Leeds Castle Standard Tri

[md6]

Where: Leeds, in Kent, near Maidstone
When: 28 June 2015
Organiser:
Course details: open water olympic distance (sprint also available)
Distance(s): open water (in the moat 2 laps), bike L shaped out and back, run in the grounds of the castle (off road)
Marshalling: Loads, for the course, lots of volunteers too!
Facilities: there were plenty of potaloos! Lots of water on the run and good course markings
Technical: Chip timing,
Freebies: n/k didn't get that far...

So I didn't sleep at all well the night before, waking at about 1am thinking i'd had a fantastic night's sleep, then about every 2 hours until 5:10 when I got up.

Everything went to plan from there on in, got there 5 mins after resgistration opened, good parking spot etc. Registerest and rack wherever you like. I chose near the entry gate for transition for both swim and bike, so I could find my place. Got racked, took a few pics and lost my sports drink (WTF?!?!) anyway...all was good, then I realised I had forgotten a towel...good effort boy. Anyway, I sacrificed my cycle jersey to the job and got someone to zip me into the wetsuit so I could have a 'warm up' in the moat...21 degrees wetsuit optional swim, I chose to wear it. Got a few strokes out and the wettie was filling with water...damn that Huub quick release zip! out I got, and start again. managed to do it myself (didn't see anyone else in a hub who would know what to do with it). but time for a warm up was over. and everyone was lining up for the briefing.

I realised from my brief paddle, a) it was warm, b) it was shallow) and c) there was 6 to 8 inches of 'mud' (or 600 years of duck sh*t depending how you want to look at it) that you sink into as you wade out from the dry land start. swim was self seeded with 'sub x' timing boards to select. I started at the 25 min board. Aaaand we're off!

Everyone charged into the water like it was a caribean beach...then they all got bogged down as you had to wade 4 or 5 meters before it was deep enough to swim...cue much standing in the 'mud'. The course was narrow, with a straight out, left turn, then right turn, then right turn swim through 2 narrow arches, then left followed by 2 rights and start again for lap 2, a weird 'bow tie' sort of shape. there was a lot of bumping and rucking going on in the swim, and I wasn't fast at all. In fact as soon as your face was in the water it was near pitch black there was that much mud being churned up. Also, as the swim caps were red, and the bouys were red, sighting was a little hard... anyway out the water, walk along cursing to myself, over the mat in 33'27...not a pb by any means. but then I had to wait a while to get in the water, and I walked the 50m or so to the mat.
Swim - 33'27

T1 went well, kick and flicked out of the suit - I LOVE that about my Huub!!!! - then the long run through transition to the mount line
T1 - 2'23.

The bike route is an L shape out and back which rolls relentlessly. It starts in the castle grounds and then out on to A roads the most technical part is the u turn at a large roundabout which is the turn point. I started off felling ok, decided to ride within myself and get the HR down for the first few miles, unfortunately the rolling hills (and mainly climbing) of the first few miles put paid to that. HR was higher than planned (>165 at points) but I felt ok so just kept rolling. Passing and being passed. I haven’t done a lot of climbing recently so I just tapped it out on the up, and let gravity help me get over the gears on the way down, aim to keep spinning and rolling along well. The pace picked up a bit in the 5 – 10 miles section, still hilly but longer and less frequent, kept it spinning and enjoy the downs, I think I hit about 30mph on one slight down which I carried along the flat, getting as aero as my roadie would allow. All felt good. I was busy chasing down a peloton of about 8 people who were just sat in and hiding from the wind – it was picking up a little at this point) when they blew past someone clearly struggling. As I approached I could see she wasn’t ok. I checked and she had punchtured, with no spare. I stopped and gave her mine, plus my co2...then got moving again – I hope that doesn’t come back to bite me I thought, but I had some pit stop so should be ok. Keep on rolling and put out of mind the peloton just hope the marshall gets them all! As we get towards the end of the ‘out’ and hit 12.5 or 13 miles, I start to see lots of people who had been working as a peloton earlier coming back the other way. I know I’m nearly at the turn, I start thinking of the roads back when I get a twinge in my back..oh well nothing to worry about, then as the road kicks up, bang. Back seizes up and I can’t put anything through the pedals, I look down as the speed drops, 19, 18, 14, 10, all the way down to 8mph...over the top and down the other side, I still can’t put anything through the pedals. I stand and try to stretch out and that seems to do the job...But I have a fair bit of ‘up’ on the way back to transition...at this point I had been averaging about 21/22 mph I think. I hit the turn point and start to climb back up with way I had come and get another spasm. F**KING STOP IT!!! I stand and climb which seems to be ok – less pressure on the back, glutes, hamstrings etc I guess...that’s not going to stop up problems for the run...oh no, I’ll just destroy my quads on the bike and be fine. I pressed on but found that I couldn’t get on the drops anymore, no problem, I can still press on up on the hoods, just lose a bit of speed and descend a bit slower. But every time the road went up my back hurt and I had to stop pressing and just gfocus on getting up the f**king hill. About 20 miles in the demons came out to play...just can it, there’s no way you can run off this... you’re not fit enough to do a decent 10k anyway...save yourself the pain, go and get lunch... I had to fight that down the last 7 or so miles with a big can of MTFU. Unfortunately the back hurt more and for longer each time. MTFU and deal with it. The last 3 or 4 miles were ok, and the back had eased a bit. As I rolled into t2, I was actually feeling quite good, I’d held a bloke on a tt bike about 15m in front of me for the last mile (slightly downhill tbh) and was feeling ok. as we came up to the line I was out of the shoes and ready to fly into t2, passing him as he swerved to the side and then as I’m maybe 7m from the dismount line, in the postman stance ready to jump a stupid marshal steps in front of me to tell me to dismount. Standing, in a narrow fenced in run to transition, while 2 bikes come towards him...sensible. He started shouting to slow down and I responded with ‘move’ as I jumped off the bike at running speed 5m short of the dismount line. I shouted slow down as I hit the floor so I responded by shouting no, and speeding up my run to the line and then on to the timing mat. Thank f**k that was over.
Bike – 1’27:53

