I should be happy with this one, but I am not really that pleased with how this race turned out.
The swim went pretty well. I started well and managed to get into a good position to draft the guy in front for the first 200m before I decided I could probably go a little faster in front. So I tapped him and went past. I managed to hold the same speed until the 300m mark where the fastest swimmer in the lane came round to lap me. I was able to stay on his feet for about the next 250m then the guy I had passed early on decided he wanted to go back in front and the fourth guy from our lane came round to lap us. As I let them both past we all lost out on the tow from the leader and then a length later they decided to swap themselves around and that held us up again. From there it was a straight swim to the finish and I thought it was actually a decent swim performance.
I did manage to keep the tumble turns in for most of the race. I think I did about 6 touch turns and three of those were for the overtaking moves.
The finish time on my Garmin is 12:35. So equalling my PB but missing my target. The official time, which includes getting out of the pool and along to transition is 12:52. A tiny bit quicker than last year, but a tiny bit slower than I wanted and, despite the much better drafting conditions and tumble turns, no better than Peterhead. A bit disappointing really.
The bike was a bit of a mash-up of some good sections time trailing on the flat, some decent climbing, some bad climbing, and some very nervous descending. Starting with the descending, early on in the race there is a very fast straight descent. I caught someone just going over the crest of the hill but couldn't pass him and then he was quite nervous in the crosswinds on the descent, which in turn made me nervous about being behind him. Halfway down another cyclist was sitting on the verge (looked like just a mechanical rather than a crash) which didn't help either of our descending confidence.
From there is a straight section where I passed the nervous descender, only for him to become a shadow for the whole of the rest of the race. This is how I know when I was climbing badly and when I was climbing well. On a couple of the ascents he eased past me and moved away, but as soon as we crested or went on to a descent he was back behind me again, and drafting very close. I tried a few times to drop him but he was always there, sucking my wheel for the next 12 miles until a short sharp climb into town gave me a chance to open a small gap.
I passed a lot of other people on the bike (I think 9 including the mechanical) but because a lot of the better cyclists were in Heat 6 the results actually show me losing an overall place (and 4 senior male places!) on the bike. I had expected to make a chunk of time on the bike compared to last year just because the weather last year was terrible. I then expected to make another chunk of time because I am in much better biking form. I ended up only going a minute faster which was actually a bit disappointing.
The run was completely unspectacular. I didn't really expect much but then I thought since the bike had been easier I might have had enough in my legs to put in either a faster or more comfortable run and I just couldn't find either. I passed another handful of people out on the run but it is difficult to tell who was in which heat or on the same lap and again the results suggest that I only made one male place and that was against an age-grouper.
Overall 1hr 32 mins 29. Under almost all of my pre-race targets, PBs for every section of the race, but still I get the feeling that there should have been another couple of minutes somewhere.
| Split times | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total time | Pos. male | Senior | Speed | Pace | Split time | Speed split time | Pace split time | |
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