Eton Supersprints - Sunday 18th May 2014
Posted: 19 May 2014 09:26What: Eton Super Sprints
Where: Eton, Dorney Lake
Organiser: Human Race
Distance: Swim 400m (Row Lake), Bike 21.2km (4 laps), Run 5km (2 laps)
Marshalling: Kayaks, none on bike besides transition mount and dismount, at turn around points
Facilities: Toilets/changing/showers in boat house, LBS presence, wiggle, catering vans
Technical: Chip timing, swim hat
Freebies: Grey Do Triathlon T-shirt - quite useful for painting/decorating but have loads. Should have thought to get an XL and give it to the BAT, who wears his ones quite a lot
Another repeat visit to this race (so will try to keep this brief) – always good for benchmarking.
Feeling quietly confident – though with a bit of a nagging suspicion that I may have raced a bit too much recently.
Civilised 10:50am start – so felt confident enough to deviate from my minimal breakfasting plan… perhaps first mistake.
Got to Dorney Lake early (a C-S family trait that seems to be getting worse as I get older… the compulsion to arrive places “in good time” leaving plenty of time to faff around nervously on arrival).
Long walk to registration from car park as usual – and on entering the tent, realized that I hadn’t brought my wallet (easy way to control shopping) – so also hadn’t got my BTF licence. Luckily, managed to scrape together emergency funds from within my swimming bag – but had to fork out £6 for a day licence…. Grrr…
Unusually for Dorney at this time of year, it was a beautiful day… hot, sunny, a bit windy as always (though after riding through the great gale of the A31 last weekend, a light breeze holds no fear for me and my wok). Fluffy was definitely conspicuous by his flashiness in transition though!
Swim
Water not too cold – though that was NEVER 18 degrees as HumanRace claimed!
Deployed my usual tactic of keeping out of trouble wide to the left. First hundred metres or so was a bit of fruitless splashing around – a really fast pair of feet set off just in front of me, and I tried to follow them, before realizing that I am just not that fast a swimmer – instead, picked up one of the rowing lane ropes to follow, and relaxed. Bit of biff round the first buoy – someone else swimming at the same pace as me, but pulling really badly to the left kept driving me wide all the way home. Did give her a bit of a clunk on the head (not deliberate; stopped to apologise).
400m in 8.05 – one of my worst times ever – but it’s all fairly marginal when it comes to swimming, so not too bothered.
Stats: 10/87 W40+; 36/181 W; 252/650 overall
T1
OK.
Long run from swim exit. Really out of practice at getting wetsuit off – made the usual mistake of taking off goggles & hat first, then realizing that I can’t take top of wetsuit off with a bundle of stuff in my hands. Still, fairly respectable time compared to rest of wave
1:29
Bike
Flat course; smooth tarmac – release Fluffy!
We were flying!
Didn’t push too hard – sat up off the tribars on the bends etc – but passing loads of people (and a lot of shouting from me to make sure that others knew I was there – is that rude?)
Almost a nasty incident on the 3rd lap – 3 gents on mountain bikes from the previous wave were taking up the whole track… made the foolish call to overtake on the left – and just as I shouted this, the inside gent swerved inwards. We were forced onto the grass… started to brace myself for wipeout, but somehow recovered, and after deploying a few choice Tansley-esque phrases, were on our way.
21.2km in 34:43
Stats: 1/87 W40+; 1/181 W; 25/650 overall
Pleased with that (sort of... see later...)– proper TT pace!
T2
1 min
Nice short run from bike in; out again with minimal faffing
Run
Had a feeling I might be in the lead.
That’s where it started to go horribly wrong…
Very quickly started to feel that I had overdone things on the bike… feeling like I was going to vomit/faint, and in need of a bit of a sit down. Grabbed a water; sipped; stopped for a bit; ran on; stopped again. Felt a bit better; ran on. It was hot and painful – just kept focusing on the yellow water stands at either end of the run loop (which never seemed to get any closer).
Finally over the line in 27:02. Had been hoping for 25, so a bit disappointed, but pleased to have got round.
Stats: 29/87 W40+; 76/181 W; 391/650 overall
Overall 1:12:19 – had been aiming for 1:10, so quite pleased that apart from the run disaster, it was on track.
