When: 28 june 2015
Organiser: always aim high events
Course details: open water olympic distance (sprint also available)
Distance(s): open water (cardiff bay), closed roads bike, tarmac / path run
Marshalling: substantial numbers, some coping with the weather better than others
Facilities: cardiff millenium centre for changing, wc's, registration, coffee etc. lots of stuff around the transtition area
Technical: Chip timing, closed roads
Freebies: cowbell (i gotta have more cowbell), slate coaster (!), water bottle, race belt
i'd been encouraged to do this by a friend, who did the sprint, and quite late on (tuesday evening) i had sorted some accommodation (old cardiff friend's floor) and was set to race. i cadged a lift over to cardiff on saturday afternoon, went for a nice lebanese meal and once i'd got to bed had a scant 5 1/2h sleep before needing to be up and registered. saturday was lovely - 25c, no wind, and sunny. great racing weather and a pity that sunday was more traditionally south walian.
i chose to do the olympic because i've not done one for aaaages (5years i think), and it was ok value at £75, compared with a £65 sprint. t-shirt was an extra tenner, which was a shame. the race is centred around cardiff bay, using the fairly recently barraged fresh-water bay as the swim and closed roads running west towards penarth. the run was out along the barrage. it's a terrific location - set at the roald dahl plass (old dry dock) and immediately surrounded by the old pierhead building and new millenium centre and welsh assembly buildings. a fine backdrop. my targets were two - break my previous pb of 2:27, and see if i could get under 40mins for 10km.
registration and racking for the oly closed at 7am, so i rode over with my flavadave tri bag for 6am, got sorted and eventually racked about 6:45. main reason for leaving it late was that the rain had started, and had quickly gone from a light drizzle to persistent rain. i opted to plastic-bag up my bike and run kit, eschewed a transition towel, and decided to not bother with the elastic bands on the bike shoes (would only have left my shoes facing up into the rain. i recalled JonE's advice and turned my twathat over so it didn't fill with rain. i put my cycling gillet out just in case - i was likely to get wet and stay wet.
my swim wave went at 8:50, so i had nearly a 2h wait after the briefing and closing of transition. i met up with my sprint race friend and chatted away, finally suited up and headed over with 15mins to go. the weather was grim, steady light rain and it didn't look like it would clear. i scarfed an energy drink with 10mins to go, and was glad to be in the water when it was finally my turn. i was in a wave of last minute entries and there was only 6 of us - all varying abilities.
the oly swim was a single lap - out toward the barrage and then back to the transition area. it was only 3 or four buoys, though, and the first one was probably 600m away. easy to see from on the quay, but a bugger at water level with the wind shoving waves into your face. i gave the others a 3sec head start and then cracked on with it. the aim was to swim about 24mins (i've been good for that in training), and by the first buoy i'd caught the stragglers from the previous wave (5mins before us). the turn was welcome as the wind was blowing us back to the transition, if slightly off to the right. the buoys were a bit too spaced out i think, they could have done with a few more to make sure the course was clear. early on i found i kept having to sight and readjust. once i was settled it was all good, and i eventually caught some swimmers from the next wave as well. i came out in 23mins or so which was well on target.
transition was a muddle - my bike bag had got soaked and i dithered momentarily while i chose my kit. i eventually shoved my lid, socks and gillet on, abandoned my mitts (silly to bring them, really), grabbed a couple of gels and headed out. i think i was about 30secs slower than i should have been, but the conditions were horrible and i was happy to take some time. i messed my mount up completely - without the elastic bands the shoes were a bastard to get into. lesson learned, although i wouldn't have run in them given how wet it was.
the bike was a 5km closed road, so the ride was 4 out-and-backs, with dead turns at each end and lots of roundabouts and junctions in between. a few speed bumps, some narrow bits. mostly it went out into the industrial hinterland of south cardiff, which was a shame as it wasn't a wonderfully scenic closed road (bristol's closed road event under the suspension bridge is stunning). it was flat and pretty fast. i just got on with hammering it as hard as i could without much thought of pacing. the main reason was that there was a ton of traffic and a large number of junctions - hard lefts, right, straight over roundabouts - all told there were 9 or so in each 5km. this meant you got little time building up a rhythm and a lot of time slowing and speeding up.
i was last oly wave out (there were about 870 people in front of me) and so i did a lot of overtaking. 'on your right' was said many, many times. there was almost no clear road - i think the longest single stretch i had on the aero bars was about 2mins, without braking for a corner or having to sit up for another competitor to get out of the way. i would have hated to be a draft buster there, it was packed in places, but there didn't seem to be any evidence of packs forming up, rather heavy overtaking. what i did see was a lot of punctures a few fallers (one guy had clearly overcooked it into a corner and hit the deck). there were a lot of wet manhole covers. there were a lot of wet manhole covers at corners. there were corners with shale at the edges. it was easy to get to a junction while overtaking, get a shit line and end up having to brake hard to avoid mandering yourself on a bit of metal.
