It was drizzling a bit as I set up for transition. Nothing major but I learned from Turriff and bagged up my shoes to make sure they would be dry when I got to them.
As it is a novice event there were lots of noobs about that I could chat away and give advice to. This was a good distraction and I also caught myself a couple of times giving out advice that I had forgotten myself, and then adapted my plans accordingly.
Thursday had knocked my confidence a bit in the swim. I had declared 6:45 in the hope of going close to 7mins and getting a tow from some fast people to sneak under. But then only doing 7:41 on Thursday night meant I expected all three of the sub-7 swimmers to be climbing over me in the pool. As it was I had to let them all past, but they all bunched up nicely and went past in one go and then they all stayed nicely in line so no faffing about waiting for them to overtake each other at the ends. This meant I got a nice tow for pretty much the whole race and clocked my first sub-7 400m swim, without ever feeling like I was going all that hard.
The drizzle from earlier was gone. To be replaced by a full-on thunderstorm, complete with hailstones. Bagging both my transitions suddenly felt like genius as I slipped on nice dry shoes and socks. They didn't stay dray for long but it did make a huge difference for the first couple of miles and I was carving through places on the bike.
I had screwed up with my bike mechanics though. A few weeks back I took my flashy suspension seat post off to send it back to the manufacturers for a repair and I must have been lazy when I refitted the fixed post as it was about an inch lower than it should have been. Also the smoother tyres I had changed to while it was dry probably weren't the best choice, and the brakes need tightening. I was getting loads of mud sprayed on me (still searching the internet for some photos but no luck yet) and not wearing glasses meant I was getting the occasional bit of grit in my eyes, which I couldn't wipe out because my hands were muddier still. Fortunately, the torrential rain was acting as a good eye wash.
Still despite all that, and the atrocious weather conditions, a quick count through the results looks like I took 11 places on the bike. This is all from the bike miles I have been doing. I was much more able to just keep turning the pedals when it got tougher. On the bike alone I was over 2 minutes quicker than last year.
I came in to transition with one of the Moray Firth guys who had been in my swim lane and who I was chatting to beforehand. Last year he overtook me on the run but coming in to transition I felt much better this time.
I had a really smooth transition, the socks made the change much slicker, even though I could have stopped to wring them out.
Onto the run and I felt a bit stiff to start, but I knew from Thursday night that this was probably just an illusion and I was going much faster than it felt. The course was getting really slidy and I nearly took a header down some steps but managed to catch it. Then onto the path along the river side and it was pretty much 6 inch deep puddles all the way. Every time I turned a corner though there was a smiling marshall cheering me on so I was really enjoying it as I got more and more comfortable.
Looking at the results I was gaining time on the group in front but I never got close enough to see them.
Really pleased with the result. Under an hour and nearly 4 minutes faster than last year. The difference in weather conditions that is probably worth another couple of minutes as well.
Full results here.
|
As compare to 2012:
|
No comments:
Post a Comment