Monday, 31 August 2015
Race Review - Alford Novice Triathlon
Alford is one of my favourite races. The other being Forres. It may not be a coincidence that these are the two shortest races on the calendar. I sort of have to say I love Alford as my club host it, but I would say it anyway as it is one of the friendliest races on the circuit.
Waiting to go into the final swim heat and realising that it was all kids from swim clubs, and only two other seniors left (turns out one of those Senior was a Vet, and one of the kids was actually a Senior). This is good news in that I am now swimming so well I am comfortable in with specialist club swimmers and international triathletes. It is also demoralising as I know most of these kids are a third of my age but are going to be out of the water before me.
In order to hit my swim target of 6 minutes I need to be going 18 secs / length in the 20m pool. For a PB I had to go 19.25. 100m splits should be 1:30 for 6 minutes and 1:36.3 for a PB. So here are the length by length splits and the 100m splits. On lengths 3, 13 and 18 I was letting people overtake. It looks like they cost me about 3 seconds each.
1:28.7
1:37.3
1:41.9
1:43.7
I felt really good at the start of the swim. The first three lengths felt really fast and then once I let the guy behind me past he did slow me a little but not a huge amount for the next few lengths. I hit a really bad wake going in to the turn at 8 and had to take a touch instead of a tumble. I got straight back into smooth tumbles from there though and I was still going well to lap 13 when the first of the leaders came round to lap me. At about this point the chop and the high work rate I was putting in really started to catch up with me and I was struggling to hold the pace.
I was out of the water in 6:32. (Official swim time of 6:41 includes climbing out of the pool, de-hatting, and getting across the timing mats). Not what I had hoped for on time but I am actually happy enough with how I swam. The first 100m was inside both targets, at half way I was still well inside PB time. I still think I can go quicker than this, so I just have to find another chance to race it before the end of the year if I want to cross off my target.
Anyway, there were still a few swimmers in the water as I got out so I guess I am about 12th/13th. The results suggest I was about 11th at this point. Both Seniors and the Vet are out ahead along with 7 others. There is no real way to tell who are individuals and who are in teams but I knew two of the Juniors were using someone else's legs on the bike.
Out into T1 and I was feeling quite good. There were still a lot of people in transition, including the girl who had racked next to me. I stepped round to the other side of my bike and put on my race belt. She was still stood between my bike and hers so I had to reach back between her and my bike to get my helmet. This meant I had it in the wrong hand and when I pulled it on the straps got tangled so I had to take it off and try again. Second time was clean and I had the bike off the rack and out of transition. On exit I jumped on the bike and passed two people. I am sure I type this for about half my races: Why does no-one practice this?!
I took the first two corners stood on my shoes and the course turns into a housing estate here. I took the opportunity to pull on my right shoe, no problems, practice works. Then I tried to put my left foot in and lost my grip. I managed to hook my toes into the shoe and slip into it and then reach back down to tighten the strap, slight problem, but had practiced it, practice really works.
The new bike course, while shorter, has a nasty climb near the end followed by a very fast downhill and a couple of technical corners. The recce the previous day meant I knew I could be quite aggressive on a lot of the course. Several sections that looked like slow corners actually had good exits that allowed for tight lines at high speed. So I got my head down early and pushed hard. I caught a couple of the swimmer kids on the way out of town and I could see another group of them ahead. I passed them on the long straight section and could already see the next person ahead. I caught him just before the turn into the uphill.
As I approach that turn a light blue Citroen overtakes me and indicates to take the same turn. Instead of just driving round the turn she slows down as if to stop and because she is still indicating left I have to check myself in case she is going to pull in to the side of the road. It turns out she was stopping to ask the Marshall a question and she did leave me enough space to go through on the inside
I think I am now in about 5th or 6th place. I know there is still at least one Senior and one team ahead of me to chase. It turns out that the eventual winner is also out there somewhere and that is it. There is a team from one of the slower heats that had a 'serious' cyclist on their bike leg that is ahead of me on time but has already finished.
I see another cyclist on the 1-mile drag of a climb but I have enough time to read her number as I pass and realise she is not in my heat. Over the top of the hill and I know there is a false flat and a fast section of downhill before the really fast bit of downhill. I push through them as far as the marshall for the steep bit. He is waving a big red flag to slow people down for the impending right hander at the bottom of the hill and my nerves get the better of my recce. I know I can still attack quite far down the hill but instead I sit up as I pass him and start to brake from there. I have a quick look behind me before the right turn and spot a car. I need to signal right but am still too fast to let go of the front brake. The rear brakes on my TT bike are pretty terrible so I have to slow enough to signal. The car gives me plenty of room and I can get back on the power going in to the right hander and along the next flat section. Then there is a left-right chicane that I know I have to slow for. Just as I approach a car comes round towards me so I have to adjust my line but I am slow enough to handle it (unlike the leading Senior who apparently had a minor detour off the road at this point).
From there it is into town, a left turn uphill trying to avoid a speeding car that didn't signal, past the speed bumps and turn in to transition. Having practiced my dismounts a lot I knew I could unstrap and dismount in the last 25 yards, and I did.
Average heart rate on the bike was 165 bp max heart rate 171 bpm. Zone 4.6 for anyone technical. Cadence data looks patchy, I suspect some signal loss as it says average 76 but all the measured sections are 86-101 and I didn't have the big pedalling breaks that appear in the data.
Bike time was 26:36 for the 8.4 mile course. Nothing to compare that against with it being a new route though.
I got a nice clean dismount and racked the bike no problem. Helmet off. Run shoes have been kicked around but are still close enough, just one is the wrong way round, so that costs me a couple of seconds. Out of transition and onto the run.
And I am empty. I can hardly get my feet to move at all. I can see people out on the course in front of me though. With it being a three lap run route and numbers turned to the front it is sometimes difficult to tell who is in the same heat. At Alford you are given a different coloured wrist band each lap so it is just a case of looking at the arms of people as you pass them and telling if they are on the same lap as you. The first few I passed were from previous heats and about a third of the way into the lap I could see the team and the first Senior that I was still chasing.
I started to move better as the lap turned downhill and I started to work out how much I would have to catch them on each lap in order to make up the places. They were under 3 minutes ahead, so a minute a lap would do it. Knowing their running I knew that wasn't on and I could see that everyone else still out on the run was from earlier heats. I didn't think there would be any pressure on me from all the junior cyclists I had passed either so I was tempted to ease off and coast to the finish. Then I remember that the difference between swim heats is only a few seconds so there could be people from earlier heats who have biked and run well enough to make up the distance. So it is back on to full gas and keep lapping the people from previous heats and passing the juniors as they arrive off the bike.
Somewhere around lap 2 I realised that there were only 3 people from my heat out in front of me so I am sitting 4th overall if no-one from an earlier swim heat has gone quicker (one team has).
Run time was 13:38. 41 seconds under last year's time.
Average run heart rate 166 bpm, max heart rate 171 bpm. Zone 4.6 again.
Overall 5th, behind 2 teams, a Senior and a Junior. The Senior and Junior were only 2 seconds apart. Both teams had specialist cyclists in with fresh legs so I don't mind losing out to them. The Senior is an Irish International and the Junior is less than half my age so I can live with them beating me as well.
With the different bike course it is difficult to do a direct comparison with last year, but as an indirect measure, the guy who I beat by just 7 seconds last year, I took for over 2 minutes this year.
In prep for next year I am also looking at how I place against Veterans. I had 2 minutes on the first of those. This bodes well for taking some Vet prizes next year.
Full results are here.
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