I was looking forward to this event for a while. Talking to a few other club members about previous years’ events, it seemed to get great reviews (despite the talk of a sea of jellyfish).
I went over on Saturday to register, one less thing to do on the day, but apparently I had already been over and collected my number! My pack was given to someone else by mistake, but the lady giving them out assured me it would be fine, she knew who she gave it to, and she would drop it off for me later that day. True to her word, it was dropped through the letterbox later that afternoon, and I could finish getting everything ready for the morning.
Aims:
- Go under 2:10/100m for my swim. I seem to struggle with getting close to my pool swim speed on the open water, but have been putting some time in at Scaling, so hoping this will help.
- Keep up with the little pacing man on my watch, who was set at 4:45/km.
Arrive Sunday morning with plenty of time to spare. Grabbed my chip and headed into transition to set my bike up, then to the toilets to get changed into my tri-suit. Wetsuit on, bag dropped off and ready to go. Stood chatting to some other Redcar folk while waiting to be called down to the water. I was heading out on the first wave. Was reminded I had forgotten my pre-swim gel when Oli remembered he had forgotten his, so off we went to get our bags back out of the drop, in went the gel, back went the bag.
Swim
Water wasn’t too bad in terms of temperature, and I only noticed 1 jellyfish on the way in, so my mind was at ease. Acclimatised for a little bit, got nice and comfortable, although for some reason I forgot it would be salt water, so that was a little shock when I dipped my face in.
The wave behind us were shouted out of the water, and pretty soon our countdown began. Seemed a little busier than previous OW starts that I had done, so I was expecting a bit of rough and tumble to start and probably at the buoys. Off we went.
Got into a comfortable stroke rate pretty quickly, sitting on other peoples feet, overtaking some. Within no time, the first buoy was in sight, and yep, as expected, feet in my face, people swimming over my legs, hands bouncing off the back of my head. I gave it back as well, so I can’t really whinge too much, but I knew what to expect at the next couple of buoys now.
The swim seemed to be over quite quickly, before I knew it, I was around the last buoy and on the home straight to the ramp out. I remember being told to swim for as long as possible, until your hands hit the ramp before trying to stand up, so I did that, and it worked. Up the ramp, unzipped the wetsuit and whipped the top half off, then goggles, cap and earplugs, and I was at my bike.
Bike
Transition went pretty smoothly. I made sure I was well lubed up, so my wetsuit slid off with ease. Bent over to put my socks and shoes on and felt some cramp creeping into my hamstrings, bit too early for that thank you very much, so I had to bend over at the waist to put them on instead. Another gel in, helmet and sunglasses on, and running out with the bike. Mounted and on my way.
All in all, I really enjoyed the bike, which has not been the case for all my other events so far. The bike is definitely my weakest discipline, but I have been putting in a lot of time in the gym with leg work etc. and I really felt it paying off here. I think this is the only event where I overtook more people than overtook me.
The closed roads made a big difference as it is one major thing that you don’t have to worry about. The only thing I had to do was keep pushing, and count my laps. I forgot to do the latter. I remember Chris and Oli from the club were ahead of me on the bike, and I kept seeing them coming back towards me after they had turned around. So, I put some faith in them doing the right amount of laps, and decided to pull off the course when I didn’t see them coming onto the next lap ahead of me. It worked, the right distance done and heading back to transition.
The only annoying thing on the bike was a guy that was ahead of me, that I was trying to overtake, kept jumping out of the saddle every time he saw me come up beside him during my overtake, getting back ahead, and then slowing down again.
Run
T2 went great, nice quick change from my bike shoes to my running shoes thanks to the elastic laces, and I was out in under a minute.
Nice and flat 5km. I knew Mark would be coming up behind me any minute. I remember seeing him coming into T2 as I was leaving, so an overtake was inevitable. Sure enough, within the first 1km I think, I felt him over my shoulder, a few words exchanged, a token effort from me to try and stick with him, until I accepted it wasn’t going to happen, and settled back into my pace.
Got to the turnaround point, 2.5km to go, so tried to push a little bit harder. Kept checking my watch to make sure I was keeping up with my pace and then 400m to go, I gave it some beans. Thursday night intervals coming into full effect here, pushed my pace to around 4:00/km and then a sprint finish. Done.
Official Results
Swim: 12:18 (It wasn’t the full 750m, but a 2:04/100m pace, so hit my target)
T1: 1:55
Bike: 40:13
T2: 0:58
Run: 23:52 (5km PB of 23:35 – averaged 4:43/km over the run)
Overall: 1:19:19
9th in Age Group
59/128 Overall (Male)
Really enjoyed this event, and my 2 big achievements were enjoying the bike and feeling some actual progress, and getting a 5km PB. Definitely in the calendar for next years races.
