I hate early starts. Briefing at 9 meant leaving home at 7:30 and even then accepting that I wasn't going to get best choice of transition spaces. I figured any lost time running in and out of transition to a bad spot would be more than cancelled by the extra 30-40 minutes in bed. And then my heat was scheduled for an 11am start.
I can't complain about the lane I was drawn in. If I could have picked names off the start list that I wanted to swim with they were either in my lane or the one next to me. My nemesis was in my lane, the girl from Shetland (I might have said Orkney before - oops!) who outsprinted me last year was drawn in my lane. As was the guy who towed me to my fast time at last year's Huntly standard. Then there were a couple of Fleet-feeters, a girl in front of me and a guy behind me.
The first few lengths were ok, but fairly early on I was finding my shoulders feeling stiff and tired. Nemesis was getting a great tow from the guy whose feet I really wanted to be on and they were starting to open a gap, but the other 3 of us were going nicely. That lasted till lap 18 / 450m (says garmin, I wasn't counting). At this point the tow-boy and nemesis came to lap us. I let both of them and the FFT guy through in the hope that I could then get on the back of all 4 and get a free ride for a while. Didn't happen though, and instead I got dropped, and the 4 of them then charged away. I was on my own from there. It didn't make a huge difference to my speed, but I was having to work harder than I wanted to and my shoulder was really starting to bug me. Not the one with the pin which made it even more frustrating.
They caught me again on lap 39 / 950m. But again I couldn't hold on to the back. As I got close to 1400m they were about to catch me again but I pushed a couple of lengths so that I kept in front without getting in their way. Once they were out I actually found it a bit easier I wasn't swimming against 4 people's wake half way down every length. I was also noticing how quiet the pool was getting as the lanes either side of me emptied. Tried not to get bothered by it. There were still maybe 3 in the water as I got out. But the watch said 27mins 24 so actually exactly in the 27-28 mins that I had aimed for.
Transition 1 was a faff. I spent so long putting on my socks, changing watches, getting my helmet, putting on my glasses (I had purposefully set them up to put them on on the ride but stopped to do it now - D'Oh!). I was even chatting away to one of the other racers, about our respective swims. Way out of race mode.
I started the bike fairly easily. There is a bit of a climb on the way out of town and I was dropping a little bit of space to a few of the riders around me, but nothing serious. Then we turned left onto a 9 mile long straight, which is mostly downhill. There was a bit of a cross-wind but nothing I couldn't deal with. This is exactly what my TT bike is made for. I was picking off places all the way as I flew along at over 24 miles an hour. Then it turns again and gets a bit lumpy. I was losing some time through this section. Partly because I can't climb but also because my shoulders were really struggling and I couldn't stay on the tri-bars as much as I should.
Two other riders were making similar headway, including the guy I was chatting to in transition. We were doing a bit of cat and mouse, with them passing me on every rise and me sneaking back in front on every descent or flat. Once we got to the top of the hill though it was all me again. Into a headwind, with assorted gusts of major crosswinds, I was making ground again. Even though I was using a lot of road. However, I was starting to worry about how much time I had lost on the climbs. In previous years I have caught Nemesis on the climb and she was still nowhere in sight, and also there was a Threepeaks girl in front that I also expected to catch on the bike. I tried to ignore it and pushed on. I occasionally caught glimpses of riders in the distance but not enough to identify them, and now my shoulders were really suffering so I wasn't getting anything like enough time in my TT position.
I was glancing at the watch and trying to do the sums in my head. I knew it was quick but I couldn't figure out why I hadn't caught the girls. There were a few slow miles near the end, with the crosswind pushing me over the road I was having to ride a little more defensively and as I came in to the town the chatty man caught me again. This actually helped as I was able to give him a little gap and then use his eyes to judge the traffic round the corners. This gave me a wee chance to try and stretch.
I knew it was a dead flat last quarter mile on the bike so I had my feet out and stood on my shoes with two corners still to go. T2 was the opposite of T1. I dismounted cleanly and had the bike racked quickly, despite someone being stood in front of my space, helmet was off and swapped for running cap, running shoes on and gone. All in under 25 seconds. And there were the girls. Nemesis was out and running about 12 seconds ahead of me. (Turns out she had been on someone else's TT bike for the day and had gone 8 minutes faster than last year) and I passed the Threepeaker girl as we crossed the mats on the way out. 6th overall through transition, and everyone who managed quicker than me was in the top-8 overall.
I started the run well. I was keeping Nemesis in sight for the first mile and maybe even gaining a little. But it was getting hot and I was starting to stiffen up and run out of gas. It felt like I was going quicker than the previous 2 years but not by much. About two miles in there is a switch back where you run head to head with everyone who is up to half a mile ahead of you and I passed a lot of the people that I knew would be going close to my target time. Nemesis was starting to sneak away and was even catching some of the others, giving me a bit of hope that I might get to some of them.
At the end of the first lap I was starting to really struggle as my legs tightened up and the heat started to bite. I took a drink of water I was offered and had the gel I had pocketed in transition. Neither really helped though. I was starting to flag but I kept working. I could see I was losing a little bit to the runners in front, but not huge amounts.
I had hoped to stay ahead of the winner, whose heat started 30 minutes after mine, but with two corners to go I heard footsteps behind me that were much too fast and relaxed to belong to anyone from my heat. He has recently one Ironman Wales and was running a huge course record so I didn't mind too much but it would have been nice to hold him off.
I knew at this point that I was going to miss 2 hours 30, but not by much so I kept working to the end. I was a bit disappointed with my run time. I know I can run a lot faster than that. My next race will be run only just to see how my running is if I don't come off he bike first.
So the full breakdown is here:
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A minute faster on the swim was pretty good considering how rough I felt. 6 and a half minutes faster on the bike was great. The slow T1 was cancelled out by the perfect T2. But not running faster was a bit of a let down.
I think Huntly was just a race too far this season. I put a lot into training for Aberfeldy, which helped my base fitness and has done me a lot of good this year, and it has also taught me how hard I can work on the bike, but without properly teaching me how much that will affect my run. I need to balance that out for next year and to add some speed to that fitness.
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