2011 Blenheim Sprint Triathlon

Well this is my first blog so if anybody finds it I'd appreciate feedback and comments.   It will be longer than future ones as I wanted to share abit of background first.  My reasons for starting to write a blog are..
a)  I have recently been enjoying reading Melanie Ryding's http://melanieryding.blogspot.com/ and Matt Fisher's http://triathletesdiary.com/blog-2.html blogs and found theres lots to be learnt from reading other peoples experiences.  If people can learn from my experiences then I'm happy to share them.
b)  Even if no one reads this I believe that it can add value to my training by recording how I raced, what the course was like and what my learnings are from it.

Abit of background first...

I have been feeling in pretty good shape overall and after relocating to Sandhurst, Berks in Jan joined my local running club (Sandhurst Joggers) and swimming club (Bracknell Masters).  I haven't managed to link with any local cycling clubs unfortunately.  I have also been to my favourite OW venue, Heron Lake several times.  The only disruption was in early May I injured my right calf (on a bouncy castle!!!) but continued with the swiming and cycling unaffected.  Last week I went to see a physio who said that I had minor tears to my lower calf - but after a deep tissue massage and several ice compressions a day I was hopeful that would get me through Windsor.  Blenheim is my second triathlon of the season after the local Fleet Sprint Tri  in May.  Next week I have got Winsor OLY and then London OLY in August.  I am also hoping to complete a couple of the 220 Evening series at Dorney.

Blenheim
I completed this race back in 2006.  My memories of it are a week of preceeding rain, a major bike crash on the Saturday (resulting in over-cautious stewards) and then a very very wet race on the Sunday.  The carpark was a quagmire and post race I came back to my spare clothes floating in 6" of water with no sign of my bin liner.  But hey thats all part of triathlon.  Weather aside I remember it as really enjoying the course and being reasonably happy with the time. 

Here's the course route & transition...

Blenheim 2011-Objectives
The evening before I made a decision to focus on 2 elements of each core discipline.

Swim1:  Keeping head facing down (not ahead) and long reaches
Swim2:  Direction - Conserve energy by frequently checking not going off course

Bike1:  Cadence @ 90rpm
Bike2:  Descending - a massive opportunity for me.  To consciously push it down the hills. (Thought I'd look for some advice online night before - every website said 'Practice, practice, practice'.  Great!!! lol

Run1:  Attack, Attack, Attack - Running is my strength and I need to leverage this
Run2: 

It was clear looking at my times from last time that the biggest opportunity to gain was on the bike - 40 mins vs. 30mins by the fastest cyclist. Also my transition times were well down.  Whilst the relevance of what happened 5 years ago is questionable, I felt it was a good starting point.

I also had in the back of my mind an overall time of sub 1:20 and to be within 15% of my faster AG'r.  This is a change in focus from position within overall field (incl beginners) to looking to the best.

The Race

The weather on arrival was overcast and quite windy, later on some sun came out periodically.  I was off at 10.30 but was there for 8 so had a good walkthrough of transition, watched the elites through T1 and had a warmup - albeit shorter than I would have liked. 

Swim - 750m

Alot of people were commenting how cold it was (15oC), but maybe as I'm used to Heron (deep therefore colder lake) it felt fine.  I picked a position towards the right as it seemed more direct to the turnaround buoy but so did quite a few people.  Soon after the start I found a good rhythm with my stroke and breathing and found that there were very few swimmers round me.  The 500m to the turnaround buoy seemed to go quickly and to plan, round the buoy and back to the boathouse.  I went slightly off course here but nothing major.  Up onto the floating exit and someone grabbed my hand and hauled me up. 

