By Darren Guy
It’s been a long road but I’ve enjoyed the journey!
First off I’ll caveat this report, and say that it will probably bore a large number of people but I like to look back at a race to figure out what went well and what went wrong, and what better way to do that than writing a race report… so if you are still reading, you have been warned.
I’ve been working up to the Virgin Active London Triathlon since the start of the year and have had a lot of highs and lows as I’ve learnt to Swim, Bike and Run. The swim leg has been a humbling experience; from initially thinking it was “easy” after TriAthy, to being at the back of the pack and followed by a canoe at Beast of the East. Looking back, I think the smartest thing I did this year was to join Piranha, as not only did I get great advice and coaching, but it also provided an amazing support group, with every member willing to help out wherever they could. The support of the club was particularly evident when I posted on the Piranha Site that my bike was stolen from the bike shop two days before I was to head for the race. I had dropped it in for a quick service before the race and the shop stupidly left it unlocked in a courtyard. I was gutted, I had put a lot of work into my bike (ie a lot of suffering with Sufferfest) and now I didn’t even have one. Very quickly I started getting private messages on the website from other Piranhas offering me a loan of their own bikes, all of which were amazing and would have been a joy to ride on! However, after a lot of thought, I decided I was not happy risking any damage to one of these bikes on the journey to the
With one saga over, I quickly moved onto another. I was reading the race pack (for the 3rd time!) and noticed a small comment at the end on cut-off times. It said that if competitors had not started their 2nd bike lap by 16:30, they would be moved directly onto the run, cutting the bike short. Considering I was in the last group of day with a start time at 15:20, this left me at a 30min swim and 1:10 bike pace to make the cut-off. Now, this was my goal pace, but I thought it crazy that if I was a minute or two off pace, I was not going to be allowed to finish the full bike course. When I got there on the Saturday, I asked the help desk about the cut-off and they agreed to move me forward to the 15:00 wave and into the same group as my mate Aidan (happy days!). With that I went and collected my bike. When asked by the bike rental shop if I ridden a TT bike before, I blatantly lied and said I had once or twice! Once on though, I was very happy with the bike. I had bought a forward seat post and put aero bars on my Road Bike and the position felt the same. All my training had been in aero position, so I was confident my back and arms would hold out. I had a quick two minutes on the bike in the car park before we had to head and that was it until the race!
RACE DAY
I’ve never seen a transition area as big as the one in London – it was enormous, and with 10,000 competitors over the two days I suppose it was to be somewhat expected. I grabbed a spot in transition which left me running with my bike as little as possible and set up opposite Aidan. We then made our way over to swim assembly with the other 280 people in my wave. Shortly into the briefing we were informed that due to the inclement weather and the appearance of “White Horses” out on the Thames, the course was being reduced down to 750m…. WTF! I was gutted…again.
THE SWIM
After leaving the Excel Arena I started to think the shorter swim was a good idea. It was even windier with a lot of waves. We jumped in and swam to the start. I have always struggled with finding the correct placing on a swim start and this race was no different. I think with the large amount of first timers there were a lot of weaker swimmers very close to the start line, and I some how managed to get stuck behind all of them. The first 400m was spent with a mixture of breast stroke and a slow front crawl, as I just couldn’t get clear. It was only between 400 and 600m that I got into any kind of rhythm. The conditions turned even worse for the last 100m as we headed back to the pontoon. With the waves and spray from the wind you could barely see what was ahead of you. I was relieved to get out and as went to unzip my wetsuit I found it was already zipped down presumably helped by one of the many people scrabbling around at the start, I hadn’t even noticed.
Swim done and glad to be out of the water.
Target 1500m – 29:45
Revised Target 750m – 14:53
Actual Time 750m – 16:40 (already down 1:47)
Wave Placing – 136/280 (Top 49%)
Lessons to learn – 1) Don’t go down the side as you have nowhere to go if you get wedged in
2) Clear water is better than a direct line
3) White Horses are waves. Who knew!
