When: 31 May 2015
Organiser: One Step Beyond
Course details: Based at Holme Pierrpont, regatta lake swim, undulating out and back bike course, undulating 2 lap run
Distance(s): 1.9km swim; 90 km bike; 21 km run
Marshalling: Excellent!! Road closures, partial road closures and traffic control. Lots of very friendly, smiley volunteers,
Facilities: Water sports centre facilities, free parking, toilets, massage, trade stands
Technical: Chip timing, live tracker, live commentary feed.
Freebies: Technical Polo shirt, big heavy medal
I really wanted to get an improvement on this but with the training I was able to get in thought I might still just tease out a bit on the swim, fingers crossed for the bike and mmm a glimmer of hope on the run. 35 of us old codgers in my AG 55-59.
Goals:
In training I had a realistic idea of what times I wanted for each discipline; swim 42:00, bike 3:00:00, run 2:10:00 but also like to compare against the average of the first three in my AG. The average of the 2013 and 2014 races were 5:32 and 5:28. Given reasonable weather I was looking to get a time of about 6:05 and if the winner in AG had a time of about 5:15 get within 15% - ah the weather, Weather forecasts - oh dear! Looked out of the hotel window at 3.30am, absolutely peeing down
, contemplated rolling over and sacking it but job to be done. Timings going to be way off.Got to Holme Pierrepont, racked and prepped; it was definitely a ‘soft morning’.Cold (10c), wet and windy.
Swim.
The swim start was at 6:30 in 4 waves at 10 min intervals, my (3rd) wave was at 6:50, the girls in the final wave at 7.00.
The swim actually felt quite good and after a couple of minutes realised I was still in the main pack and not playing catch up. Before I knew it I was at the turn around point, feeling very good, dare I say even enjoying it
. After 200m or so started to slow so concentrated on maintaining pace. No dramas, exited the water feeling OK. In 2013 I was mightily pleased to exit in 42.22, this year 42.25 so content with that. Average of first three in AG 42.15.T1
Very cramped, only enough room for 1 person so dodging and bumping into people on way to the bike. I got cold very quickly even though I put on a dry cycle jersey, cycle shorts and sleeves.and seem to remember sitting down, shivering and eating some toast and an energy bar
. 9.55! Sounds rubbish, it is! Average of first three in AG 7.30. +33%Bike:
Trotted off to mount line, clipped in and off. Around the lake, passing people already, stopped, rear brake rubbing, re-adjusted and off again., had to shout at the geeses and gooslings that were just walking across the road between these bikes zipping past, forgot that geese go ‘honk honk’ and shouted ‘quack quack’ instead, well, they still ignored me
. Drizzly rain - onto Abolton lane, passing a few more, keeping steady pace, bike feeling great, visor doing a great job keeping the rain off my face, buff on my head under the helmet keeping wind and cold at bay. Onto A52, inside lane coned off for riders. Into Radcliffe on Trent, terrific traffic control, short climb, crested, slight uppy downy, into Shelton, left onto A6097, gradual rise towards Lowdham. Then swoop down to the bridge.Onto Lowdham roundabout, next 10k, slight 1% rise then to the Oxton roundabout, 30km mark, flick to the right, through Oxton slight rise, left onto approach to the Oxton bank, saw a rider being helped up after a tumble. Still on the bars for the next 1k until the steepest part of the climb ... Gosh that went a bit easier than I thought. Crested, feed station, replenned my BTA bottle then back to work. Next 6k an active descent, fast going overtaking a fair few but then eased back on the approach to Southwell ... damn, too soon, still better safe than sorry. Couple of hundred meters further then up, brake, traffic control, right flick towards the Leisure Centre and the outward leg of the Southwell triathlon, caught up with quite a few here. Up and down the rollers back towards Lowdham roundabout. Very rainy but visor doing a good job keeping the rain off.
Left at the roundabout, steady climb on the A6097 to the Eastern loop, 50km mark, some uppy/downy bits through two roundabouts towards Carl Colston, some locals out cheering which was amazing considering the weather. Slowed down past an ambulance where a rider was down, someone said it was a hypothermia case. Apart from an occasional rider overtaking/dicing with me it was steady, working my way through the ranks. Rain started to ease off by the 60km mark then shortly after some crunchy knobbly bits back towards Car Colston, bit more windy.
The last 20k was getting a bit wearisome but kept it steady, through the really bumpy, lumpy bit with road humps at Holme Pierrpont Hall, nice road again onto the bars for last 1k ...got a cheer for the last right flick into HP and dismount.
Time: 3:15:57, about 11 minutes longer than 2013. Rather disappointing but talking with the others their times were down by about the same time. Average of first three in AG 2:49 +15%
T2: Again another shivery, chilly, WTF am I doing? Type of transition. Jersey and shorts off, run shorts on. 5:40. Average of first three in AG 3:50 +47%
Run:
Two loops; finally the rain had sort of ish stopped.
Now I had a plan on this and I stuck to it; out of T2 onto the lake road, left up the gradient, high fived and got a good cheer from my club, Lincoln Tri, manning the scoreboard feed station. From there straight out for 3km to the turn around through the TFN feed station back again to the lake pick up a wristband and 5k around the lake. Lots of whoops, high fives from the fantastic volunteers and supporters
, having your name on the race number was great for personalised encouragement. Stuck religiously to my pace, reached the far/home stretch of the lake perimeter road straight into a head wind, really slowed down but upped the effort slightly and knew I would have to push it out a touch on the tail wind bits to maintain my goal average pace. Back up the gradient through the Lincoln Tri Scoreboard feed station, I must admit I did enjoy the cheers - is that sad of me? 
- really appreciated it and lifted me. At about the 12km mark feeling a bit tired and dropped caffeine + Isogel, jaffa cake and a nana. Onwards to the turn around point and just when I was feeling a bit low got a nice cheer from a very attractive woman in her 30’s - forget caffeine a pretty woman’s encouragement works for me .
This was it, what a combination, pretty woman cheering, caffeine gel kicking in, the home stretch and a tiny hint of blue sky. I was on top of the world. Back through TFN station, shouted my thanks and high fived, back to the scoreboard and double high fived through the Lincoln station, second band onto the road. Suffer time, only a few more k to go, saw a group about 200m in front and gradually drew up and overtook them and then onto the final home straight, wind had shifted slightly so not as much of a struggle and upped my pace for the final 2km.
The chute at HP is set off to the left so you can’t see it on the approach, about 200m to go and there was quite a big group giving encouragement which was really appreciated. Into the chute, bloody marvellous; 6 hours of cold and wet was simply forgotten about. Crossed the line. Happy boy.
Crunched the numbers.
Run: 2:14:42 5 minutes faster than 2013 Happy boy but would have liked 2:10:00. Average of first three in AG 1:41 + 33%
Total: 6:28:39, 14 minutes slower than 2013 bum
. Average of first three in AG 5:24 +19.7%. The winner did an unbelievable 5:09:00711 out of 1050 finishers. 75 DNF/DQs
Very soggy blurry photo of very soggy triathlete
Thoughts: Don’t know why I felt so cold in T1 & T2, OK it was 10ishC, drizzly and windy but did wear a short sleeve compression top under my tri top. Swim, I was pleased with and potential to knock a minute possibly two off. Bike, went steady but safe. Run, pleased with, faster but scope to oull out a few minutes more.
Onwards and upwards, good base training for my next one - which one? Not decided yet.
.
) but passing quite a few. Not sure why but had to stop twice for a wee, never happened before on the bike. Pace dropped as we headed back to T2 as the headwinds were tough!
