I got up at 0615, left my house at 0635 and got to the school at Roade at 0650. I thought I would be one of the first competitors there but actually the car park was already pretty full! The air was very cold and there were patches of fog, but it was dry and there was no wind, so conditions looked good.

Roade Sprint Triathlon - 0700 hrs

I registered, then walked back to my car to fetch my bike and kit, then set it all out in the transition area. Then I saw my parents who were there to see me compete for the first time. I also saw a couple of people from Team MK and Brian from work.

By 0800 the sun had come out, the fog had disappeared and it was feeling quite warm – very good racing conditions.

Swim:

At 0815 I entered the pool area and sat with 3 other competitors who would be starting at the same time as me. I think they have 3 people in each of the 4 swimming lanes at the same time. One of the marshals have us each a chip to wear around our ankles and some instructions for the swim. We were to do 18 laps.

When it was my turn (along with the other 3 people starting at the same time as me), I jumped into the pool (which was warm). Then I was given a 1 minute, then a 30 second notice – then we were off… The first 25m went okay, I was breathing on every 4th stroke (on my left side), but I quickly got tired so began to breathe on every 2nd stroke. Then I got really tired and tried not putting my head under the water, I had to stand up a few times, etc. Half of the lane was really shallow, which actually made it hard to do breast stroke because my legs kept hitting the floor.

Plus it was hard to keep track of the lengths. I think I got it right though (I was counting every 2 laps, i.e. up to 9). So on my 9th lap I looked over to another lane where I saw someone who had set off at the same time as me stop (I wasted about 10-15 seconds doing this). That was confirmation enough for me, so I got out and ran towards the transition area.

Bike:

My hands just weren’t working properly after the swim, so it was hard to put my race belt and helmet on; but once on I ran with the bike to the bike out area.

After crossing the bike lane, I got on my bike and tried to slip my feet into my shoes – which wasn’t easy. Nor was it quick or easy to put them on. I wasted at least 1 minute trying to put them on, while slowly cycling along the road. I really need to get some Triathlon cycle shoes.

The first few km’s were hard because I was recovering from the swimming (poor swimming technique meant that I had worn myself out too much) but after that I got into it okay. Once going I saw 1 rider about 100m in front of me – very distant, so I tried to catch him up slowly. I was catching him up slowly but then he stopped to talk to a marshal, I don’t know why because he looked like a good competitor and wasn’t in any trouble.

Then I proceeded onto Stoke Bruene where I went a little too fast over a small bridge which is followed by a sharp left. I couldn’t stop (left a skid mark with my rear tyre) and ended up in the other lane, which had a large Land Rover in it, heading towards me! So I went around the right of that and carried on. Going through Roade there was some traffic, but nothing that slowed me down too much.

I was feeling better on the 2nd lap, however I had to slow to a crawl on a few occasions because of traffic (cars) and horses.

During the bike stage I overtook quite a few people and was not overtaken at all.

At the end of the bike stage I dismounted, took off my shoes and ran to the transition point. The bike racks were not numbered on this end, so I went to the wrong rack which cost me some time. Once I had found my place, I racked my bike and put on my running shoes.

Run:

This started badly as I assumed that the run out section would be near the bike out section (as both exited the same school gate), so I ran towards that. However I then realised that the run out section was on the opposite corner of the field, so I lost some time there.

I had thought that the course was going to be at least half off-road, so I had bought my trail shoes, however it was mostly on-road. Another thing to put on my shopping list is a pair of Triathlon running shoes with a quick-lace system.

I found the first few km’s quite tough, I didn’t really get into a good long stride or breathing pattern for the whole running section (just lack of practice recently do to doing the 3 Peaks training and lack of running training), I even walked in some places which I didn’t in my previous Triathlon (or in the half marathons I have done!). However I still managed a good sprint finish which got a good response from the crowd who clapped for me

Also at the finish, the 2 commentators said my name and said that I was from Team MK. They also said some other things (like well done, good finish, etc.) but I wasn’t really listening.

During the run stage I overtook a few people and was only overtaken once.

Then I gave my chip to the marshalls and grabbed some water and banana.

Result:

I finished in around 1:20. I will post my official times here when I get them.

