Rutland Half Marathon

Today I run the Rutland Half Marathon which is an event I’ve wanted to do for the last few years although I’m not sure why... as I’ve ran around Rutland Water several times before in various Duathlons and Triathlons. It has had great reviews and most of them describe it as really scenic. Basically there’s a lot of water and a lot of grass...  and today’s there’s lot of rain as well. In fact it’s difficult to get to register before the race as everyone is sheltering in the registration tent.

Sensible L doesn’t fancy it. ‘That sounds nice’ she says, clearly not meaning it, followed by ‘I'll hold your coat’ and the two collies of course but she doesn’t mention that bit.

The race starts from the Sykes Lane entrance and the Half Marathon distance that I’m doing is basically two out and backs, one in one direction and then one in the opposite direction after passing back through the start/finish. There’s also a Marathon, with a longer second loop, and a Team Marathon which is a relay along a 1/4 marathon section of the course.

The rain does actually stop for the run and the novelty today is it isn’t windy. I don’t think I’ve ever ran here when it hasn’t been windy. So not too bad conditions really.

                   

I am wearing my new GP watch and have it set to kilometres which isn’t a great idea when the course is marked in miles. That’s a bit of a schoolboy error.

My time of 01:50:53 isn’t great. There are however the most amazing cakes at the finish including about fifty different varieties for Swiss Roll.

After the event L has changed her mind. Now she does fancy it, it’s probably the Swiss Rolls that have swung it. Either that or it’s her FOMO kicking in or perhaps just the two collies factor kicking in.

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.

Rutland CiCLE Tour Sportive

L gives me my birthday present early. Some new cycling shorts which I can now wear in today’s sportive. L doesn't make the start line but comes to support with the boys. Who weren’t going to get to come but now do. Again it’s bloody windy. What is it with the weather and my bike at the moment?

This is the Rutland CiCLE Tour Sportive and I’m doing 57 miles, there are two longer and one shorter options. We start from Normanton on the South Shore of Rutland Water, which is the other side to where the duathlon starts. We still end up parking at Sykes Lane though and I have to bike round. This turns out to be 2.4 miles and I’m knackered before I even start. L points out that this is a good warm up.

It takes me 1 hour 33 minutes to reach the one and only feed station at Owston. Shoot me now, as some folk would say. At least they have some decent snacks and real tea, L would approve. I stash some cheesy biscuits in my pocket for later, for the boys.

It’s a tough ride. As well as being windy, the course is hilly. Full of silly little hills that they appear to have gone out of their way to find. At least my new shorts are nice and snug.

I reach the finish, having done 57.58 miles in 3:44. Not exactly quick.

Dambuster Duathlon

Today is the day, the Dambuster Duathlon which takes place amid challenging, windy conditions. I am almost fit for it. I feel that if I’d had another week the Achilles might be fully recovered but as it isn’t it’s all about surviving the initial 10k run. So its head down and go into the wind coming off the reservoir.

This is a qualifier for the ITU World Championships and I think this has cut the numbers a touch. Clearly some are not up for it. So this year we have three waves rather than four and they’ve also closed the start times up. Meaning I now start with the oldies and the women start just five minutes behind me rather than twenty minutes last year. I’m going to get overtaken a lot. The first woman passed me on the bike last year, they’ll pass me on the run this time.

I can't even keep pace with the person in the 'fat lad at the back' t-shirt. I hasten to add that although he is indeed a lad, he is neither at the back nor fat. I'm also very surprised you can get those t-shirts in Extra Small.

I safely negotiate the run without further injury and my 48:20 is only slightly slower than last year when I was also protecting an injury. I follow 'fat lad' in to transition but then don't see him for dust on the bike. The bike nicely takes the weight off the Achilles but it’s far from easy given that the first nine miles are always hilly but today are straight into the wind.

At times I thought I was going to start rolling backwards such was the painfully slow progress on those first nine miles in to a strong headwind. It was windy last year but not like this.

Once those initial nine are out of the way the remaining sixteen are much easier and sometimes even wind assisted. 01:34:49 is slightly slower than last year but that was the winds fault.

The final run is a battle, a painful battle, which I know means I won’t be walking normally for a while but 26:30 means I get the job done in 2:52:37. I think I enjoyed that.

A corking 280th place. I have earned the t-shirt, the pint of alcohol free lager and the massive flapjack thing that you could feed a family of five for a week on.

Dambuster Duathlon

It’s an early start today for the Dambuster Duathlon which is held at Rutland Water. The event doubles up (or should that be triples up) as a 2014 ITU Worlds Qualifier and a 2015 ETU European Qualifier meaning that I’m seriously out of my depth here.

L and the dogs are dragged out of bed early as well to come, support, administer last rights etc. Which is much appreciated although L spends a fair amount of time eyeing up all the other WAGS outfits. Having already requested a new WAG dress for the Outlaw Half she’s now added a new pair of boots to the required kit. At this rate the supporters’ kit is going to cost me more than the actual competing kit. The boots are considerably more expensive than the aero-bars I’ve been looking at.

There are 700 entrants arranged in three starts. The male elite at 8.20, the aging male veterans (including myself) at 8.30, the fully aged oak smoked and matured in whisky casks male veterans at 8.40 and all the ladies at 8.50. This means I’m going to have two seriously focused groups chasing me down.

I manage to hold them all off during the initial 10k run and more importantly also hold my calves together. Although that took some concentration as I try to keep my foot flat and not run on my toes. I run 47 minutes for the 10k whilst looking for something under 50, although I didn’t actually have much choice about my pacing. The path is so narrow and the field so tightly packed that you simply have to go with the flow as overtaking or being overtaken isn’t really an option.

The run is an out and back along the edge of the dam and the water itself has huge waves on it. So everybody is relieved that it’s not a full triathlon but I doubt anyone is quite as relieved as I am. The water still has quite an effect on the event though with quite a fierce wind always present coming off the water for the run.

The aged veterans do come past me en bloc on the bike leg, the first 15k of which is a painful blur on tired legs and mainly into a strong headwind. Once the oldies had disappeared into the distance, a few of the women start to come past me although not in great numbers. Each one seemed to be sporting pigtails, which is clearly the way to go for a faster time this year, blow the training. Not sure they'd suit me though.

By now I’d got the use of my legs back and I start to enjoy trying to chase the girlies down the road, naturally failing miserably each time and anyway it would have counted as illegal drafting had I actually caught one of them.

Surprisingly enough I’m also overtaking some of the young whippersnappers from the first group, the not-so-elite of the elite group. So all very satisfying and I’m disappointed when the bike section ends.

Back in transition and into the final 5k run, where I develop a short of shuffling routine around the course. All that was needed was the zimmer frame to complete the look. Oddly once I complete the event in an inspiring 2:45 having been aiming for anything less than 3 hours I found out that the pace of my second run was faster than the first one. Would you credit it. I guess this is what you call moral boosting.