Race Report: Wadi Adventure Sprint Tri

It’s a great time to be involved with triathlon – and just as good a time to be involved in endurance sports here in the UAE. Once there were pretty slim pickings but now, during the winter months at least, you could take part in some form of racing just about every weekend. All these new events are great – adding real variety – but you also need to remember to be a little patient as they don’t always get everything right straight away.

Risen, but not shining.

Pre-packed: el bici en la boota

On then to last weekend’s race – it was centred around Wadi Adventure, a cool new rafting, kayaking and outdoor activities park in the inland town of Al Ain. Given that a lot of local tris kick off at 6am-ish, I was delighted to read that this event wouldn’t start till 8am. But then my heart sank a little when I worked out travel, allowing for getting lost etc...to cut a long story short, it was another 4am start!  

Attempted shot of sunrising in the desert from the car came out as quite a cool artsy pic.

Wadi Adventure itself is a great venue – about the cleanest changing facilities and most immaculate transition I’ve come across. There was a nice, relaxed vibe before the race (just 150 or so people were racing) and I even managed to get into the crystal-clear manmade lake for a long warm-up swim, which I rarely usually manage.

An empty transition.

A full transition.

The briefing, however, was a bit confused and ended up being a bit ‘well, you’ll know it when you get there’... famous last words. This is always a particular concern for me; as swimming is my strongest discipline, in all but the very top level of racing, I’m usually first out of the water and, now I’ve added a bit of strength to my cycling too, often first through a lot of the early stages of the bike course. Advice to race organisers part 1: if the course is anything less than a completely straightforward out and back or loop, give a very detailed map or, better still, use a map for the briefing so you can point and explain the route.

The flat flat flat lake for the swim.

The hooter sounded and, feeling good and conscious of my newfound confidence for going hard in the swim and not dying on the bike, I went as hard out as I ever have. The still swimming pool like waters made for fast swimming tho weren’t ideal as far as final positioning goes, as a rougher swim tends to work more to my advantage.

It was a two lap swim course and I came out of the water with one other swimmer – clearly a member of a relay team – in just under 9mins (750m swim). Later, quite a large bunch of us were told we’d missed a buoy on the first lap. It was only to the tune of maybe 5m overall but I’d offer another word of advice to race organisers here: if you’ve kayaks in the water anyway, one of them should be ahead of the lead swimmer. This always happens at the bigger events, as they recognise that everyone else can simply follow feet – the lead swimmers don’t have this luxury. We’d never cut a corner on purpose, but if you’re the first swimmer and you see a buoy, you’ll head for that – a kayak helps you not to make that honest mistake. Anyway, I think we ultimately weren’t given a time penalty as it was a very small advantage and so many people made the same detour.

Coming out of the swim (thanks to Probike.ae for the pic)

I was second out of T1, just the relay team was ahead, so I set about reeling in the relay rider in front, which I achieved quickly. I felt strong. After 8.5k, Nick Tipper came past me – to be expected and holding out that long was the mark that I was cycling pretty well. It was a multi-loop course with odd bits tacked on to the beginning and end and, to add to the confusion, T1 and T2 were in different places. I kept the pace up and kept my average up around 40kmph, which I was really happy with given that there was a long steady uphill stretch of about 1.5k on each of the loops. This, previously, would have been my downfall but since Wales I’ve been working hard on my bike strength and I kept the power on (for me!) as I charged past other triathletes that I was lapping. 

The good riding continued until the end of the second loop when I was directed by a marshal off the looped circuit and down a straight road – this made sense as there was a sign saying to do exactly this and, in the briefing, we’d been told it was two times around the loop before heading straight. I got a few hundred metres down that road when I realised I should be able to see Nick ahead, but couldn’t. I slowed and it occurred to me that this looked a lot like the road into transition – but my Garmin had only clocked 16-odd kilometres for the ride so far...it was obviously another loop. I swung around and headed back out, angrily chastising the marshal as I passed (I feel bad about this now – poor guy was only doing his best) but it was frustrating. Turned out I’d done more than one kilometre extra and a slow one at that, looking ahead and then having to turn around.

Back out on course, I recognise in retrospect that I went a little too hard trying to make up what I’d lost. Amazingly, I still seemed to be in second place tho. That lasted till 18.5k of the bike when Olivier Godart, a very strong triathlete who wins many of the local sprint races, stormed past me. I hit T2 just behind him (34min ride) and headed out on the run.

Final advice for race organisers: starting a race at 8:30am in the UAE isn’t ideal for us triathletes who don’t possess a lean, gazelle-like frame! It was well up into the mid to high 30s by the time we hit the run and I felt every degree of it. I could see Tom Muller (cracking young triathlete) wasn’t far behind me and knew I’d unlikely be able to hold him off on the run as he’s a much faster runner than I am. It was a tough, dry 5k and I suffered – Tom caught me after 4 and a bit kms, relegating me to 4^th (my 4^th 4^th of 2011 but still no podium!) and I took a long look behind, saw there was a huge gap and cantered in and across the finish line in a time of 1:06.

In terms of my time, I was actually pretty happy as, allowing for the time I lost on the bike mix-up and my easy finish, it would have probably vied for my 1:04 sprint PB. And this on a course that was a little windier and plenty hillier than the one my PB was set on. In some ways, I was a little gutted about the position – there’s no doubt in my mind that I’d have been far too far ahead in 3^rd place to be caught on the run if it hadn’t been for the misdirection; I also feel that my run paid for the extra 1.3km and the way I rode to ‘catch up’ that time.

But what goes around comes around – that’s the second time that something outside of my physical fitness and ability has cost me a podium (last time it was a mechanical) but if I race long enough and hard enough I’m sure I’ll be the beneficiary of someone else’s misfortune. Also, just as my 4^th in the Eton Sprint taught me to check my bike thoroughly pre-race, maybe I learned this time not to leave it to the briefing to check out the course. I know for sure that the next time I tackle a slightly odd multi-lapper, I’ll be keeping a closer eye on my Garmin too, and letting that determine when my laps are done rather than a marshal who has to guess just how many times 150 racers have been around!

Turns out I was far from the only athlete to make that mistake - many didn't realise until too late that they'd missed out a loop and were honest enough to come forward.

So, in short, a disappointing result but one with plenty of positives to take from it. And well done to Nick, Olivier and Tom who all raced brilliantly on what was a tough, honest course, as well as Heather and Cath who totally sandbagged all the girls and took the top two open female positions. Nice work!