Vitruvian Triathlon

Today is the 13th running of the Vitruvian Triathlon, unlucky for some perhaps. The weather dawns pretty good and race day stays dry throughout. This is usual for me to say the least.

Having registered last night and set up my bike in transition at the same time, I probably took it a bit too leisurely on Saturday morning and ended up rushing the few things I had left to do. Not that you can rush much when transition at 5am is a place full of zombified folk who aren’t fully awake yet but will turn into fully honed athletes once they are dipped in reservoir water. I miss part of the race briefing due to my over leisureliness.

The first swim wave is off at 6:15am, I am off in the 5th and last wave at 6.50am. Clearly they are worried about me if everyone else requires such a big head start. They needn’t have been.

The swim is two 950m laps and it's the first time I've done a two lap swim that requires a brief exit from the water and a 25m run back long the 'beach' before getting back in.

I get involved in a few scuffles in the first 100m or so which throws all my breathing and heartbeat out, which means I end up resorting to doggie paddle for a while before moving up to first backstroke and then breaststroke. Eventually I attempt to reengage with front crawl but it takes most of the first lap to do so. I also have blinding cramp in my left calf, not good. I am hauled (helpfully) out of the water by the armpits after the first lap and sent staggering on my way before plunging inelegantly back in.

24 minutes for the first lap isn’t great. The second lap is better in that I manage to swim most of it properly but with the field now well thinned out maintaining direction becomes the new problem and on being hauled out of the water by my armpits for a second time I’m appalled to find that my second lap is no quicker than the first. I will put this down to poor direction finding and the fact that I did drag both legs all the way around due to the calf cramp.

A total swim time of 50:25 is my worst yet. My transition also needs work, 4:03 is pretty terrible really. I ought to be able to halve that but at least now I’m onto the bit that matters most. The 2-lap bike course. I have done this course twice before in the Dambuster Duathlon and this is the first time it hasn't been excessively windy.

Without the wind the terrain doesn’t seem quite so hilly and I also discover to my surprise that the course has some downhills. Previously the in-your-face gale negated these and the nice smooth tarmacked roads are a joy, I hardly see anyone fixing a puncture. 

At the end of lap one I hurl by Outlaw Half branded water bottle at L before picking up a fresh one. I didn’t want my souvenir bottle to be reused and handed back out to someone else.

Lap two goes just as well as lap one and I thoroughly enjoyed minute of the 2:57:06 ride, which is nicely inside the hallowed 3 hours even if it was short. As in 85k rather than the usual 90km for a half iron distance race.

So to the 10.5km out-and-back run along the edge of Rutland Water dodging the ‘tourists’ who really didn’t give a monkeys whether they got in anyone’s way or not. In fact, I think most tried to be as disruptive as possible.

The whole run is a bit of a limp as the cramp in my calf has not eased one bit on the bike, usually it does. So it’s a case of being careful so that it doesn’t turn into a tear. I had already worked out that a 2:05 half would get me in under six hours. I review and recalibrate this at every km mark. Yes, they have km markers here which is about the only thing they did better than the Outlaw. That’s not a criticism of the organisers, it’s just the Outlaw sets the bar very high.

At the end of the first lap I pause for a brief hug with the boys and girl of the support crew before another lap of tourist dodging beckons.

I hold my pace and run a 2:02:16 half finishing in 5:55:50. A mere 1:33 behind the winner but I’m happy with that. I’m called a Vitruvian, handed my medal, t-shirt, crisps for the boys, a biscuit for L and a flap jack for me. Then I’m handed a pint of Erdinger, sadly alcohol free. After writhing in agony on the grass for a while, then being reunited with the support crew, I pass my Erdinger to L and head off in search of any available petite blondes who might wish to massage my legs. They are all booked up apparently but a hulking great male offers to do instead. Beggars can’t be choosers of course and he does a brilliant job of reintegrating my calf with the rest of my body. Then I borrow some money off L to pay him before grabbing another Erdinger, sadly still alcohol free.

Outlaw Half

The day finally dawns, that is if 4am is dawn? I pile all my kit into the car and get my WAG to tattoo me. It seems a bit of a waste to me, as I’ll be putting a wetsuit over the top of them unless they’re just for bragging purposes in the pub afterwards.

As L applies the number 622, not quite the number of the beast, to my arms and legs she reassures me that it’s only in case I drown. She’s just jealous; she only ever had numbers in felt tip pen.

By 5am we are on our way, taking the short drive to the National Watersports Centre at Holme Pierrepont, recently rebranded Holme Pierrepont Country Park. They have segways now you know.

Twelve months of planning and six months of training has lead to today. Six months of injury disrupted training that is. The swim training had gone as well as it could have done for a reluctant swimmer like me and I am now capable of swimming 80 lengths of a 25m pool in one go, without stopping and without drowning. That’s some achievement.

The bike training has also been fine. 100 mile sportives have never scared me, so a 56 mile ride was always going to be a doddle and is sure to be my highlight. It has been my preferred discipline, the run, which had failed me. I had hoped to be popping out regular half marathons by now, as I was in my youth (a year ago) but knee, thigh and calf niggles has really kept my training down, so the run will be tough.

I rack my bike in the transition area and lay out the rest of my kit in readiness. Then just as I get head off for a last minute loo break, my Dad turns up nice and early. He’s got a surprise coming. L has had t-shirts made for the two of them, professing their support for me. I feel honoured.

Today I manage to put my wetsuit on the right way round, unlike at Peterborough. So that's a good omen and also because taking it off again might have taken those fetching tattoos off with it. Then I’m in the water realising, as predicted, what a long way it seems to the orange buoys marking the turnaround point.

