The Vitruvian

Since the club champs I've managed to get some decent running in, nothing much over an hour but along a really tough stretch of Cornish coastal path, giving me my confidence back!




Pre race I treated myself to a new chain and a really good cleaning of the bike as well as adjusting and charging the Di2 for the first time since Rimini!




Preparation for the race was excellent and as a bonus our accommodation was about 3 miles from the start line, a quick spin of the bike revealed no issues on the bike so I racked on Friday night and headed home for some food and an early night.




We set alarms for 4am, and went to bed, I had a decent nights sleep and when I woke up had an email about some ironman highlights on my phone so watched the video over my slightly burnt breakfast (how did I manage to burn porridge?!?)




In transition I got my bike ready, checking bolts and making everything ready, had a catch up with Judith and then sneaked to the loo while the race briefing was happening.




Swim
I stayed back here and aimed to catch some steady feet, after my experience at the Dambuster where I just go swum over. It was a really nice clear swim and I was into my rhythm quickly, the first lap was pretty good and I was in the feet for about a 3rd of the lap, at the Australian exit I had done the first lap in 16 minutes, not lightening but its a long day and I figured 2 minutes wasn't the end of the world. the second lap was a little more tricky as I ran into the back of the wave after us, and lost a fair bit of rhythm, but was steady and didn't burn any matches.




T1
A mess, I was ready to jump on the bike as I arrived at  it but after drying my feet, and then realising my visor was fogged up (I'd put the helmet the right way up on the bars and as the sun rose and the dew lifted I think it all went inside my helmet) drying that and then drying the rest of myself I wasted an eternity.




Bike
I was still well towards the front of the field and having learnt how tricky the first few 100m were at Dambuster I had good start to the bike, my targeted 240w felt easy, and off I went. I hit a bit of car  traffic through the ripples with a lorry stuck behind one of the earlier starting waves, which was frustrating but gave me a change to eat a gel and then off I went, there were a few more people than usual overtaking me but I put this down to the higher quality field rather than anything else, but I had noticed my chain was noisy, and that my speed for my power output seemed quite low, I planed to stop at halfway to check but in the hurry of re-filling my water bottle I forgot all about it and carried on. My power was good at just under 240w, my average speed seemed quite low at just over 33kph. I'd got nutrition pretty right although I wasn't enjoying the orange Torq drink I'd put in my bottle, despite really liking it in training!




T2
A lack of talc at this stage made getting compression socks on a tricky task and I pissed away more time here. I really need to practice long distance transitions for next year, as they are a different beast to shorter races!




Run
As I exited T2 I worked out I needed 1 1:28 half marathon to go below 4:30, which wasn't going to happen, but I thought a 1:38 might be possible to go sub 4:40, I started well will a couple of people flying past me but after the first incline I was struck by the dreaded cramp, I nailed a get and a saltstick and it subsided and I was off again, ticking along at a comfortable 4:35 pace which was all that was needed to go sub 4:40, at the half way stage I'd averaged 4:40 min km which given that I'd walked for about 500m I wasn't too worried about, feeling pretty good, getting gels in but by this stage I'd run out my own Torq gels and was a little nervous about using the on course nutrition, and held off for a bit too long between gels,  something I didn't pay for until the final turn when a combo of a bit of poor maths (I worked out that I'd completely blown it, but actually hadn't) and running out of sugar meant I had a bit of a tantrum and walked for a bit throwing away my chances of a sub 4:40 in the process.




At the end I was pretty happy with my swim, my transitions need some work and my run wasn't bad, but at the start of the season my aim was to go sub 4:45 so I had ticked that off and I enjoyed a pint of Erdinger Alkoholfrei and waited for Andrea.




It was only once I was back at the bike that I took a look at it and discovered the rear brake had been dragging all the way round, which was a bit frustrating as it was incredibly easy to fix, and goes some way to explaining why I was so slow on the bike [I've since discovered that I'd installed the new chain outside for the rear derailleur cage - so rather than a mechanically efficient jockey wheel the wheel hade been running on bare metal - IDIOT!]