Overall:

I think that looking for confirmation of swum laps, traffic, poor transitions, getting lost in the transition area (looking for bike rack and looking for run out) and putting bike shoes on cost me around 5 minutes.

My swimming is rubbish, with some training I should be able to be at least 5 minutes faster.

My running should have been ~3 minutes faster, I have just been out of practice recently.

My cycling was okay. More practice will bring the times down. Being a Techie and into new gadgets and new kit, I’m sure I can get Nathan to persuade me to buy some new kit next year.

My transitions were not good. next time I will note where the biking and running out points are as well as keep a mental note of where my rack is.

I need to buy a pair of Triathlon cycling shoes and a pair of Triathlon running shoes – I will get these next year. I should also but a road cycling helmet (I am currently using my mountain bike helmet).

I think a time of close to 1 hour would be achievable for me next year – after I have had some swimming lessons and get serious(ish) on the training. If I could give up cakes and chocolate that would be a real boost (or I might just buy a lighter bike instead – same diff right?).

I am looking forward to going on holiday in Italy next week. It will be the first time I have gone away to do something relaxing (for the body at least, maybe not the mind) in years!

The upside is that due to puncture issues on the biking stages, we weren’t going to win any trophies, so it doesn’t really matter.

I had forgotten to take my Camelbak with me (I’d left it at home) and it was all prepared with 3 litres of water (with Go powder mix), bike tools, pump, inner-tube, first aid kit, whistle, energy gels, etc. Luckily they always sell bags with bladders at events, so £80 later I had a new bag and 3 litre bladder, I was confident(ish) that as I had tubeless tyres, I wouldn’t need an inner-tube, pump or the bike tools.

The race didn’t quite go as planned as Steve left something in the car so he had to rush back and get it, so we wasted a few minutes at the start. Then we had to queue for a few minutes at the kayak stage (our first stage) while a few teams in front of us slowly put their kayaks into the canal. As we paddled our way along the canal, we were looking out for the checkpoints. We couldn’t see the first one, so we kept paddling as fast as our paddles would take us and took the next few. With 1 more to get along this route Steve wanted to go for it, but I objected thinking that it was a bad idea – maybe my experience of Dave and I going stretching ourselves in a kayaking stage in a previous race had taught me a lesson; so we turned around and headed back to the start of the kayaing section. This turned out to be the correct decision because we didn’t have too much time left once we had reached the end of the kayaking stage.

On the way back we kept a look out for the first checkpoint which we had missed on the way out but again we couldn’t see it so Steve wanted to turn around and look for it again. I objected to this too and thought that it would be better for us to just carry on and use the time later on in the race – this proved to be the correct decision because as we reached the end of the kayaking course, the marshal told us that the first checkpoint was missing!

Apart from being held up at the beginning, we were quite happy with the kayaking stage, we progressed onto the running stage (we decided to do the running stage before the mountain biking stage). My new rucksack wasn’t as comfortable at the Camelback as it jiggled around quite a bit and an hour into the running section it was really rubbing against my right shoulder, but I wasn’t going to let that bother me too much, I tried to put it out of my mind. Overall the running sections went okay – despite us getting a bit lost a  couple of times and having to roll under electric fences (something that happened in our last race too!).

Then we jumped onto our bikes and tackled the mountain bike course. The ground was mostly dry and it was a nice day so the weather conditions were not a factor this time (unlike in the New Forest race where we had virtually every type of weather Blighty could throw at us!). The only issue we had was the issue that had plagued us in this whole series (races 1 and 2) – punctures! In race 1 I got 2 punctures (which then prompted me to get Specialized tubeless wheels and tyres) and in race 2 Steve got 3 punctures. In this race, Steve got… well he got at least 1 puncture, 1 split valve and lots of valve issues which meant that his rear tyre was never really inflated and was always losing air. So the cycling section didn’t go too well and we ended up at the finish about 2 minutes over out 6 hour time (which cost us a few penalty points).

If it wasn’t for the puncture problems I think we would have done okay, but as it was we ended up near the bottom of the score-board. Oh well…

As stated in my previous posts, by way of winning a prize in a competition, I got free entry into the For Goodness Shakes! Sponsored Sprint Triathlon (750m swimming, 20km cycling, 5km running) at Dorney Lake, Eton with less than 2 weeks notice!