With the first wave already gone, it’s only minutes now until us number two waves are off. We were then instructed to wave to the crowd on all three sides. I nearly drowned doing that and afterwards the race in comparison seemed a bit of a breeze. The water proved to be much warmer than at Peterborough and I managed to get my front crawl going straight from the off without any need for any bouts of doggie paddle.

It was mad though. There were 300 of us in each wave, which meant bodies everywhere. I was so hemmed in by swimmers to my left, right, back and front, that I simply had to hold position where I was. Which I think helped my pacing no end. Before I knew it I was banging my head on the orange turnaround buoy and heading for home.

Then, sooner than I expected, I exited the water and realised that the swim had gone surprisingly well. I had taken just 39 minutes. Wow. My best swim by some distance.

A slow four minute transition followed as I donned long sleeves, gloves, socks, shoes, helmet etc before heading out for a lap around the lake on the bike before reaching the open road.

There was already a worrying steam of expensive carbon flying past me. Worrying for two reasons really. Firstly if it continued I’d end up last and secondly... had I really swam faster than all these people?

The bike section was really well organised. Many side roads and junctions were totally closed off, red lights were switched off and where there was traffic it was held back my men in yellow jackets with stop/go boards. You really never had to touch your brakes.

I did have three problems though. One. The no drafting rule, which was completely impossible to obey when you have 1100 bikes travelling practically nose to tail. Two. My bike computer which was being incredibly annoying clanging away against the frame of my bike again but I wasn’t going to stop to fix it. Note to myself, get something better. Three. I was bursting for the loo.

That one got solved at the first feed station after 21 miles. They really had thought of everything at the Outlaw Half and had even provided a girlie to hold your bike for you whilst you went for a pee. With that issue resolved, I settled down onto my aero bars and went for it.

My nutrition plan worked, I think. I ate every ten miles. Taking on one caffeine gel, one normal gel and a chunk of L’s notorious fruit cake. It’s a bit heavy on the alcohol but it seemed to keep me going.

The route’s only real hill came at Oxton and this was the only time I changed down off the big ring. It was also at this point that the lead women caught me, one of them singing ‘If you're happy and you know it clap your hands’ as she went past. No. I don’t think so.

At 38 miles came the second feed station and my first experience of the bottle drop on the move, as I loo stopped at the first one. You lob your old bottle on the grass and then grab a new one off a helper. Doddle. That is unless you are still the bottle into your bottle cage when someone else offers you some gels... You hurriedly attempt to grab the gels but drop them and bend your thumb back against your own handlebars in the process whilst almost going over the front of the bike. Like I did. After an impressive recovery I carry on but I'm no longer able to put any weight on that hand.

I had planned to complete the bike section in about 3:30 but did it in 3:05. Wow again. So I was at least half an hour up on schedule and I also felt pretty good as I changed into my running shoes and headed out onto the run course.

I got named checked by the announcer as I went through transition. Then got named checked again as I turned around and went back in, for my hat. The temperature was rising quickly.

The run was a two lap route around the lake and along the river path to Lady Bay Bridge. The original plan was for a two hour half marathon which would bring me home in under 6:30. I had now worked out that I was so far ahead of schedule that I could now run a 2:10 half and break bot 6:30 but 6:00. Easy.

After the first lap I was even further up but the legs were fading fast. I knew I had time in hand, so I could walk a bit, which I did after each feed station which were roughly every mile. At each one I would grab two cups of water, one each for the head and for the stomach. Occasionally I’d have a little High 5 as well or maybe a gel but I didn’t have many, I had eaten loads on the bike and felt a bit over stuffed.

Then I rounded the final corner of the lake and headed for the finish, stopping briefly to snog my WAG and the boys on the way. Entering the finish, I high fived several people I’d never met before, finally crossing the line arms aloft in five hours and 52 minutes. Gimme that medal and the T-shirt.

The only blip in the whole excellent organisation was that they had ran out of water at the end, I had to have coke instead and another AF beer, which they were handing out again. You then rather cruelly have to negotiate a flight of stairs before you are offered food. Which I couldn’t face anyway, although I did go back for some later. I needed to lie down and found a patch of grass somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be. Everyone checked if I was ok but no one moved me.

After a while I went out of the finish compound to find L, the boys and some shade. The only patch of which they had inconveniently placed at the top of some banking, which I then had to practically crawl up.

I recovered eventually, we even found my father, watched a few others come in before heading home for a well deserved hot bath and to thank my WAG personally. The tattoos seem permanent by the way; at least they don’t come off in the bath.

Newcastle (Staffs) 10k

The fitness campaign has been rescheduled (again). So today the Newcastle 10k, that’s

Newcastle Under Lyme by the way, and I thought I’d retired from 10k’s last year. Needs must.

This is the first time this race has been run as a 10k, previously it was known as the Newcastle 7, over seven miles. That had taken place for 40 years but this has now been shortened to take out a tricky road junction.

The race start is outside the organising club’s HQ on Ashfields New Road. The course takes us on road but steadily uphill for the majority of the first 6k, up something known locally as Black Bank. Then we descend to the finish. It also goes off-road at this point. Firstly on to gravel tracks and then dirt tracks along the route of an old railway line. Thankfully it's not been too wet, so the course isn't muddy or slippery.

The finish turns out to be at least a half a mile walk back to the race HQ, so one wonders why it couldn’t still have been a 7 miler?

It’s a popular event with 416 finishers and a rather nice commemorative mug for all. I am one of those finishers despite struggling with tight calf-itis throughout. I consider dropping out several times as my muscles alternate from tight to excruciatingly tight but I carry on in the belief that this is actually doing it some good.

My time of 49:31 reflects my cautiousness and my discomfort but at least nothing snapped. However I think doing the same over a half marathon distance at Scunthorpe in two weeks time is out of the question.