Transition 1 was a long run and uneventful (3:56)
THE BIKE
On the bike I was quickly reminded of how brutal the conditions were, so I put my head down and pushed it as best I could to make up for the time lost on the swim (I appreciate that they weren’t as bad as a certain World Championship qualifier had to endure, but they were fairly poor all the same. Give me a sunny day anytime of cold, wet and windy!). The new bike felt good and my fit was spot on. While my arms were red raw from the wind and cold, I actually really enjoyed the bike. I had been focusing on it over the last month and I felt strong as a result. I’ve never passed so many people in my life and probably never will again. The two laps fairly flat with a number of roundabouts thrown in to test your grip and one long awesome tunnel. The tunnel was a relief as it provided great shelter and you could get a good bit of speed up in it. For the second race in a row, I stupidly lost my water bottle but given the rain I wasn’t too worried.
As I was heading towards the exit off the bike course, there were marshals getting everyone off their bikes. It was well before the dismount area but we all obliged and dismounted. Once we got round the turn they told us to jump back on to go up the large ramp into the Excel arena. I jumped on but was in too high a gear and couldn’t get moving to change down, so I ended up running up the ramp in bear feet which was not ideal but the only thing I could think of. While running I noticed that my feet were completely numb from the cold and it took me about 30 seconds to take off my hat in transition as my fingers were too numb to open the latch.
(Side note to Garmin and other GPS junkies: Indoor transition areas, long tunnels and indoor parts of the run completely mess up your pacing times from your watch when you are running on GPS only without a Speed sensor and footpod)
Bike done:
Target – 1:07:02
Actual Time – 1:02:44
Wave Placing – 18/280 (Top 6%)
Overall Placing – 178/4042 (Top 4%)…. Some waves rode a slightly different course which was supposed to be 40km but again who knows what it actually was…kind like the Olympics!
Lessons to learn – 1) Hard work pays off
2) Couldn’t have been full 40km track at that time
3) TT bikes are fast especially the DA4.
THE RUN
The run was a much more enjoyable experience as it was not as cold as the bike and swim, and the rain had died down. There was however a number of massive puddles that you had to run through, which meant you were always running with wet shoes. The course was a 4 lap course and was about 3-4m wide. I later learnt that the wave I was supposed to be in had its swim cancelled and the bike was shortened to 20km because of the worsening weather conditions, so I dodged a bullet by moving waves. This however meant that there were a lot of people on the run course and you spent more time going sideways to get around people than going forwards. That said the run was fun and there were a lot of supporters on the route.
Run done:
Target – 44:30
Actual Time – 45:40
Wave Placing – 34/280 (Top 12%)
Overall Placing – 366/4042 (Top 9%)
Lessons to learn – 1) Busy courses slow you down and mess with your pacing.
2) Indoor sections mess up your Garmin and pacing info (Get footpod!)
2) Wet shoes weigh a lot and are not nice to run in.
Triathlon Done!!!
Initial Target – 2:27:00
Revised Target – 2:12:00 (taking 15min off swim time)
Actual Time – 2:11:29
Wave Placing – 38/280 (Top 14%)
Overall Placing – N/A as the swim shortened.
Overall, I am delighted with my time. There were very tough weather conditions on an easy enough course with a lot of first timers racing. I felt more tired after the swim than any of the full Olympic swim courses that I’ve done, even Beast of the East. I was delighted with my bike time and felt the work I’d done at home on the trainer really paid off, plus the having the TT bike helped. I was initially disappointed not to break 45min on the run but looking back I hadn’t factored in the amount of people on the course.
I’d like to thank everyone who has answered my questions on the forum and especially those who offered advice and bikes before the event. I’d like to apologies for the length of this post (if you are still reading), as you may have guessed I tend to over analyse things.
It has been an epic journey this year and I can’t wait to be starting next season with the base and experience I’ve built up this year.
Thanks for reading,
Darren.
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