14

Dextro Energy Race.

Oh boy. What a race. I was out doing the Dextro race in Hyde Park last weekend. The race started out so well! I rode to the start in 10 mins, something I am rarely able to do from my W1 address. It was a very civilised 11:45am start, which meant I was going to have some friends scattered around the course to cheer me on. Transition was tight, but well marshaled and organised so whilst you didn’t have much space for racking, there was plenty of room between each row. I headed to the swim start in good time to meet The Dutchman (my beloved) and Terry (my coach). I was NOT thinking about how gross the water was going to be and was very pleased to have my Aqua Sphere Icon wetsuit to protect me even though the wetsuit was optional.

It was a mixed male and female start which always makes for more jostling and I was a bit surprised when the race started and not positioned correctly. So off we went to hit the first turn point about 50m in which was chaotic. As everyone is still sprinting at that point it was all rough and tumble going around the corner and I got a huge kick in the stomach which meant I sucked in loads of Serpentine water. Gross. Gross. Gross. I was coughing and spluttering so much that this lovely guy, number 2081 if I remember correctly and who I now know is Dr Robert Adam, stopped and asked me if I was OK. Very nice of him, Thank you Robert.

After doing some breastroke and suppressing the panic of not being able to breathe, I untangled myself and got going again. By this stage I had managed to miss the front pack (again! A constant in recent races!) but worked hard to get into a smaller pack to recover and then surge forward to the next group. This seemed to work and I came out of the water with a new PB of 25:52.

I did a speedy transition and onto the bike for my 2nd PB of the day with a 1:08:14 bike split. Very happy and I felt so great! The bike was really windy in places but that’s where I excel on the Focus Izalco Chrono by keeping my head still wearing my Briko aero helmet and just powering away. I had some friends around the course and it is always so motivating to hear your name called out. It was a 6 lap bike course and counting laps is not my forte, especially after hearing that even the pro men had managed to mess it up the day before. I had little sticky tags on my bike to help count and had the Dutchman there to help! I know it sounds silly but when you are pushing so hard physically, you really can forget where you are!

Back into T2 and I was feeling a whole new Olympic distance PB coming on. All I needed to do was run 39 min for 10km and as it was a flat course I was more than a little bit confident. The run was 5 laps and I powered through the first 2 laps in my Pearl Izumi Streak’s, I was running well but had this awful pain, almost like a bad stitch in my side that was stopping me from really putting some speed in. (I still don’t know what caused it, maybe the kick I got in the swim, but it is still sore 3 days later when I write this). I was in 2nd place by this stage and had 3-4 mins on the 3rd place girl. Lap number 3 the pain really started to intensify and I had to run and walk. Halfway round lap 3 I was doing more walk than run and now crying like a big baby. I was hurting and had just been over taken! That just made me cry more! I spent the rest of the run hunched over clutching my side and sobbing with tears streaming down my face. It was so frustrating that I couldn’t run and also now couldn’t stop crying! After 2 PB’s I had a PW (personal worst) run time of 51.30.

I managed to finish the race and ended up in 9th place. I crossed the line to hear my friend Sam who was commentating say how I was the recent London Tri age group winner and what a great result in Hyde Park today. He was a little surprised when he saw I was crying and helped me get it in perspective that it is just a race and not really worth getting upset about. I can see that now, and I can laugh about the princess performance, but at the time it was like the world was ending. Once the pain had started subsiding I started watching others cross the line who were so happy to have finished in under 2:30 and it made me realise how ungracious I was being, but it also made me aware of how much pressure I put myself under to perform. The race didn’t go perfectly, but it wasn’t my A race of the season and I certainly would have had reason to be upset if this had happened at the London Tri.

Terry sent me a nice note the day after the race asking me to take 5 positives from the race and put a line under it. So my 5 positives are as follows:

• New swim PB by over 1:30, even after being kicked!
• New bike PB in windy conditions
• Great transition times, I am getting faster and faster with each race
• Nutrition strategy is working and I have stopped over eating during the race
• I can say I have taken part in a race on the 2012 Olympic course!

So, I have 2 races left for the season. The Nottingham relays on Saturday which is just for fun and then the 4th and final 220 evening race at Dorney Lake where I will be looking to win and make it 4 out of 4 wins for the series. I have a couple of busy weeks coming up as I am off to France for 4 days over the long weekend and then back again the following week for 10 days cycling through the Alps. What a wonderful way to end the season.

Happy training.
Cx

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Carolyn Hewett, Team Wiggle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.