I read the letter carefully which stated that registration would open at 07:30, the races will start at 10:30 and competitors should get there 2 hours before the race (i.e. 08:30). So I got up at 06:30 (after going to bed at 12:30 that morning), had some porridge, loaded all of my gear into my car (and the bike on the back) and set off at 07:30.

At 08:08 I arrived on-site to see a couple of traffic attendants and an empty field. There was 1 other car in front of me but he clearly wasn’t a competitor as he didn’t have a bike. We parked up alongside each other and I asked the parking attendant if I was the first competitor and he confirmed that I was. The person in the other car was just a spectator. The parking attendant then told me that the race start was 800m away. So I had to put my relatively large plastic crate 9containing all my gear) on top of my handlebars and awkwardly walk with the bike to the main area.

There I was presented with a registration tent that was closed until 09:00, some marshals complaining about how disorganised the set-up was (e.g. transition area barriers) and an empty transition area.

Empty transition area

Trade tent being set up

At 09:00 I registered (I think I was the first person to register) then I walked over to my bike which I had leant on the railings by the transition area. I then got talking to some friendly marshals. I told them it was my first time and they all gave me lots of really helpful advice – most of them competed too. Then another competitor came over and it was his first time too – it was good to meet someone else who didn’t know what to expect either!

Dorney Lake boat house and viewing balcony

After watching some competitors set their bikes up in the transition area, I decided to set mine up too. How does this look?:

Paul's bike in the transition area

Note – next time I will put the bike facing the other way to the other bikes around me (although it made no difference in this instance as I wasn’t elbowing for space in the transition area).

I was still nervous about the 750m swim which was going to be out to a yellow buoy, then right to a yellow buoy, then right again and onto land.

View of Dorney Lake from the transition area

There were going to be 4 waves (groups) of competitors, starting from 10:30. I was in wave 3 which started at 11:30.

Before the start I got kitted out. I put on my Tri-suit (which I had bought the day before)

Tri-suit

and waited until the last minute to put on the wetsuit (as it was a really hot day).

Then the time came. At 11:20 I got into the water with about 60 other people in my wave (age 30-34). Then the bit I hadn’t counted on – we had to stay afloat in the water (treading water) for 10 minutes while listening to a safety briefing! I managed to doggy-paddle to the side and hold onto the pier, but even that wasn’t easy because due to the buoyancy of the wetsuit, my legs wanted to go under the pier instead of stay beneath me! Plus I was right at the front of the pack which is not a great place to be – although I did keep out of the way at the start so didn’t get kicked and slapped too much.

Once the starting horn went we were all off and it was immediately obvious that I was in trouble with the swimming. For some reason I was finding it hard to breathe, plus I wasn’t used to swimming in a reed infested lake! So I gave up on the front crawl after about 30m and did the rest using backstroke, a little breaststroke and some other made up swimming methods. The problem with swimming backstroke is that you can’t see where you are swimming, so I was zig-zagging a lot. At one point I was even swimming back towards the start Plus I swam into the 2nd buoy which wasn’t good. I need lessons!

Once I eventually got out of the water (I wasn’t the last, but one of the last) I went into the transition area, took off my wetsuit, swimming hat, goggles and grabbed my bike. That part of the transition went okay. Then I crossed the white line leading out of the transition area and tried to put my feet into my shoes (which were clipped into my bike). I hadn’t practiced this before and it didn’t go so well, so I was forced to stop, remove the shoes from the bike, put on my shoes and then get on the bike. Once on the bike I was happy and I went for it, passing lots of people (and also getting passed by people on nice looking bikes!).

The biking circuit was 4 laps around the lake (each lap was 5km). It was fairly flat and quite an easy ride although one side of it was very exposed to wind which made it a little tough. I was in 16th/17th gear most of the time. At one point a girl rode past me and then stayed not too far in front, so that motivated me to overtake her. As I tried to overtake, she sped up and we were neck-a-neck for about 2km until she eventually backed off and I powered on and left her for dust

After the 4 laps, I parked my bike in the transition area and put on my running shoes – which I should have loosened more as they were a bit hard to put on. I also need to get some clever shoe laces that you just pull instead of manually tie. Then I proceeded to do the 5km run at what I thought wasn’t too fast a pace, although I was overtaking a lot of people and only a few overtook me. It was really hot so I slowed down for the 2 water points to get a gulp of water and pour some over my head (I didn’t see anybody else pour water on themselves so maybe I looked a bit silly doing it, but it helped with the heat!).

