Windsor 2014

[CCS]

What: Windsor
Where: Windsor
Organiser: Human Race
Distance: Swim 1500m (Murky river Thames), Bike 42km , Run 10km (3 soul destroying hilly laps)
N.B. Mr Garmin 310XT seems to think that I swam 3km... my sighting isn't that bad; he also thinks the bike is just a fraction over 40km in real life... suspect this to be true)
Marshalling: Kayaks; people stopping traffic on the bike route; visually impaired draft busters; depressingly cheerful people offering encouragement on the run
Facilities: Toilets courtesy of the bus station infinitely preferable to the portaloos; Expo; catering vans (had nice bacon butty & cup of coffee after)
Technical: Chip timing, swim hat
Freebies: Black technical T - finally a freebie that will get some use!

A quick race report while it is still fresh in my mind (with the advancing years, all these races blend into a bit of a blur...).
I will try to keep this brief – but seeing as I have the evening to myself, and a head full of muscle relaxant cider, so seems like a good time to write a report.

Pre-race:
A bit stressful. Very tired; trip to register on Saturday was complicated by a positive flood inside the car (apparently a ‘feature’ of ageing Audis...).
New pre-race nutrition (giant home made pizza the night before; minimal breakfast on race morning; definitely no pre-race gels, and only energy drink on the bike) seemed to work well – there was no vomit despite being very nervous!
Sent myself to bed at 9pm; up again at 4:15 (and didn’t even notice that the BAT came up to watch the football on his Kindle – obviously tired!).
Got to Windsor a bit later than planned – not sure why. Only time to quickly set up transition and nip to the loo. Didn’t dare try and inflate the wok (when my fingers are nervous, they have a tendency to just let all the air out of it, even with the help of my patented wine cork), so took a punt that pressure wouldn’t have dropped much below 100psi since last weekend and left well alone.
Bumped into Scibby, and walked down to the swim start with her, as she was starting 4 mins ahead – and also met up with my training buddy, Vicki, who was in my wave. Always nice to meet a few friendly faces!

Swim:
Current was pretty horrible. As ever, managed to position myself very badly, and it was just a constant scramble of limbs, and a battle against the current to stay still – so very glad when the start horn went off. The first part of the race was very busy – bodies everywhere and making slow progress (did get really fed up with someone who kept swimming into me and pushing me into the current, to the extent that I stopped and told her to F*** off... not particularly proud of that). Once I got beyond the turn point for the sprint waves, the water suddenly cleared – I seemed to have the river to myself – a bit worrying. All uneventful otherwise – though totally messed up the turn. I deliberately hugged the bank, and tried to swim a bit too far upstream, but the current still carried me, and got tangled in both buoys (bit of a panic there, as this makes them feel like they are about to topple over on top of you).
Out in 29:22 (incl. long run to T1)

T1:
1:49
This time, I remembered to take the top of my wetsuit down before taking swim hat and goggles off (so for a change, wasn’t running with my arms pinned to my sides due to hat & goggles getting stuck in wetsuit sleeve). Had a bit of a sit down; shoes & socks on, and long run out.

Bike:
Didn’t push too hard so as to retain a bit of energy for the run, but went easily past a lot of sprint tail enders, and caught a fair few in my wave. There was some shocking drafting – so I made sure that I passed them, and slowed down as I went by to give them a piece of my mind) – then indulged in plenty of nose clearing in case they thought they might jump onto my wheel. There really is no excuse for this in the W40+ wave (the drafting, not the nose clearing, which I felt was perfectly justified) – we have the course pretty much to ourselves, so this was deliberate rather than a consequence of crowded roads (and at the pointy end of the field too)
Coming off Drift Road, caught a sprint tail ender in the most fabulous leopard skin tri suit – had to comment on how fabulous this was as I passed (perhaps a sign I could have worked a little harder) – she was similarly complimentary about our club kit
1:11:30
(no danger to any of Ade’s Drift road Strava segments there)...

T2:
Surprised to find that this had changed since last year (note to self – do actually read the race pack...) – much longer run in.
2:37

Run:
Feeling OK (!)
Saw Scibby, so tried to catch her, and headed on up the hill.
Excellent support from Jon on the run – and overall felt pretty good, though legs were aching, and very glad to get to the end of it.
The fastest 10km I have EVER run!!!!!!
54:29
Really pleased with that, especially as it’s a hilly course, and I may have indulged in a little power walk on the last trip up the hill.

Overall, 2:39:47 – a massive PB (about 6.5 mins faster than last year).
Can’t complain about that!!
6th in AG (but I claim a moral 4th place); 28th woman.

Tired now!!!

[ris]

fanstatic, ccs, brilliant to have a run to be proud of to go with the cycling.

[kfjatek]

Awesome! Glad you've managed to break the Windsor gastral curse too. Well done on the PB!

[Worrying Will]

Another cracker well done

written using my bestist willglish

[King Sad]

Well done Clare

Pre-race pizza obviously worked

[Jack Hughes]

You may have taken it "easy" on the bike, but still fastest on the bike in your age group and 8th fastest of all the women. And you T2 was even better - 1st and 7th - must have been the increased running speed on the way out.

Very well done.

Maybe pick some age group qualifying races now.

[Sir Jibbenstein]

Great result. Well done on the pb! Shame about the drafters, hope they caught a snot rocket!

sent through the ether from my Boporola

[jonathon.e]

Lovely report,
Great result. Very fast 10km at the end, a truly great result, racing smart and not letting the cycling demon loose and holding it restraint, showed that racing smart produces excellent results. An example that maybe some others should follow.

As mentioned above and before AG qualification " cough, cough "

In your training log you mentioned nerves and not being competitive.
The one who is without fear is a fool. Nerves are good, as for not being competitive my sides have split with the hilarity.

A disadvantage of the speedfill over a bidon, is you can't use it as a water pistol and squirt the drafting cheaters.

[S11]

I had to read it twice...at first nose clearing I thought you meant putting the hammer down and clearing them all out...then I read it again and thought nice one.

Ace report - well done

[JoddyBear]

great report, and a great race result. well done

hat & goggles getting stuck in wetsuit sleeve

I use this as a way of storing them so I don't have to carry them...