kicks my ass in T1.
With these numbers rolling round my head and having packed my kit and checked the bike I went to bed with the alarm set for 6am.
The following morning after racking in a fairly congested Transition area I was now stood by the lake waiting to be called into the water for Wave 5. 3CTri had a good turn out for the event with well over a dozen competitors spread out across the Olympic and Sprint distances. Stu and I were both in Wave 5.
We were encouraged to enter the water with style if we wanted, so I opted for the “Silly Salmon”. Stu and I shook hands a few seconds before the off and wished each other well. I knew this was likely to be the last time I would see him for quite a while.
The siren sounded and we were off. With a wave of about 50 competitors in a fairly small area it was fairly boisterous up to the first buoy. Not an issue I had experienced 3 years before as I had placed myself at the back for the start and stayed there the whole way round. This time after about 150m I got a big mouthful of water, my mistake, and it took me a little while to recover physically and mentally and get back into my flow. With about 250m left to go I found a pair of feet to latch on to and followed them in for the rest of the swim.
On exiting the water I hit the button on my watch and saw a time of just under 16 minutes come up (15:53 officially). Result.
As I entered the bottom of T1 I saw Stu running out the top with his bike. I cheered him on though I have no idea if he heard me. That however was the last good bit of T1.
First I realised I was running down the wrong rack lane. So I had to run round the top and double back down the next one slightly to get to my bike. Shoes on, then helmet. At this point I discovered the visor for my helmet was missing. I checked the floor but could not see it – shit, must have come detached in the helmet bag earlier. Oh well, there was nothing I could do now so I put it on anyway. It felt odd. Race belt next (should have put this on under my wetsuit to save a few seconds). I slurped a quick caffeine gel and then I unracked the bike and headed off.
As I was running out of T1 towards the mount line I decided just to double check that my visor wasn’t attached in some weird way and put my hand up to my helmet top again. Something did not feel right. Then my brain finally clicked in. There was no paper number stuck to the front of my helmet. I moved my hand to the back of the helmet. My heart sank. I had managed to put it on the wrong way round. I moved to the side and stopped. Took off the helmet, spun it round and put it on the correct way round. Numpty.
On the plus side though I had, by chance, done this in the one spot that was out of sight of most of the spectators and secondly my visor was happily in it’s correct place.
Though I had bought the helmet about 2 years ago this was only the second time I had used it in an event. Concerns of “All The Gear, No Idea” had disuaded me in other events. Well I had just fallen foul of that – spectacularly. An important lesson learnt though… hopefully!
Once on the bike I quickly got into my groove. The brain finally starting to fire on all cylinders for the first time today. Not sure if that was down to the Gel or the Adrenalin shot from the helmet debacle, either way I did not care.
I was soon over taking some slower riders and finding a few others who were very evenly matched, so much so that 3 of us ended up playing leap frog for much of the first 12km whilst trying to stick to the non-drafting rules. One was faster on the ups (James – also from 3CTri) another on some of the flats – though he seemed inconsistent. Either way though I had been holding a good speed for much of it.
It took me almost 8 km to finally catch Stu, on the long drag up to Burghfield Common. We exchanged a few words as I passed but he wasn’t enjoying that section.
On turning left at the War Memorial in Mortimer we were half way round and now had the fast remaining 11km to go. First a reasonably steep down then a lot of flat or very slightly downhill sections with only a couple of short ups to power over. I was easily holding 35-40km/h for much of it and my average speed was climbing to over 33km/h. I knew 2016’s average had been a little over 31km/h so I focused on maintaining speed as I knew I would be putting some time in the bank here. At the final roundabout by the park-and-ride though I had to fully stop due to a bus. This cost me a good chunk of speed and time, but unperturbed I pushed on for the last 4km. Even with the forced stop I had dropped my two shadows by now and didn’t see them again on the ride.
On returning to transition I hit the watch button again but what with the dismount and technical nature of transition entrance I never got to check out my split time. I felt sure I must have got the 1 minute advantage I had been hoping for. All I knew was i needed to have a slick T2 and try to get my legs turning over for the run.
T2 went ok, nothing special but no disasters.
Now for the final effort, the run. I was hoping to push something close to 5min/km pace but I didn’t force things and when my watch buzzed after 1km I checked. 5:10. I would take that. The next 4km went pretty well with pace averaging around 5:15/km. I knew I had overtaken several of the 3CTri guys on the bike leg and I was waiting for them to come past me on the run. But I had not seen any of them yet. Then in the last 100m just as I was starting to pick up my pace James went past me with a big effort. I dug in and desperately tried to catch him. He crossed the line 1 second ahead of me.
But I didn’t care as the finish line clock had suggested I had come in under 1:30. I had stopped my watch as I crossed the line and once I had got rid of my timing chip and gained my medal I checked the watch. 1:27:28. Wow. I was dumbstruck.
After greeting, family, friends and other club members I wanderd over to the timing team to get my offical print.
Swim – 15:53 – improving and more gains to be made.
T1 – 3:01 – Yeah well, that’s what happens when your brain isn’t working.
Bike – 39:52 – seriously chuffed with that. That put me 19th overall in the Mens category for the bike leg and 1st in my Age Group.
T2 – 1:46 – Solid
Run – 26:56 – Happy with that, though room for improvement in 2020.
I had smashed the bike leg, taking almost 3 minutes off my previous time, and that combined with the on target other legs had countered my dreadful T1 and allowed me to easily beat my stretch target.
A few minutes later Stu came over the finish line looking strong. He had beaten his 2017 time by almost 2 minutes at 1:36:55. He was chuffed.
Overall a great day and a great local event. I had taken back the lead from Stu and to be fair might have put it out of reach as he needs to find over 9 minutes to take it back. More importantly I had beaten my stretch goal and despite some cock-ups I think I had manged to meet the club motto (“Don’t Be Shit”).
Surprisingly I ended up 3rd in my age category (admittedly there were only 10 of us in the 50-59 category). 3 minutes down on the winner. Hmmm – maybe I can find those 3 minutes next year. Would be nice to pick up a sporting trophy for the first time ever in my life.
Roll on Reading Triathlon 2020…