I haven’t blogged in a while so I have decided to do a little of summary of some of the races I have done recently! I’ve left out a few TT’s and an Aquathlon, oh and a win at Box End Park!
I’ll start off with
Stow sprint triathlon. Before the race I was unsure in which race to do... This one or the Bedford Sprint at Box End park. It was the second year that it had ran and I had competed and enjoyed it last year! But I decided to try out the Stow Sprint. Spice things up a little! I’ll cut to the chase .
It was Hot, but to most spectators that was not a problem. It gave them all the more reason to soak up the outstanding backdrop that this event is held at. Little groups spread out over the lawn (couldn't really call it a field) seemingly having picnics while waiting for their race to start, even with tones of a band played though the air. I digress back to the race.
It was my first ever ‘first out the water’ moment with my 750m PB time of 10.03! I was very pleased with this! It was then a long, long, long run to transition where I jumped on my bike and prepared myself for a long 26km, undulating, David Glossy designed route! (he later told ne he designed it for a string rider!) I started to ride and my legs just didn’t feel with it! And I was caught at around 15km by Jason Moore who just flew past me down a decent! He put around 20-30 meters between us but I managed to keep this distance back until the finial approach into the Stowe Estate . Here there was a final hill where I gained a little more back on Jason! We ran into transition within 2 seconds of each other. Him slightly ahead!! Another quick transition and we were onto the run! I started fast and quick. Heat and hills are a killing combination and what with the extra effort I had put to keep Jason in my sights on the bike it got the better of me on the day! I dropped back to 3rd place as Jordan Pollard took 2nd with Dan Bigham coming in, in 4th place!
I did the Sprint which was hard enough! A standard distance was also on earlier that day,It would be torture to do this course twice like Phil Holland, Robert Quantrell, David Glossy and Matt Wootton coming 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 7th respectively!! Well done everyone who was there!!
Silverstone Duathlon. This consists of a 2 mile Run, 10 mile cycle and another 2 mile run! Overall I was pleased with the race as I had a PB of over 2 mins and that, pretty much, came from a faster cycle split! Jason Moore had the fastest bike split... again! And Phil Holland won the race... again! And I came somewhere behind them both... again!
OW session
Five of us who all train with each other from time to time, Ian Turner, Richard Hancock, Darren Preston, Chris Ritchie and myself ventured down to Box End Lake for an Open Water Master Class with Adam. Between us we have all done a shed load of open water races, four of us GB age group reps (not you Darren! you could be if you wanted to! Just get your Ironman out the way first!) I think I went to the session a little bit of a ‘what am I going to get from this’ attitude.
Although I had been through all this with Adam already it was great to recap on the theory behind sighting, drafting, turning and positioning before we got in the water. After a warm up the main focus was on drafting, splitting into pairs to practice, because if you can master drafting you’ll effectively be able to swim, saving up to 30% of energy or 30% faster! Depending on how you look at it! We also learnt a lot about tactics, moving up from group of swimmers to another, or even dropping back if the group you had tagged onto was to quick (it might happen!)
We also practiced and appreciated just how important sighting was and how to tackle turn buoys.
At the end we had a little handicap race, good stuff.
So my ‘what am I going to get from this’ attitude was way wrong, I wish I had done a class like this as I was starting up – perhaps I will mention it down the club and try a get a club session sorted.
Still to Come
My 9up TTT
Ashman Trophy
Still to Come
My 9up TTT
