Well woke up this morning feeling a bit tense having been feeling ill all the day before, and been ill on and off for a week or two. Today was my first triathlon, (400m swim, 18 mile ride, 3.5 mile run)....based in the new forest.
Weather was brilliant....sun beaming down, slear skys, birds singing etc etc
.... Swim was a bit slower than I hoped for but i felt surprisingly fresh during it.....was one of the last few out of the pool... a quick transition saw me onto the 18 mile bike leg...but not quick enough...the rest of my wave had already mounted their bikes, leaving a couple of us rushing to get out. I picture myself sprinting towards the mounting point, pushing the bike along in style..but in reality the chances are all the spectators saw was an evident newbie hobbling along, trying not to slip up on his cleated road shoes. I mount the bike, again in an ungraceful style, and I'm off. Three strokes of the pedal and I'm out the gates, onto the road and immeadiately looking for the rider infront of me....two hundred metres.... with perhaps half a dozen more spread out before her.
On my way to this event I was advised to keep my pace steady, careful on the hills not to build lactate acid, and only let rip in the last stages of the run. After seeing the rider spinning away 200metres away from me, the first thing I thought was "sod that". Shifting onto the big chainring and honking out the saddle I was soon past the first rider. I relaxed a little and sat down into the saddle....ok sprinting may not have been the best idea in the world, but hey, at least it looked good. I selected a reasonably high gear to spin in order to prevent my knees from blowing up (que stories of how I have been off the bike and out of running for three months due to ITB syndrome). My aching knees also made me abandon any form of clock, prefering to listen to my body to prevent myself pushing too hard (though I would keep an eye on the speedometer every now and again) ..... 4 miles into the bike course, a left turn onto a long stretch of road and I realised that I had blown away most of my wave, via on lady who I could not seem to break away from no matter how many spurts of effort I put in. She seemed a nice enough person, and pretty attractive for that matter, but I was desperate to leave her staring at my back wheel for the rest of the ride. She was invincable....she didn't even have tri- bars! She seemed effortless as she span the gears round. The only part of our convosation I remember is when she told me about her previous triathlon, then seem unsurprised that this was my first race (secretly I wanted her to be taken aback by the fact she was being matched by a novice), following which she asked "So do you do alot of cycling", to which I lied, "oh I do a little bit here and there" just as we had begun climbing a stretch of hill. And I was gone, big chainring again and out of the saddle, pushing round the seemingly huge gear, the pressure in the knees building up, burn filling the thighs and calves, lungs complaining at the sudden effort they were having to go to, complaining so much they wanted to crawl their way out of my mouth. I was loving it. A quick glance back showed that the invincable woman had been left for dead. Brilliant.
I pushed hard for the rest of the ride, taking in the beautiful scenery of the New Forest, attacking every hill hard, and praying to see another rider up infront for me to aim for.
14 miles in...19.8 mph average...not good enough. Big chainring again and alot of self cursing every time the speedo dropped below 30 mph. Before I knew it was time to dismount...now I had heard that after the bike leg, people often get "jelly legs", but how bad could it be?
Pretty bad was the answer...I was forced to take alot of small fast steps and constantly look down to check my legs were still there. Luckily after half a mile, the funny feeling had gone and I was pacing away. I managed to gain a few spots over som strugglers, but I was also caught here by what I can only describe as a steam train.
I paced myself all the way round the run, not even sprinting for the finish - perhaps I should have? Anyway I reckon I had acheived my target time of 1.45hours. After some snacks, stretching and congratulating club mates, I checked my time. 1hour 33 minutes. WOW. To top things off out of a fairly large field I had manage to come THIRD out of all the under 21s. For my first ever triathlon, I wasnt too dissapointed to be 7 mins after my age groups winner.
I'm going to be doing triathlons more often....and I seriously suggest it to anybody.
Weather was brilliant....sun beaming down, slear skys, birds singing etc etc
.... Swim was a bit slower than I hoped for but i felt surprisingly fresh during it.....was one of the last few out of the pool... a quick transition saw me onto the 18 mile bike leg...but not quick enough...the rest of my wave had already mounted their bikes, leaving a couple of us rushing to get out. I picture myself sprinting towards the mounting point, pushing the bike along in style..but in reality the chances are all the spectators saw was an evident newbie hobbling along, trying not to slip up on his cleated road shoes. I mount the bike, again in an ungraceful style, and I'm off. Three strokes of the pedal and I'm out the gates, onto the road and immeadiately looking for the rider infront of me....two hundred metres.... with perhaps half a dozen more spread out before her.
On my way to this event I was advised to keep my pace steady, careful on the hills not to build lactate acid, and only let rip in the last stages of the run. After seeing the rider spinning away 200metres away from me, the first thing I thought was "sod that". Shifting onto the big chainring and honking out the saddle I was soon past the first rider. I relaxed a little and sat down into the saddle....ok sprinting may not have been the best idea in the world, but hey, at least it looked good. I selected a reasonably high gear to spin in order to prevent my knees from blowing up (que stories of how I have been off the bike and out of running for three months due to ITB syndrome). My aching knees also made me abandon any form of clock, prefering to listen to my body to prevent myself pushing too hard (though I would keep an eye on the speedometer every now and again) ..... 4 miles into the bike course, a left turn onto a long stretch of road and I realised that I had blown away most of my wave, via on lady who I could not seem to break away from no matter how many spurts of effort I put in. She seemed a nice enough person, and pretty attractive for that matter, but I was desperate to leave her staring at my back wheel for the rest of the ride. She was invincable....she didn't even have tri- bars! She seemed effortless as she span the gears round. The only part of our convosation I remember is when she told me about her previous triathlon, then seem unsurprised that this was my first race (secretly I wanted her to be taken aback by the fact she was being matched by a novice), following which she asked "So do you do alot of cycling", to which I lied, "oh I do a little bit here and there" just as we had begun climbing a stretch of hill. And I was gone, big chainring again and out of the saddle, pushing round the seemingly huge gear, the pressure in the knees building up, burn filling the thighs and calves, lungs complaining at the sudden effort they were having to go to, complaining so much they wanted to crawl their way out of my mouth. I was loving it. A quick glance back showed that the invincable woman had been left for dead. Brilliant.
I pushed hard for the rest of the ride, taking in the beautiful scenery of the New Forest, attacking every hill hard, and praying to see another rider up infront for me to aim for.
14 miles in...19.8 mph average...not good enough. Big chainring again and alot of self cursing every time the speedo dropped below 30 mph. Before I knew it was time to dismount...now I had heard that after the bike leg, people often get "jelly legs", but how bad could it be?
Pretty bad was the answer...I was forced to take alot of small fast steps and constantly look down to check my legs were still there. Luckily after half a mile, the funny feeling had gone and I was pacing away. I managed to gain a few spots over som strugglers, but I was also caught here by what I can only describe as a steam train.
I paced myself all the way round the run, not even sprinting for the finish - perhaps I should have? Anyway I reckon I had acheived my target time of 1.45hours. After some snacks, stretching and congratulating club mates, I checked my time. 1hour 33 minutes. WOW. To top things off out of a fairly large field I had manage to come THIRD out of all the under 21s. For my first ever triathlon, I wasnt too dissapointed to be 7 mins after my age groups winner.
I'm going to be doing triathlons more often....and I seriously suggest it to anybody.
