London Triathlon Competition Reaction… Part 2
Following on from Lisa Hall’s post we now have the reaction of our other London Tri Competition winner, Carl Myhill. Apologies for this coming up slightly late but we enjoyed a few technical probs with email!
Saturday, August 09, 2008
London Sprint Triathlon (750m swim/20k bike/5k run) - 1:20:54 - 107th (of 1,405) - top 8%
The day of the London Sprint Tri dawned wet and stayed wet. I may have been slightly less enthusiastic to accept the Wiggle prize entry to the event had I known what the weather would be like!
(photos available from SportsCam)
After such a hectic time to getting to the race it was with considerable relief that I jumped into Victoria Docks. Visibility wasn’t terrible, you could see about a foot, - in fact I saw many feet during the swim! I gradually got used to the temperature and made my way to the deep water start over the other side of the dock. I hadn’t been there long when the race starter started shouting encouragement to the swimmers to quickly get to the start line. They weren’t all there when the horn sounded for the start and we were off.
At the club relays the week before I was uncomfortable in the swim, couldn’t settle and was borderline panicing. In this swim it was a mass start with 285 people and quite a narrow course. Oddly, although it was a bit of maul I managed to finally feel some benefit from swimming close to other swimmers - the swimmer version of drafting. I really noticed this for a while when I found some clear water and it felt like harder work. Unheard of for me, I headed back into the crush! My first race victory was my mental state during the swim. I had settled from the very start and despite the worst maul I’d been in. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration since I think the London Tri has a huge proportion of novices so they are perhaps kinder in the water than the more gnarly regular triathletes….
I don’t know how many cyclists I passed but only one or perhaps 2 went past me. I was quite confused in the race though. Some people on the bikes in front of me were spectacularly slow so I figured they must have put in olympic efforts in the water to be ahead of me and to have managed to slow down so much. It wasn’t until the end of the race that I realised I was overtaking people from the race heat that started 30 minutes earlier. It was really impossible to tell who I was racing against. The only hint really was that anyone moving at my pace was probably someone I should be racing against. Because I missed the race briefing I had to ask another cyclist if the race was of 2 laps and he confirmed that yes, indeed it was, so I set off for another.
I’d finally done the 20k and cycled back into the transition hall, hopped off my bike and headed for my rack to get my running shoes. I racked, switched shoes and set off. It struck me that there were very few bikes racked by this point. I was frankly staggered. That had to mean I was doing rather well in my heat since the vast majority had not finished the bike yet. Aware that some triathletes excel at the running part I didn’t hang about. I ran off making time to tag little hands poking through the rails trying to get a ‘high 5′ from the ‘athletes’! I saw Yolanda too and managed another high 5 before continuing down a slippery slope to the waterfront.
It was pretty tough to run after the ride but I felt ok, just a bit of disappointment that I couldn’t get more speed out of my legs. I like running through a busy field since I can pick someone in front and reel them in. When I have reeled someone, even before I overtake them I try to focus on the person ahead of them. Otherwise I can fixate on someone just ahead who might only be going quite slowly - I’m sure that slows me down. It was funny to catch up with people who were walking. I was thinking they must swim like absolute fish and ride like the wind to be in front of me and be walking! It wasn’t until later that I figured out they were from a previous heat, though I had my suspicions that something was amiss.
Eventually I found someone in front who was hard to reel in. It took me a while but I was eventually past him but not very convincingly. I felt he was close behind and might come back at any moment so it spurred me on. With 1k to go I picked it up a bit and tried to overtake a few more folks. Coming up the ramp to the finish I was quite frustrated with 3 runners side-by-side blocking the way and failing to move aside when I said ‘on your right’. Expending more effort to say it again I pushed through and rapidly accelerated past them to the finish. The guy ahead of me was moving pretty slow but was 20m from me. I hit the ’sprint’ button but was too far out to get to him.
Over the line I laid down to get my heart-rate down (my running coach taught me that one). The guy I struggled to pass came over and shook my hand to thank me for pacing him. I could see his point. It’s nice to run with people who are just a little faster than you want to go.
My time was 1:20:54. I later found this was 17th in my heat (out of 285) and 107th overall (out of 1,405). This is perhaps my highest ranking in an event like this, putting me in the top 8% - huge thanks to Wiggle for the race entry competition prize! What fun!
Carl’s full reaction can be found on his blog site below:
http://bubbleinthedesert.blogspot.com/search/label/training%20and%20racing