1. Swim faster than 28:34.
2. Bike faster than 1:28:17.
3. Run faster than 53:28.
4. Finish faster than 2:48:18.
You can get the full results here.
And here are the real numbers:
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The water was colder than it has been for the last couple of months and colder than Loch Lomond last week. It was fine once you were swimming though. I spent too much time reading the internet last week. I knew this would slow me down so I would need to get more of a tow if I wanted a quick time so I let swimsmooth talk me into getting in the middle of the pack rather than my usual plan of staying off to the side. This meant being in amongst a lot of kicking and punching early on.
The swim start was the busiest open water start I have ever been in. It was messy at the start, and then messy throughout. By the time we were on to the back straight of the first lap I had enough of the scrapping but a nice gap opened up in front of me as the groups started to break up. I pushed into it and found myself spearheading a trailing group. I figured that if I was going to be working at the front of the group anyway, I might as well work a bit harder and try and cross the gap to the next group instead. It took me about half a lap to make it across the gap. I then tried to go round the group but they were weaving all over the place and somehow I ended up in the middle getting punched from both sides again and with someone really annoying tickling my feet on every stroke. I pushed a little bit to get away from Mr Tickle.
My target was to swim under last year's time, and I thought I was swimming well enough to go a lot faster, but I think the fighting and the colder water made a difference. Garmin actually has me out of the water at 27:22, but there is a short run up to the timing mats so an equal comparison puts me at 28:14. 20 seconds quicker than last year. Inside my target. Happy enough.
I faffed a bit in transition, but intentionally. I really need to practice my full half ironman transition, and that is going to include socks and towelling off and sunglasses and a load of other little bits. So I did the whole lot. This meant it was slow, but I was willing to give up seconds here for the practice and for the sake of minutes and some comfort later.
The bike course is a couple of miles downhill, then three laps of a triangle, then couple of miles back up the hill. The first side is fairly flat and fast but a bit twisty. The back straight is a bit of a slog, with a nippy little climb near the end. And the Third side is a time-trialist's dream, downhill, with open swooping corners at high speed.
I got a bit of a nosebleed on lap 1 and it kept dripping for the best part of the next two laps. It was never bad enough to bother me and wasn't affecting my breathing, but was a good reminder that I will need to be tight on my hayfever prep at Aberfeldy.
Along the first stretch on every lap I was catching a few places, but losing a few. I was catching a lot of girls, but getting caught by as many men. On the back straight I was losing more than I made, sometimes a few at a time. Then the long swooping fast section I was carving through places and loving the speed.
Coming round the back straight on the third lap I also caught up to Bert. I normally lose about a minute every 10k to Bert on a bike leg so I knew I was going really well. That gave me another boost and I pushed on up sharp hill. I turned onto the sweeping home stretch for the last time and was ready to pick off the few people in front of me. I waved a car past, but then the much slower bike in front didn't, so I got stuck behind him and the car. Was very frustrating and the watch says it cost me nearly 30 seconds.
As soon as the car moved I got back into fast TT mode and took the slow rider, but the other pair had gone into the distance. Onto the climb back up to the Loch and I was still ticking over nicely. I knew I had a super-fast bike split but I didn't check my watch going into transition and it was only once I got out onto the run that I noticed I was still over 5 minutes under my target bike time. My target was to bike 5 minutes faster than last year. In the end I biked nearly 6 minutes faster than my target as well. 10:47 faster than last year. Really pleased!
A quick bit of maths in my head and I knew I was on for my overall target if I got anywhere near my run target. I went off nice and steadily, knowing there was a big hill coming.The first mile felt ok but I realised that the price of my fast bike split and my holiday hillwalking was that my legs were having none of it on the hill. The heat was also starting to bite and I realised I was getting sunburnt and dehydrated. I found myself walking on the hill. I downed both my gels (should have had them on the bike and grabbed more at T2). My hip was bugging me a bit as well but I jogged in between bouts of walking on the hill. A lot of the girls that I had passed on the bike were making their places back, but I recognised a few of them on the way past and realised they should have all been well ahead of me coming off the bike, and be 5 minutes further up the road than me anyway so wasn't too annoyed to have them just passing me then.
Onto the flat I managed to get moving again. I had to stop at the water station before going into the off-road section. (Should have drunk more on the bike as well!). Once I reached the top of the hill I managed to get into a better rhythm. I was still losing places but at least was moving and could almost call it running. Had to stop again at the water station on the downhill. Then on the downhill road section I was still losing places, and realised I wasn't quite going to make my run target. But I thought I was still going to go a minute or two faster than last year for the run section so kept working as much as I could. I missed my run target by about a minute. So I am a bit disappointed that I didn't run a bit quicker. But still 3:51 faster than last year.
Overall, I ducked under my total time target by a very sneaky 4 seconds. Over a 3 hour race it sounds like I cut it pretty close but bearing in mind that the target time was a seemingly ridiculous 15 minutes under last year even to get near it was really fantastic.
And there were 42 people behind me this year rather than 4 from 2012, including all of the ThreePeakers (except maybe 1 but not sure his membership is paid up).
Really pleased overall. Especially pleased with the bike. And can't say enough good things about the marshalling and organisation.
Few good reminder lessons for Aberfeldy:
Drink more.
Eat / gel more.
Remember to prep for hayfever.
Don't work so hard on the bike.
Suncream!
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