At the end of the 5km a marshal hosed me down with cool water – which was nice, then I collected a For Goodness Shakes! milkshake and t-shirt, chatted with a few competitors, then packed up and left. After driving 5 miles I realised that I had left my phone behind, so I went back to get it – luckily it was where I had left it Then as I made my way back to the car park a girl (another competitor) asked me how to cycle to the train station. Although I had TomTom on my phone, as I was in a big field it couldn’t precisely show me where I was, so being a gentleman I gave her (and her bike) a lift to the train station which was 6 miles away. That was nice as I got to see a glimpse of Windsor Castle and the nearby villages.

My timings were:

• Swim: 28:11 (most people did it in 20 or less). I did backstroke the whole way. I tried doing front crawl but I couldn’t breathe properly. Because I was on my back I couldn’t see where I was going, so I kept zig-zagging – and was even swimming back to the start at one point which wasn’t good lol
• T1: 1:01 (plus an additional 45 secs or so I took when I was out of the transition area, trying to put my shoes on!)
• Cycle: 41:25 (not too bad)
• T2: 2:04 (I must make my shoes easier to get into next time!)
• Run: 23:16 (faster than most other other people! It felt slow to me. I’m really surprised! I even slowed to a walk twice at the 2 water stations!)

Transitions are easy to improve upon – and I hope the swimming will be too…

My positions were 313/360 overall and 58/62 in my class (age 30-34). So not very good really. If my swimming was 8 mins faster I would have been about 230th.

Full results here.

Although my swimming was rubbish, I had a really good day, met some nice people and am keen to do more!

So I have been swimming in the Stantonbury 25m swimming pool on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and discovered that I’m not a great swimmer. In fact I only managed to achieve 47m without stopping. With the race being 750m that means that I need to do an additional 703m on race day… Eeeeeeeeeeeek!!! Am I a bit nervous about it? You bet. Do I think this is a silly idea? Absolutely. But I don’t like to back down to a challenge, so I’m going for it.

I was going to hold out and get a Team MK Tri-suit. there might be new ones out in a few weeks (possibly new sponsors), so I didn’t want to buy one now, but instead I thought that I’d look a bit silly in cycling shorts and t-shirt if everyone else was wearing a Tri-suit, so today I bought an Orca 226 Triathlon Race Suit for £80.10.

So far this ‘free’ Triathlon has cost me over £450 in new equipment!

Despite a healthy diet of steak and vegetables for the past few weeks, I haven’t lost any weight, although I have gained a bit of muscle. Maybe it will help me.

I haven’t worn my wetsuit in the water yet, haven’t swum in over 2 years (excluding 3 sessions this week), only got a road bike 4 weeks ago and haven’t run a 5km race before, so I am really under-prepared. Oh well, it will be an experience

I’ll leave home at 0700. As it’s 0003 now, I’d better go to bed!

Last year I competed with Dave in the 5 hour version and Steve did it on his own (6 hour version). This time I teamed up with Steve and we did the Masters trio (6 hours, 3 events – running, kayaking and cycling).

On the Friday night I picked Steve up from his house in Northampton, then we headed for the nearest Subway for dinner. After eating that, we drove deep into the foreign land that is Wales and headed for the Premier Inn hotel in Pentrebach, Merthyr Tydfil. I had phoned before I booked to see if it was okay to bring out bikes into the hotel room and they said it was, when we checked in the girl said that she remembered talking to me about it

So we settled in and unloaded all our gear. Then I attempted to fit 2 new wheels that I had bought and received 2 days before. I replaced the front wheel okay, but didn’t know that I would need some additional tools for the rear wheel, so I ran the race with a new tubeless wheel on the front and my tubed wheel on the rear.