By the RaceTimingSystems website, that puts me first in the W40+ wave? No prize on the day (these are usually handed out as you cross the finish)… have sent a terribly British polite e-mail to HumanRace to query…
Lots of lessons to learned:
- Don’t be too blase about packing (though on advice of the marshall, I now have a photo of my BTF card on my phone, which they apparently will accept)
- Need to take more care about bike pacing – I now have the skills to really hurt myself on the bike – but it’s probably not clever to do so if I have to go for a run after, rather than the commonly accepted follow up to biking (drinking tea and eating cake)
Next stop H10/8 on Staurday…
Where: Eton, Dorney Lake
Organiser: Human Race
Distance: Swim 400m (Row Lake), Bike 21.2km (4 laps), Run 5km (2 laps)
Marshalling: Kayaks, none on bike besides transition mount and dismount, at turn around points
Facilities: Toilets/changing/showers in boat house, LBS presence, wiggle, catering vans
Technical: Chip timing, swim hat
Freebies: Grey Do Triathlon T-shirt - quite useful for painting/decorating but have loads. Should have thought to get an XL and give it to the BAT, who wears his ones quite a lot
Another repeat visit to this race (so will try to keep this brief) – always good for benchmarking.
Feeling quietly confident – though with a bit of a nagging suspicion that I may have raced a bit too much recently.
Civilised 10:50am start – so felt confident enough to deviate from my minimal breakfasting plan… perhaps first mistake.
Got to Dorney Lake early (a C-S family trait that seems to be getting worse as I get older… the compulsion to arrive places “in good time” leaving plenty of time to faff around nervously on arrival).
Long walk to registration from car park as usual – and on entering the tent, realized that I hadn’t brought my wallet (easy way to control shopping) – so also hadn’t got my BTF licence. Luckily, managed to scrape together emergency funds from within my swimming bag – but had to fork out £6 for a day licence…. Grrr…
Unusually for Dorney at this time of year, it was a beautiful day… hot, sunny, a bit windy as always (though after riding through the great gale of the A31 last weekend, a light breeze holds no fear for me and my wok). Fluffy was definitely conspicuous by his flashiness in transition though!
Swim
Water not too cold – though that was NEVER 18 degrees as HumanRace claimed!
Deployed my usual tactic of keeping out of trouble wide to the left. First hundred metres or so was a bit of fruitless splashing around – a really fast pair of feet set off just in front of me, and I tried to follow them, before realizing that I am just not that fast a swimmer – instead, picked up one of the rowing lane ropes to follow, and relaxed. Bit of biff round the first buoy – someone else swimming at the same pace as me, but pulling really badly to the left kept driving me wide all the way home. Did give her a bit of a clunk on the head (not deliberate; stopped to apologise).
400m in 8.05 – one of my worst times ever – but it’s all fairly marginal when it comes to swimming, so not too bothered.
Stats: 10/87 W40+; 36/181 W; 252/650 overall
T1
OK.
Long run from swim exit. Really out of practice at getting wetsuit off – made the usual mistake of taking off goggles & hat first, then realizing that I can’t take top of wetsuit off with a bundle of stuff in my hands. Still, fairly respectable time compared to rest of wave
1:29
Bike
Flat course; smooth tarmac – release Fluffy!
We were flying!
Didn’t push too hard – sat up off the tribars on the bends etc – but passing loads of people (and a lot of shouting from me to make sure that others knew I was there – is that rude?)
Almost a nasty incident on the 3rd lap – 3 gents on mountain bikes from the previous wave were taking up the whole track… made the foolish call to overtake on the left – and just as I shouted this, the inside gent swerved inwards. We were forced onto the grass… started to brace myself for wipeout, but somehow recovered, and after deploying a few choice Tansley-esque phrases, were on our way.
21.2km in 34:43
Stats: 1/87 W40+; 1/181 W; 25/650 overall
Pleased with that (sort of... see later...)– proper TT pace!
T2
1 min
Nice short run from bike in; out again with minimal faffing
Run
Had a feeling I might be in the lead.
That’s where it started to go horribly wrong…
Very quickly started to feel that I had overdone things on the bike… feeling like I was going to vomit/faint, and in need of a bit of a sit down. Grabbed a water; sipped; stopped for a bit; ran on; stopped again. Felt a bit better; ran on. It was hot and painful – just kept focusing on the yellow water stands at either end of the run loop (which never seemed to get any closer).
Finally over the line in 27:02. Had been hoping for 25, so a bit disappointed, but pleased to have got round.
Stats: 29/87 W40+; 76/181 W; 391/650 overall
Overall 1:12:19 – had been aiming for 1:10, so quite pleased that apart from the run disaster, it was on track.
By the RaceTimingSystems website, that puts me first in the W40+ wave? No prize on the day (these are usually handed out as you cross the finish)… have sent a terribly British polite e-mail to HumanRace to query…
Lots of lessons to learned:
- Don’t be too blase about packing (though on advice of the marshall, I now have a photo of my BTF card on my phone, which they apparently will accept)
- Need to take more care about bike pacing – I now have the skills to really hurt myself on the bike – but it’s probably not clever to do so if I have to go for a run after, rather than the commonly accepted follow up to biking (drinking tea and eating cake)
Next stop H10/8 on Staurday…
(somehow this doesn't sound right; blame it on my foreigner speak..)
