Tri Yas - race report

Gah, don’t you hate it when work, training and, well, life get in the way of some questionable quality blogging action!

Anyway, bit of a round-up. Last weekend, as I said, was Tri Yas – an event I really enjoyed last year and so was excited to do again this year. Last time out, I did the Olympic distance race but this time, as I wasn’t really supposed to be racing at all due to being in full Ironman training mode (11 weeks!), I decided to do the sprint distance race as this would probably have least bearing on any training.

Friday morning’s session was meant to be a 15km run into a 120km bike but I shifted a load of stuff around and got up at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning to do the session before work rather than Friday morning before the race. In the end, I only got 105km of the bike in, due to being chased back to the car by a Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol style sandstorm, but it did the trick.

"Bugger!"

As Yas was an afternoon/evening race, it meant I managed to get (almost all my training in), be a little tiny bit rested for the race and, most excitingly, I got to enjoy my first Friday morning lie-in for probably 18 months.

The race itself was really well put on, with the exception of it dragging somewhat – I had to be there to register, rack up and be out of transition by 3, but my wave didn’t start till 5.15. By the time I left after presentations (there’s a clue as to how I did) it had gone 9pm... which is a long day for a sprint!

There were a few small murmurs about the course being long (turns out the swim was probably 850m and the bike was 22.5km) but it was what it was and, from my point of view, it was about time the swim was long, as every other race this season has been on a notably short swim course.

Anyway, the race was a lot of fun due to the surroundings. The swim took us out into the marina and past the iconic Yas Viceroy hotel before heading back to the dock. I’ve not been swimming fantastically of late but felt good – started aggressively and just kind of kept on going hard. By all accounts, by the time I was heading back along the marina, I’d opened up a lead of 100-200m and came out the water on a time of 10:52 – not bad at all for a swim of 850-900m.

The run from the marina into T1 (the pit lane!) was quite a long one and I managed to pass through pretty quickly without overexerting.

Onto the bike – four laps of the Yas Marina F1 Circuit – and this is probably the most fun I’ve ever had on a bike. Being such a strong swimmer (and not bad on the bike and run), I’m used to only being overtaken as I fall behind the eventual winners and podium finishers, but the wave start here meant that there were plenty of triathletes out on the course already and I loved zipping past them and into the tight corners. I also felt great and was pushing hard and fast through the pedals all the way around; my aim was to get into T2 before my team mate Ed, who was also in my wave and is a brilliant triathlete and especially strong on the bike and run. Heading into the pit lane after just over 22kms, I was chuffed that I’d managed to hold on to the wave lead, and even happier when my Garmin showed an average speed of close to 41kph.

Again, it was a long T2, but I felt pretty good heading out on to the run and used the Garmin to control my pace. The intention was to hold a 4.10 pace for the first 1km or so and then bring that down. I hoped to break the 4min/km average for the first time but, in the end, that just didn’t happen. I felt smooth, and continued overtaking runners in front, but just couldn’t quite find the pace I’d hoped for. Still, I held on to the wave lead for almost 4km of the run, until Ed ran past me like a steam train. It was just a case of gritting the teeth and getting to the finish line then.

I crossed the line in 1.08.28 which was enough for 3^rd position overall (Ed took 2^nd 50 secounds in front of me, while our other team mate Ian, who was in the previous wave, got the W another 40 seconds ahead of Ed – a Tri2Aspire clean sweep, with another T2Aer, Flanners, also taking 4^th and Didge pretty much walking to victory in the women’s sprint).

Scary helmet people

Being called up on to the F1 podium was very cool, but I was generally very happy with my race. With little to no taper or specific preparation, I swam and biked as well as I ever have while my run was where I’d expect it to be, even if I’d secretly hoped to see a small improvement... a huge relief after a difficult few months of illness and injury and a really great first indicator to me that I’m back on form, which is great with the UK sprint champs coming up in May and Ironman in July.

The aim at the UK champs is to qualify to represent GB at the age group sprint world champs later in the year. If I do mange to fluke that, this is a good base to work from. With the focus on Ironman, I’ve done little to no speed work of late and am confident that, after IM, I can really improve across all three disciplines, but the bike and run in particular. 

Weekend race report – Aerofit 6

Just a quick post from me on what, I guess, must be considered a pretty successful weekend.

Friday was the last of the Aerofit sprint triathlon races and, as I’d only just returned to proper training and had very little biking and almost no high intensity session in the legs, I’d planned to give this one a miss. However, it was the last race of this series and the series is run by our team, so I felt like I should ‘represent’ and, when a slot opened up due to another team member being away, I jumped in a couple of days before.

The race went OK, if not spectacularly. The swim was a bit short (maybe 600m instead of the intended 750m) and a bit shallow, which mixed things up a bit and meant my lead coming out of the water was drastically cut. Still, I came out of T1 first and felt OK – a bit of a relief, to be honest, with how I felt last time still at the forefront of my mind.

Running along the beach before diving back in for the two lap swim.

Pulling a little Bob DeNiro face on my way back into the water.

Diving back in - the swim went around the buoy and not the bloody great tanker, unfortunately.

The winner, Olivier, came through early and very, very fast but I managed to hold off the rest of the field right the way to the end of the bike; even my team mate Ed, who's a hell of a bike rider, didn’t pass me on the bike, which was a little unexpected but I took as a good sign. I got off the 21.5k bike leg in 33 mins (averaging 39+ kph, which included the run in and out of transition) which was pretty decent. Probably as well as I’ve ridden before at this distance, even though I could tell that I was missing quite a bit of bike fitness and wasn't pushing as well as I'd have liked.

The run was a bit of a mess for a number of reasons (newish trainers, miscalculating my goal pace, pretty bad cramping in the last 2km etc) but I ran just over 20mins for the 5k which is in line with what I’ve done before. At the time, I was a bit disappointed with this as I thought my running had improved quite a bit, but now I realise there were a number of extenuating circumstances (lack of training, very little fast running and a lot of slow, long running over the past few weeks). I also realise I’d been expecting a bit too much from myself – I’m pretty sure I’ve never run done a sub 20min (i.e. 4min/km) run in this race before but had gone out gunning for 3.45s or something silly... I should have just been pacing myself to go sub 4s for the first time. Anyway, lesson learned.

Racing out of T2.

Heading out on to the run course.

Looking stronger than I felt.

 My finish time was around my PB (tho the swim was short) and was enough to earn me 3^rd place in the Open Men category – my second podium finish of the year and my first in this series. With the local race scene just about coming to a close, this was a nice way to end the season; especially as this particular race series was the first I ever took part in when I started triathlon a couple of years ago, when my goal was to simply make it into the top half of finishers... When I looked at the guys stood on the podium back then, I never even dreamed that I could be good enough to stand next to them. That I can is something of a victory in my eyes.

Olivier (1), Ed (2) and some other joker.

My first triathlon trophy!