T2 had a little shoe issue as the heel of my running shoe folded in under my foot to I had to take it off and start again, but all in all not too shabby given the long run with the bike and after dropping it off
T2 – 1’53

Run...if you can call it that. I decided to start off gingerly and take a steady 8’30 pace to see how I felt. I was also aware that the course was not even close to flat, and was off road. Also, there was a severe camber to parts of it due to the route running along ht ebottom of the hills, before turning up and over them. Take it easy and see how we feel. I managed to get all of about 800m or so before the first hill and the first back spasm. Great. I walked up to the top and there was a water station. Grabbed a cup and thre half over my head, MTFU and get running...so I did, for all of 200m. I realised at this point that I might be in trouble, particularly as I hit the first mile in about 11’30...then came the hills. And they were short but steep. I walked up the first one, feeling my hammy ache from the effort – I think the bike took more out of it than I knew. I decided that I’d walk the up, then run the flats and downs. Which was a good plan, for another mile...when I had another spasm on the flat. Cue more walking. I had a decent pace when I ran but I could also feel my quads starting to complain, all that standing climbing might have something to do with that, but it was at least manageable if I didn’t push. Then came another hill, walking up and I could feel my back going. I decided there that I would finish the lap back to transition and quit, I ambled back along at about 9 min pace, just keeping everything in check and as I turned the corner and a slight rise to the straight near transition it went again. Any thoughts of carrying on (and I was having them!) evaporated. I found a marshal handed in my timing chip and went to sulk by my bike as my day was over.

Things I have learned.
1 my new wetsuit is fantastic for getting off, which makes t1 much quicker.
2 I need to sort myself out and stop ignoring little niggles, they can and will come back to bite.
3 although not completely fit, I was able to hold my own on the bike for the first half, and even with the back pain, I still averaged 18mph on a straight if rolling course, on a roadie that’s not too bad.
4 sometimes I need to learn when to stop, so as not to damage myself more than already happened.
5 don’t garden the night before a race...it can and does cause more damage than expected!

Oh and finally, don’t forget the sunscreen, even if chicks love a trisuit suntan, it kinda hurts being burned there.

[scibby]

Bad luck with the back. Sounds like a nice race.... Next stop Hever?!


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[kfjatek]

Sounds like a pretty tough day in the office - well done for manning TF up and finishing!

[Big_Show]

Hire a gardener.

[Jimba]

Tough day at the office all round, well done on getting as far as you did.

[jonathon.e]

All in all a good race.
It is only a bad race if you fail to learn something, you learned lots, AND YOU HELPED OUT A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS, so double kudos to that, whether they let the CO2 escape merrily into the atmosphere and not the tyre I don't know, but good work

[birdyman]

Only just seen this Mark. Sounds like a tough day out. I hope that you have rested and recovered and taken the positives out of it. The Huub sounds pretty good. I need something make me faster in the water!

Would you recommend the event for future years; and are you still planning to do the Hever 1/2 IM in Sept? Hopefully i'll see you there.

[md6]

Guy, I would recommend it, it is a reasonably tough course, the bike is rolling but fast and the run is pretty up and down too, BUT I think it is a reasonably fast course (what goes up and all that). The only thing making me think differently is the swim. It was really narrow and slow due to all the turns, 6 or 7 per lap so 12 to 14 turns in all. Which meant that the group stayed pretty bunched up. if they have waved starts then I would said absolutely definitely do it again, in all I think I would do it again yeah.

the plan is still to do hever half, I need to sort my body out first before I decide though. 50/50 at the moment. need to see the physio next week I think

[King Sad]

Ouch, recover quickly. Tough day at the office, hard decision to hand in the chip but better than risking long term damage