I did this race last year, after 4 weeks of very little
training, having taken up beer post ironman and not having actually looked at
the course or ever having been up box hil before, it was a nightmare, it was
cold wet, the trail shoes I bought were not right for 16 miles of road running
and I was too heavy.
I had been a bit tardy about entering the race and when I saw
a competition to win free entry and a free pair of CEP Compression socks I jumped
at the chance and couldn’t believe my luck when I won – I’ve been a fan of CEP
compression wear for a couple of years and never race without their quad and
calf sleeves on so a pair of socks to race in was a real bonus!
This year would be different, I’d be as prepared as I possibly
could be, I don’t mean treating it like an a race, but in terms of fitness,
tactics and kit I’d have everything nailed down a week to go and even have a
bit of a practice in terms of kit to make sure it was just right!
Training wise things have been going well, I’m about 5 weeks
into the training season, and one of those weeks was spend in Lanzarote climbing,
then riding into strong cross/Tail/head winds then descending and then
repeating, it even pissed it down with rain one day to partially simulate race
conditions, my weight has dropped from the 74kg I hit post season down to below
72kg, which for the last few years has been race weight, the Tuesday night run
sessions I coach have been focussed on building power and endurance by
repeatedly running up and down steep hills, and on Tuesday I gave my planned
kit a run out and was comfortable, able to regulate temperature nicely and felt
fairly aero. I’d even looked through last years files to try to plan a tactic
that would extract maximum performance out of myself, id worked out a power
plan to mean I didn’t go too much into the red on the climb and didn’t take it
too easy on the descents, and had planned to not let my heart rate go over 165
on the first climb.
The only thing separating this from an “a race” treatment is
that I did a hard weeks training the week before, in an attempt to start to get
myself to treat race as races and supported training as exactly that rather
than skipping training sessions to help me be as fresh as possible for
ridiculous things like a mid week club TT!
I had decided I would ride the TT bike as the winner and separately
fastest split last year were done on one, and despite worsening weather
conditions I stuck with this plan.
My final bit of prep had been to have a bit of a guesstimate
of my club mates times as well as mine, and had figured id probably have a
comfortable buffer over both them and the club record of 3:16:32 set last year by Gope
Walker.
Anyway I was feeling confident of a decent PB and thought
3:10 was a good goal to aim for, I picked up Andrea’s bike on Friday, packed
the car and was in bed by 10pm ahead of the 4:30 alarm clock!
We got to the start a little early, but in reality this meant
we had plenty of faff time, and a good parking spot, after a couple of hours
kicking about it was finally time to start, we gathered as a BTS group and then
went our separate ways to adhere to the organisers request to self seed ahead
of a “pulsed*” start system. Andrea and I had agreed to run together, targeting
a 56 minute first lap, we set of a little slow due to the mud and the climb in
the first KM that we’d forgotten about but were soon ticking along well ahead
of target pace, trying to keep calm and slow a little but both feeling strong,
we got to the first hill and I switched screens on my Garmin to be able to see
heart rate, and alarmingly Andrea was pulling away from me despite going over
my target HR, I realised id basically have to walk to maintain below 165 so
upped it to 170 (I think this was a function of fatigue as usually 170 is going
pretty hard – and this felt easy) I decided to let Andrea go, it’s testament to
the progress he’s made this year in running, but my ego got slightly the better
of me and I forgot about HR for a minute when he got a little too far in front.
Andrea entered transition 10 seconds ahead of me and
jokingly told me he’d “smashed me on the run”, I quickly got bike shoes and
helmet on and off I went, Andrea sneaked out slightly in front of me (again
awesome progress from Mr tea set himself) but gave me space to get past, a true
gent, I then got hit by the wind in transition and nearly landed on my arse,
but had to pick my bike up and hold it
at angle not to get blown over – uh oh….
Onto the bike the first couple of KMs I was nicely tucked
into aero and flying past people, at which point I started the first descent,
and my visor fogged up, so had to ride quite cautiously as I couldn’t really
see anything, so between putting the hammer down on the flatter bits and riding
cautiously I got to the bottom of box hill for the first time, I was ahead of
my power target at this point but stuck to the plan and held 300 watts up the
ascent, thankful that I could see again, I got a couple of sarky comments about
bike choice from people as I went past and one from someone who was overtaking me,
but I knew I was riding well and just had to stick to the plan as best I could.
