Lincolnshire TLI Ashby Road Race

Add caption

Just a day after the world wettest time trial, I drove the short distance to Ashby de la Launde near Sleaford to have a go at my very first road race.

I signed on early as there is usually a cap in number of riders, and was given a number and slotted into group 2 for the evening. there are four groups in total 1-4, with each group set off at intervals with the idea that they will come together on the last lap.
In group two there was about 15-20 of us and we were set off 6 minutes after Group 1.

Immediately the pace was strong and it took me half a lap to get used to it, however once I did, I couldn't stop myself going to the front and doing some work. In fact for the first 3 laps there was 5 or 6 of us driving the group and trying to force the pace with the rest of the group happy to let us do this. Halfway round lap 3
though we were caught, and I was just too spent to hop on the back of Group 3 and found myself right at the back of the peleton.

I hung on for half a lap, but when we rounded a 90 degree turn, I found myself detached and just could not get back on !

I ambled round the last lap with Karen from the Wheelers and crossed the line almost last.

A learning experience is where this one is going to be noted down !

Lincoln Wheelers GP des Gents

The premise is simple, find yourself a much older and hopefully capable rider, and then time trial a 10 mile course in the hope that your older riders handicap is enough time to alter your time for a win overall !

Teams are often sorted well in advance, often a year in some cases, and up until last week I didn't have a partner, until 48 year old Gaz stepped in, and now we had two forty year olds riding against teams with much older riders in them - basically it was to be a bit of fun and some rider of the season points.

The course was one of the usual club 10 courses and the same course used for last month for the clubs 2-up event. The difference tonight was that storm clouds were brewing and there was the sound of thunder in the air. yep..it was going to be a wet one !

The heavens opened as we were just a quarter of a mile down the road and it was torrential ! I couldnt see much at the front and when it was my turn at the back, well it was a shit spray from start to finish.

Despite this and the waterlogged course, we managed to work as a tight unit and threaded our way through the puddles to mark a good time of 24.46 for the 10 miles - a PB for both of us and 4th fastest on the night - however when the handicaps were duly calculated, we slipped down the order somewhat !

Points is points though, and the experience of riding in such conditions was epic !

Birmingham Super Sprint Triathlon

Team Newham...

Sunday 21st July 2013 - Dave's first triathlon !

The venue was Sutton Park in Birmingham, and we stayed over the night before so that we got a good nights sleep and avoided lots of travelling on a stressful race day. Dave still managed to take us to the wrong hotel and we stayed there an hour protesting before finding out we should be 5 miles up t'road ! D'oh !!

On the morning of race day, we drove down to the madly congested Sutton Park and finally got into the venue at around 10.30. Our stated start time was to be 12.00 so no great shakes - A walk to registration which worked well, and then sit chilled chatting and sorting out kit for a good while before deciding it was time to take the bikes to transition and get the part started !

... OK, rewind, transition was chaos and it was a one in one out affair as organisers tried to keep on top of the limited racking space. Race start delayed 15 min, however, we were soon in and found ourselves a couple of rows away from each other, which was not what we anticipated, but we got on with it and it was soon time to head down to the water for our 200m swim leg.

We had a little time to warm up in the water, before we were started at 12.15 and we were off !

Almost immediately,, it was obvious that we were going to be the last two in the water and we were given our own canoeist to chat to as we progressed around the first buoy (which was promptly cleared up after us), and although we were ahead of our target pace, we were a few minutes off the back as we exited the water. I witnessed a miracle at this point as Dave smashed the last 5m, legged it up the path to transition, to leave me (a 4 time Ironman finisher) milking the sympathy of the crowd as a trooper and well done for swimming 200m ! (Funniest moment ever - but applause was still v. much appreciated !).

Quickish transition and onto the bike for two bumpy laps of the bike section. Roads were poor, congested by riders and lumpier than I liked. I rode with the intention of keeping Dave in my sights, but found I had misjudged how fast he was going to ride and found myself having to put in a real effort to catch him up. We made up a few places, and I think both of us were happier to get into T2 and onto the run.

The run was a 2.5km mixed terrain affair, and we engaged in a walk run strategy, keeping an eye behind us to make sure were weren't overtaken. A strong finish saw us both finish in 1.09.35 with me taking the honours on the day alphabetically. A picnic afterward topped off an excellent day all round and the icing was a super medal !

Team Newham :

EDCA 100

One night in Norwich...one night in Norwich !

I travelled down last night and stayed in a B&B so that I could be up early for my 6.09 start for my first ever 100m time trial event.

I managed to get there on time, however, the start was delayed by half an hour due to there being some mist in places on the A11, however we were soon told by the organiser that we were good to go !

I had a couple of miles to do a mini warm up, before heading down an entry ramp onto the A11 then along into a layby to await my 6.39 start time.

The course for the day was four loops of the A11 taking in a 13 mile stretch. For each of the laps I had an average speed plan, and hoped to complete the 100m below 4hrs 54 which I believed at the time to be age standard :

1) 26.051m - ave 22mph
2) 52.102m - ave 21mph
3) 78.153m - ave 20mph
4) 100m - ave 19mph

The plan was to restart my Garmin at the end of each lap so that I could accurately keep on top of things !

Well, the first half of the first lap was slow and when I made the turn I was averaging only 19.8mph, however, the next stretch had a little breeze behind me and I managed to push on and bring that up to over 23mph. Turn again though into the breeze and the first 26 miles had been completed in 22.8mph.

2nd lap then, and probably on reflection the hardest lap, I felt tired already and my brain was telling me to quit ( this happens a lot in my time trials and I think its my 'you're not good enough to be here' part of my personality trying to break out !). The second loop averaged 21.8mph but had been laborious, and I didn't enjoy it one bit - also the dual carriageway was getting busy and some of the traffic had been a little too close for my liking.