and it was still raining like a bastard. one section had standing water for about 15meters! when south wales does rain it really delivers.
after 4 laps of 'on your right' and 'wooooah easy on the corner/manhole/roundabout' i was back in transition. garmin said 1:03 and my splits had pretty consistently been in the 15:50 region for each lap. i was pretty happy with that, i'd worked hard but not destroyed myself and had a stonking time. continuous overtaking (no-one came past me at all on the bike) also makes you feel pretty special, even if it isn't a true reflection of how fast you really are!
t2 was a doddle compared to my pissing about in t1 - in, rack, shoes, hat, gillet, garmin... and off.
run was a two-lapper - out toward and then along the barrage to a u-turn point, back to the transition area where you looped back in front of the assembly building (sennydd) and then off again. one water point only - at the turn point. i think there was some water at the start of the run but no-one offered me any. i'm sorry, but i think one (maybe two) water stops is not sufficient - if the race had been in the conditions of saturday then i think it would have been problematic. as it was i took on a lot of liquid from the sky. there was a bit of wind, mostly south westerly - i'd felt it a bit on the bike - and it was noticeable on the run when on the barrage. i felt pretty good on the run, trying to run to a 40min pace and staying just under (6:35min/mi ish). i had a couple of people come past me early on, but again i was spending most of it scampering past people. i felt really good most of the run.
it wasn't until toward the end that i realised the course was probably shorter than i'd expected. i'd missed pressing start on the garmin until 20secs after t2 exit, but those 20secs couldn't account for how close the finish was coming at me and what the distance reading was on my garmin. it looks like it was half a mile short, which i find quite irritating. i couldn't pace properly for that half mile - i had no idea where to start pushing from and i was quite close to that 40min target. it shouldn't have been that short as there was a turn point that could perhaps have been moved (at least a short distance to get it closer to 6mi), and there were loop options to get it to length. sorry aih events, but 1/2mi short on an advertised oly isn't really on. i would have missed my 40mins target i think, but i didn't even get the chance to find out how close i could have got.
the finish, and the areas immediately around it (transition, the bike loop point and the run lap point were really well supported - they had a fever, and the only prescription was more cowbell - and there was a lot of marshals giving great support and keeping lots of the athletes motivated. the weather had started drying out a touch (either that or i'd stopped noticing the drizzle by then), and it wasn't too cold. i gave it what i had left for the finish and then got stuck into the buffet table before leaving to find my friends and some dry clothes.
my time, a totally marvellous 2:08:19. it's not a pb, though, is it? not with a 24mi bike (checked garmin) and a 5.75mi run. there you go. i'm even doubting my swim time now, which is unnecessarily harsh.
in reality it's probably a 2:14 (add 3mins for the bike and 3mins for the run). still good going. and as jacques pointed out it is where you finish in relation to the others on the day that gives you the reference. this was a big race by my standards, 700 people, and i was 32nd. even within the 600 men i was in the top 5% and that is really decent going. i was sodding quick on the bike in crap conditions and with a highly technical course. hurray for something.
swim 23:10
t1 2:47 (nice cup of tea there)
bike 1:03:29
t2 1:17
run 37:37*
2:08:19
winner 1:50:44, highest place in my ag, too (i was 18 in msen cat).
good times, a good day. the weather is sunny now which seems somewhat unfair.
if i'm sounding a bit churlish about the distances then perhaps i am, but it narks me! you can't really compare races to each other anyway (terrain, weather etc all screw those things up), but i still feel there should be some honesty in distance. i'm not asking for precision, and the odd yard or two isn't a deal breaker as everyone is in the same boat on the day, but i'd rather they told us than said it was something it wasn't. if there is a reason it is short on the day then fine, just say in the briefing - then we know and can pace accordingly. race like this could have done with a '1km to go' marker or something, perhaps, to get a sense of what is left. i'm a mardy bitch, really.
it doesn't detract too much from what is a really good event, though. the closed road section might be uninspiring but it is quick and that will always attract racers. the course was very busy though and they may need to consider how many they think they can realistically get on that course. too often riders were three-abreast overtaking but there are little options when it is that busy. perhaps the earlier waves had it easier.
i wouldn't be surprised if with some tweaks this race becomes a big one - couple of days racing, perhaps even a national or international event. it has the potential, if aih can iron out some of the fine details.
no medal, though
. i like a slate coaster as much as the next bloke, but i'd love a slate coaster medal even more (take coaster, drill hole, voila!).
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