Half way round the second lap with a growing confidence I realised I was fast approaching
Martyn (going pretty much dead on the plan id imagined for him) and knew I had
about 1.5 laps to put enough time on him just in case he was going well, then
the heavier traffic began and annoyingly at the bottom of box hill Martyn was
still quite close, but I stuck to plan, hoping that things would clear up, the
final lap was all good, there’re were a couple of hold ups with traffic, as
cars get stuck behind some of the slower riders, but for the most part nothing eventful,
the final climb I really started catching people, particularly some of the kits
that I’d noticed overtaking me the first time round – reminding me of the importance
of pacing in events of this length.
T2 was uneventful apart from a marshal coming over to me
asking me about how it was on my bike, I thought he might be asking on safety
grounds so didn’t get annoyed, I grabbed a gel, thinking id now have two with
me and off I went, I was really struggling for grip for the until I hit the
road and wasted a fair amount of time here, I’m not sure there is much that can
be done here, but something to note for next years thinking.
Immediately out onto run two I was still passing more than I
was being passed, id noticed early on that people in the relay were wearing Velcro
chips while everyone else had plastic ones, so when a girl came steaming past
me I clocked the chip and made my excuses! I took my first gel fairly early
knowing I had another one in my pocket for later on as I was feeling tired and
realised my form was slipping but I was determined that my form would improve
if I focused on it, and so made sure I had relaxed shoulders, was nice and
upright and was swinging my arms from my shoulders hoping my legs would listen
and the speed and fluidity would follow. It largely did, and there was a group
of about 5 people who I kept roughly 20 meters in front of me, coming out of Headley
village I became aware of someone catching me, and thoughts that it might be Martyn
entered my head, I expressed my relief when it wasn’t, it was at this point I thought
it would be a good idea to have another gel, with about 25 minutes more
running, it wouldn’t make much physiological difference but a bit of a boost
when I first had it, combined with the caffeine and hopefully a little extra in
the last 5 minutes once the sugar hit the system might just make the
difference, unfortunately the cupboard was bare, so I soldiered on, with about
4k to go I heard another set of footsteps and looked round to my horror to
discover the ever smiling Martyn Parrish sneaking up on me, I had to let him go
but once he was about 50m ahead I steeled myself for another effort, I knew he’d
gone in a wave before me, so all id have to do was finish somewhere less than
about 20 seconds behind him on the road to beat him on the clock. I cruised
past the group that had been sitting about 20 meters in front of me, and by
2.5km to go and the start of the climbing I was less that 5m behind Martyn, it
had taken a big effort to real him back in, but I figured if I could stay in touch
up the hill it would be enough, onto the proper climb and my legs felt like
lead, I focused on taking the shortest line but my heart rate was about 175 and
there wasn’t any more in the tank, I was pulling away from the people behind me
and tried a couple of 20 step power walks to see if that might give me a little
speed, all the while watching Martyn edging away, he was probably close to 75m
by this stage and although the power walks helped they weren’t enough, it was
only once the course flattened out that I was able to pick up the pace, but Martyn
was out of site by now, so it was just for me to know I’d put everything out.
I got over the line to find Martyn sitting pretty in a
convenient chair, and heartily congratulated him, I quickly felt quite cold so headed
to transition pretty quickly to get some layers on, and get my car keys,
chucked the bike in the car and went to find Andrea.
It was only when we got to the post race restaurant that I discovered
quite how close it had been between Martyn and I (5 seconds) which makes me
wonder whether some of the small little errors could be to blame, but in
reality the better man won on the day, and that’s good fire in the belly for training
over the next few months.
So, the good
I ran well, and kept a lid on it to the final lap.
I got an 11 minute PB
I enjoyed the course
I got beaten by a clubmate, so there's that to help me get
out of bed on the cold winter mornings!
The bad
Wrong bike
Wrong helmet
A small nutrition error
Never underestimate Martyn Parrish – he’s a competitive
monster!
*setting people off in groups of 6 every 5 seconds to try to
avoid congestion on the roads
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