So 3rd lap, target speed 20mph, confidence low - guess what happened next.....

that's right, I got faster somehow and my confidence came back and I felt a lot better - that 3rd lap averaged 22.4mph, which left me just 22 miles to the finish !

That last lap was great ! I didn't mind that caravans were trying to wipe me out, or that I was continually overtaken - I rode my fastest lap of the day (after 78miles !!) and kept an average of 23.1mph ! I was so happy at the finish and my time was 4.30.13 which smashed my target for the day, and subsequently better than VTTA age standard of 4.34 !

Happy Days :-)

Outlaw Triathlon 2013 race report

So, I found myself up again very early yesterday morning to take part in what I was calling my ret-iron-ment race which is my last planned Ironman distance race for sometime possibly ever.

I have decided that the knock on effect of training so much isn't entirely worth the hassle and need a break - so after making sure that I'd bagged a Lanza finish just seven weeks before - I thought I'd put in a farewell appearance at my local Iron distance race where I had marshalled on two previous occasions sine its inception in 2010.

Now, one of the advantages of having such a race so close to home is that I could sleep in my own bed before making my way over to Holme Pierrepoint (HPP) ready to start the race at a dizzily early 6.00am ! The swim is as easy as a swim can be sighting wise as its a straight swim up one side if the rectangular shaped lake, and then a hop across 50 metres or so for a reverse swim back to transition. HPP has four boating segments at the end, and I chose section 3 which was for predicted swim times of 1.20 to 1.40.

I was late into the water, so had to manouvre myself around a bit and tried to get to the first 3rd of the starting pen. An OSB'er roused the athletes to the edge of giddiness and with a sound of a air horn we were set on our way at just about as close to 6 am as you can get. Lat month, I talked about the swim in Lanza being a bit biffy, but Outlaw took it to a whole new level ! My fault though I suppose, as I was trying along with others to get to the left hand side of the lake, and in hindsight I should have started towards the back of pen 2.

The first 250m seemed to take forever and I was convinced that it was going to be a worlds worst swim, but whaddya know, eventually I rounded the two bouys and started to head home in a quick 38 mins, and with no real traffic on the reverse legs, I was able to whittle down the 250m markers until I hit the exit ramp in a delighted 1.17.37 for a 5 minute PB Ironman swim - YIPPEE !!

T1 7.14

Ran from the lake, struggled to get my wettie off, picked up the run bag instead of bike bag, had a pee, but still made 3 minutes on Lanza - go figure !

Bike 5.40.34

I exited transition feeling good as I was already 14 minutes ahead of schedule. By the time I had completed a 3 mile loop of the lake, my gloves and UV arm protectors were both on, and I had managed to use the small bottle of P20 sun protection and given myself a good topping up !

The bike course is relatively flat, and with winds of no more than 5mph I was looking forward to it. Learning a Lanza lesson, I opted for a normal road helmet as it was just so damn warm already.
The first part of the course is the southern loop, and I was flying along at about 21 mph but not exceeding myself - it was important that I rode fast but not smashfest giddy due to the heat. I remembered to drink regularly and had given myself a treat to look forward to with a couple of pork pies in my back pocket. The first of these was munched before the 30 mile feed station and went down a treat. I was still holding that c.21 mph as I headed up to the northern loop and tackled the climb at Oxton Bank, which whilst not long and not that steep, certainly got me working for a bit !

From there it was a downhill slalom into Southwell and then a bit of a tester into a headwind (what there was of it) before a super fast return to the southern loop for one final dance. I stopped the Garmin at 56 mph and reset it so that I could keep an eye on the 2nd part of the race.

The only negative thing about the bike course was the occasional peleton and the drafting corporate relays who were treating the event like a sportive and riding in each others wheel and side by side chatting - D'oh !!

Speed slowed 2nd half as the old legs tired and the sun shone brighter, but the major upside was the ride through Car Colston which was rammed with spectators. I managed to get safely through Radcliffe On trent where there had been an accident at a junction with a competitor and a car, and got back to HPP after a blistering (for me !!) bike split of 5.40 !

T2 3.12

Bloke next to me getting changed was being interviewed for the TV, and I tried to snuggle up to get in the shot - time will tell if I manage it ! 3 minutes - bog standard transitioning and straight out onto the run course.

Run 5.20.11

Muthaf**ker it was hot ! Two laps of the lake to start off with - first lap 27 minutes with a pee stop, 2nd lap 32 mins with some 15 seconds walk breaks - and all I could feel was bloated and gassy and could only run for half a mile at a time before bloatey cramps would stop me , I d walk a bit, manage to expel said wind and repeat process !
The fact of the matter was that the heat, although monstrously warm, could be managed, but my digestive system was throwing me a curve ball and was breaking my run into a stop start effort. Speaking of the heat, I have not seen an event with so many bodies strewn along the way - people were really struggling with the heat in a big way. First lap out to the Embankment and back was a hard slog, with little shade , but did enjoy getting sponged down with cold water by a kind citizen of Nottingham ! I passed Heidi who was working the Lincoln Tri feed station (filling in for me and probably doing twice the work !) and after one really hard lap of the lake it was time to start my final lap into Nottingham - and to celebrate this I started off with the longest bloody walk of the whole day !! It was that bad - I think I must have made nearly the whole of the riverbank before I felt well enough to start jogging again !

I passed lots of guys from my Tri Club and was loving the atmosphere ! I had entertained thoughts of a sub 12 performance before getting onto the run, but I had to run the last mile hard to get in and finish under 12.30. It had been a hard day at the office, but an Ironman PB in my last race was the icing on the cake for me.

So, 12.28.48 in the end, and an event which was a fitting end to my Long Distance Tri career.