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Now that went well! I’d set myself some rough targets in my head. 1500m swim, 30 minutes. 40k ride, 80minutes. 10k run, 50 minutes. Total time. Total around 2h40, maybe 2h45 with transitions.Well, I beat all those by a couple of minutes each.

MK Tri 2010 - Swim Leg
Open Water Swimming for 00:28:35
0.98 mi @ 2.1 mph

Swim. 27m49s, I think this is my favourite discipline at the moment. If anything I should have pushed to the front more for the start as I spent a little while coming through the pack. I favoured a wide line round most buoys so didn’t get into to much trouble. Now and again in the second half I thought I had some cramp coming on but just relaxed and breathed carefully, then picked a target and pulled out 10 big strokes at a time which pulled me past quite a few competitors.

T1. 2m11s, not too bad. Could have been a little more focussed but had no trouble getting my wet suit off even given then I had opted to wear my quite bulky 310xt. Luckily my racking point was close to bike in and out, so didn’t waste too much time running in my bike shoes. Faffed around for too long try to get mounted, wasn’t helped by the fact there was no mount line which was confusing.

MK Tri 2010 - Ride leg
Cycling for 01:18:26
24.25 mi @ 18.6 mph

Cycle. 1h18m26s, spent a lot of time swapping positions with a fellow competitor. Probably kept us both going quite well, but was concious of not drafting. Took 3 60g gels on the bike, the last one about 5k out from T2 to help out on the run. Dealt with the hills fairly well, never got up out of the saddle. Now and again thought my calves were going to cramp, particularly when I shifted to the smaller cog for hills.

T2. 1m05s, not much to say about T2 as it’s always the easy one. Shoes swapped okay and no time wasted running the bike in.

MK Tri 2010 - Run leg
Running for 00:48:24
6.05 mi @ 08:00 min/mi

Run. 48m03s, running off the bike always feels strange however I headed out at 8min mile pace or slightly quicker. I’d opted to wear the 310xt for the whole race, but I would probably have worn it for the run anyway for the pace info. Tried to lock into 8min miles as a minimum which largely worked, spent a lot of time counting and breathing. In the end as I approached the the finish on my 3rd lap I nearly got confused and started an extra lap! The sign said “Lap 2 & 3 left, Finish Right”. Since I was on lap 3 (and in my addled state) I wondered if I should go left. I actually started that way when luckily the 310xt saved the day and bleeped up the 6 mile count. I looked down and saw 48mins so knew that I should really be finishing so ducked under the lane tape just in time and crossed the finish line. Whew! All done. A few nervous moments of wondering if I was going to be DQed for not doing enough laps, then relief at realising I was done and my time was good!

Finish time. 2 hours 37 minutes 36 seconds

This is my ‘A’ race this year and my first Olympic Distance. The last few weeks since the Sprint Tri I haven’t been able to put in as much training as I’d like, however I think I’m prepared.

Today I’ve got the usual anxiousness. Mostly about the ancillaries rather than any of the stages, I’m always running through questions like; what time do I need to get up? should I wear my GPS for the whole event (no real reason to do it, but I like the pacing information out on the run)? Should I put bike shoes on in Transition or run barefoot with them to the mount line (Transition at Emberton is quite small and grassy – so I think I’ll run with the shoes on)?

I’m not really looking forward to the run as 10k is a ‘fast’ distance in my mind (unlike say the 13mi of a 70.3, which is more a ‘complete’ rather than ‘compete’ distance). Although I don’t have any trouble with the distance I do know how drained I can feel off the bike. All I can do is push on, I’d really like to go under 50 mins on the run, but I don’t know how likely that is going to be on race day.

I know everyone says, “just go out there and enjoy it”.. but on the other hand you do want to do yourself some justice in the race, and that means pushing and that means pain and that means not enjoying it.. until your done.

Anyway, until tomorrow..

Big Cow MK Tri 2010

Treated myself to a new Garmin. I’ve got the 310XT which is waterproof. Here’s the track from this morning’s OW swim at Broggie.

OW Swim @ Broggie
Open Water Swimming for 00:45:40
1.10 mi @ 1.4 mph

I’ve also got the cadence sensor, which is now fitted to my Cayo. I’ll see how well that works out tomorrow. So far though I think it’s pretty good – not sure I’d race with it though as it’s quite big and will certainly make getting out of the w/suit harder.

Wow. Been busy since Sunday. Anyway, first Open Water Tri Sprint done!

How did it go? Not too bad, these were my splits

Swim (750m) : 16.04
T1 : 02.00
Ride (20k) : 38.44
T2 : 01.09
Run (5.5k) : 25.07
Total : 1.23.04

My pool sprint Tri at Roade last year was 1h22m, and the run there was much shorter than 5k. So all in all I’m quite happy. Afterwards I thought I could have probably pushed a bit harder in all stages. And a few simple changes in T1 would knock off 30 seconds (forego socks for sprints, remember to leave helmet strap unclipped etc.).

I was a little disappointed with the run, although apparently it was slightly longer than the standard 5k. The watch says my 5k came up in 24:11. I seemed to flag a bit in the middle.

So next up is MK Tri in a couple of weeks time.