Working on Bikes in Hotel Room

While flicking through the TV channels, Starship Troopers appeared. Amazingly Steve admitted to not having seen it before (he isn’t a true geek), so we sat and watched it until 01:30 – we should have learned by now that it’s not good to watch TV until the early hours the night/morning before a race!

The next morning we got up and it was a 25-30 minute drive to the event. It was a hot day and I ended up with just a dribble of water left in my 3 litre Camelbak after the 6 hours. We did most of the running stage before the kayaking (it was nice to go kayaking to cool off a little). We got a little lost on the running section – we even stepped over barbed wire and crawled under an electric fence! We didn’t do that well on the biking stage either – we rode past a couple of checkpoints and Steve got 3 punctures (which beats my 2 punctures in the last race!) Plus Steve lost his saddle bag which contained his toolkit – doh!

Straight after the race, we headed to the local pub for a lemonade. Then from there we headed to another pub (which we discovered last year) and had another fantastic dinner.

Steve (left) and Paul (right) waiting for Dinner to Arrive

So overall although we didn’t do so well, we had a good time, got a little bit fitter, wiser and more experienced; so it was a good day

Mine and Steve's bikes - ready to race!

The morning started off very cold. I looked around and I was the only person in shorts and t-shirt, so I nipped over to the car and put on my waterproof Gore-Tex jacket that I had recently bought (which proved to function very well throught the day – I was very impressed with it).

Then the day warmed up quite a bit, to the point where Steve stopped to take his jacket off – only to put it back on again 5 minutes later when it started to rain! The weather kept changing between hot, cold, wind, rain and hail! The hail really hurt as we cycled though it and it hit us like a million ball bearings on our arms, legs, face and head (through the bike helmet).

It was also my first true test of my new bike – and it performed really well. Steve was envious of my rear suspension at one particularly bumpy section of track The only downside to the whole day is that I got 2 punctures – one in each wheel… Firstly I got a puncture in the front tyre (a small thorn), so I replaced the inner-tube and started to pump it up, only to find that the top of the valve had somehow broken off! So I borrowed an inner-tube from Steve and got under-way again. Then 40 minutes later I got a puncture in my rear tyre! As we didn’t have any more inner-tubes left, I repaired it with a puncture repair kit.

Because of the 2 punctures, my poor navigation (missed a road to a checkpoint so we went back for it) and also because Steve injured himself playing football the Tuesday before we ended up 17th out of 23 (quite respectable given the circumstances). If we didn’t have the punctures I think we could easily have been 8th.

Despite the small issues, we had a great day – lots of fun. The location was really nice too as it was in the New Forest and there were a lot of wild ponies all over the place – and they weren’t phased by us nutters on bikes whizzing past them in the wind and hail!

Then the next day, I headed off to Spain for a weeks rock climbing holiday!

http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/involved/bradford10k.html

It’s a long way to go, but my friend Emma is doing it (her first ever running event) so I’m going for moral support

Paul wearing the Silverstone Half Marathon T-shirt and Medal

Yesterday I ran the Adidas Silverstone half marathon in a time of 1:50:59 – which for my first half-marathon I am very happy with! What’s more, I know I could have easily been 5 – 10 mins faster if I wasn’t held up so much at the start by slower runners in front of me.

I’m looking forward to it although I do feel a little under-prepared because:

• I haven’t run 13 miles before (max I have run recently is about 6)
• I’ve been on a training course for the past week – so no gym, lots of yummy food (lunch and dinner) and sitting in a classroom all day
• I have decided to not run with music and the Nike+ system (because in the pictures I’ve looked at of people running half-marathons, most don’t listen to music)
• I’m hoping it wont be too cold because I will be wearing shorts and t-shirt
• I don’t know how fast I should run (at which stages)
• I don’t know how much to drink (before and during)
• I don’t know what to eat before the event. Afterwards if Steve (who did a half-marathon last week in 1 hour, 40 mins) hasn’t gotten fed up with waiting for me to finish, I can probably persuade him to join me at a local pub and we’ll have some proper pub food!

On the plus side:

• I have been going to the gym 3 days a week since August
• I did a 4 hour Adventure Race last September
• I have lost 1.5 stone in weight since August
• I am pretty fit and mentally determined!

I like a challenge