T1

It's a 400m up quite a steep hill and I knew to attack this.  I quickly had the top half of my wetsuit off and overtook 5-6 people just getting up to transition.  Looking at my watch near the top I saw 15:21 so knew I was probably slightly up on last time.  Into the courtyard and down a wooden ramp, that I had seen several competitors earlier sliding over on so was cautious.  Found my bike easily but then couldn't get my wetsuit legs off.  Definately an area that needs work.  Soon enough I was off and out towards T2 exit.  I heard the beep of my chip so started to mount - only to hear cries of I hadn't reached the mounting line so back off, run further 10ft and back on.  Clearly schoolboy error here.

Bike-20km (3 laps)

The first bit of the bike is a descent, however by the time I had both feet in my shoes I was near the bottom of the hill so didn't make the most of it.  The course then wound up a gentle slope and I was focussed on 90rpm - it seemed to be working.  I got out the saddle on the climbs - a guy off the Wiggle stand had advised this as the climbs were quite short.  I was making good progress although I couldnt help feeling most people I was going past were beginners from earlier AG's.  Soon enough I topped the climb and started the descent.  My quads felt tired which is strange as I have had a taper week given my back to back races.  On the descent I pushed it using my brakes only on corners - tight roads and beginners riding 3 wide wasn't ideal but generally when I shouted they moved to the left.  Given the wind I tried to spend as much time on my tribars as possible.  In lap 1 I was only passed 4 times.  Laps 2 and 3 were similar - I felt I was making good progress and descending reasonably well.  However I had lost focus on the cadence and was pushing too high a gear on the hills - I would later pay for this.  As I approached T2, I took my right foot out but when I took my left out my shoe swung down and connected with the floor, jamming into the ground and nearly throwing me off. 

T2

The moment I jumped off my bike I felt cramp in my left calf.  I was pretty annoyed as my nutririon / drink intake has been good for the past few days- well I thought anyway.  I took on plenty on the bike too so I assumed it was pushing high gears on the hills.  Racked my bike, swapped kit and off I went but my left leg was still cramping.  I kept going to see if it would shift but it didnt.  Near T2 exit I stopped to stretch it for 10-15 seconds and carried on running.  Aside from that it had been a good transition.

Run (5k; 2 laps)

I decided to try and run the cramp off - after a couple of hundred metres it started easing.  I knew it wouldn't be a trademark run but I felt I could keep going.  Nothing much to say about the run really, I was just chasing people down 1 by 1 and trying to attack.  When I turned on lap 1 and the time was 1:17:30 and I had to get back to the palace and round to the finish I felt that 1:20 was abit ambitious.  Anyway I pushed as hard as I could and had a reasonably strong finish.

Reflection

I am generally harsh on myself, it's my nature to focus on the areas that need it.  Strengths take care of themselves.  As a concession I will say that overall it wasn't a bad race.  Whilst I was abit disappointed with the time, I did beat my last time (the devil in me is thinking that 2006 was far worse conditions; however I was there or there abouts) and more things worked than didn't.  Also was my target of 1:20 realistic - I'm not sure.  However my run time was 2 mins down today on last time and I stopped to stretch - potentially 30 seconds.  Knock 2:30 off mt time and 1:20 DOES look realistic.

How did I do vs focus areas:

Swim1:  Keeping head facing down (not ahead) and long reaches.  YES
Swim2:  Direction - Conserve energy by frequently checking not going off course  YES

Bike1:  Cadence @ 90rpm  BIG NO
Bike2:  Descending - a massive opportunity for me.  To consciously push it down the hills. YES

Run1:  Attack, Attack, Attack - Running is my strength and I need to leverage this  - NO
Run2:  Strong Finsh - NO

Results

Positives

• Swim -   I really felt that I found a rhythm on the swim and picked a good course
• Transitions - Apart from wetsuit sticking / cramp they went pretty smoothly
• Pre-race Preparation - Getting there early and walking the transitions, watching cyclists corner etc certainly helped
• Descending - I hit speeds of 37.8mph which isn't high to most but I've maxed out at only 32mph so far this year.

To Work On

• Cycling Cadence
• Cycling Descending
• Removing wetsuit