Over the weekend, I participated in a sprint race (Buckingham Triathlon) to use it more as a “live” test of different aspects, including race strategy, equipment, nutrition, etc. All I can say is, I’m glad I did it, since I found that I still needed to fine-tune a few parts of my race, and that I would rather find this out during such a race than in a World championship race. After all, Madrid is only less than 3 weeks away!!!
My race strategy for this event was very simple: race at Olympic distance race pace. Doing a sprint race at Olympic distance pace simply means that I would not kill myself to finish, hence recovery will be much quicker, and I can sort of gauge how long it would take me to finish the full race by simply doubling the time.
For the swimming part, apart from how interesting it was to swim in a pool and not in open water and the distance of 400m instead of the usual 750m in sprint triathlons, there was nothing to note. It was a bit frustrating with having to share lanes with slower and faster swimmers, but I guess one gets affected by similar issues in open water, with legs and arms flailing everywhere. Adding the 300 metre run from the pool to transition, I considered it to be more or less equivalent in terms of time. In any case, my swim time was in the top 10%, so it’s fine.
First transition was ok and took me 1 minute. It still could have been faster, but I wasn’t necessarily in any hurry, I must say. So, to rank 11 out of 254 in the T1 time when I’m not going quick is not that bad. There is hope after all!
Then came the bike. Steep hills and head winds were not fun for the 20km ride. I’m not the strongest of cyclists, and it is definitely the discipline where I can improve a lot in. I was only overtaken by a couple of diehard guys on the fanciest timetrial machines, but I also had my fair share of overtaking others. When the start times are all different, it is quite hard to judge where you are in the rankings, but I just had to see how many people I was overtaking compared to how many were overtaking me. It was the end of the bike leg that I made a mess. I was concentrating too much on not missing the turn back into transition and avoiding traffic at a roundabout near the entrance, that I forgot about the fact that I needed to get ready to dismount. What a dork! I ended up unclipping my shoes, dismounting old lady style, taking my cycling shoes off and carrying them, then dropping them a couple of times while running back to where I was supposed to rack my bike. I reckon I lost a good 2 minutes messing around with this. Overall, I still need a bit of work on pacing my cycling over the next couple of weeks, since my heart rate was all over the place, especially with the hills. After Madrid, I shall start an extensive programme to focus on cycling strength. My cycling time was exactly in the middle of everyone, and I really would like to see this improve.
T2 was ok, again taking 1 minute, even with me running a few metres with the bike helmet and having to go back to take it off. It really shouldn’t take me more than 30 seconds.
The run went like clockwork, with pacing going as planned and time exactly where I thought it would be. I went a bit easy there, since I didn’t want to lose training time these coming couple of weeks because of this. So, my time was 23:30 for the 5km at a pace slightly under Olympic distance.
The race nutrition was fine, although they didn’t have any water stations on the run, which could have made it a bit better.
Since I’m aiming for a sub 2:30 for the Olympic distance race in Madrid, I was hoping for a 1:15 in Buckingham, and I got 1:15.12. To my surprise, I was ranked 12th in my age group (out of 37), and if I would have taken out the 2 minutes I messed up on the bike, I would have been in the top 5 in my age group! All this with me not pushing too hard. So, I’m happy with this, since, if I take out the couple of things that went wrong and keep the exact same speeds, that should give me 2-3 minutes to spare, assuming I don’t do anything to my speed over the next couple of weeks.
My aim, therefore, over these coming 2 weeks before my taper is to do more hills on the bike, and try to focus a bit more on mental preparation for transitions. All of this, of course, is besides trying to get a new tri suit that will have my name and the ITU logo on it in time before Madrid. It is not as easy to get this done when I'm racing for Egypt as it is to buy the British one off the shelf...
I’m getting extremely fired up!
P.S. Exciting news still coming up in the next update, hopefully before Madrid.
My race strategy for this event was very simple: race at Olympic distance race pace. Doing a sprint race at Olympic distance pace simply means that I would not kill myself to finish, hence recovery will be much quicker, and I can sort of gauge how long it would take me to finish the full race by simply doubling the time.
For the swimming part, apart from how interesting it was to swim in a pool and not in open water and the distance of 400m instead of the usual 750m in sprint triathlons, there was nothing to note. It was a bit frustrating with having to share lanes with slower and faster swimmers, but I guess one gets affected by similar issues in open water, with legs and arms flailing everywhere. Adding the 300 metre run from the pool to transition, I considered it to be more or less equivalent in terms of time. In any case, my swim time was in the top 10%, so it’s fine.
First transition was ok and took me 1 minute. It still could have been faster, but I wasn’t necessarily in any hurry, I must say. So, to rank 11 out of 254 in the T1 time when I’m not going quick is not that bad. There is hope after all!
Then came the bike. Steep hills and head winds were not fun for the 20km ride. I’m not the strongest of cyclists, and it is definitely the discipline where I can improve a lot in. I was only overtaken by a couple of diehard guys on the fanciest timetrial machines, but I also had my fair share of overtaking others. When the start times are all different, it is quite hard to judge where you are in the rankings, but I just had to see how many people I was overtaking compared to how many were overtaking me. It was the end of the bike leg that I made a mess. I was concentrating too much on not missing the turn back into transition and avoiding traffic at a roundabout near the entrance, that I forgot about the fact that I needed to get ready to dismount. What a dork! I ended up unclipping my shoes, dismounting old lady style, taking my cycling shoes off and carrying them, then dropping them a couple of times while running back to where I was supposed to rack my bike. I reckon I lost a good 2 minutes messing around with this. Overall, I still need a bit of work on pacing my cycling over the next couple of weeks, since my heart rate was all over the place, especially with the hills. After Madrid, I shall start an extensive programme to focus on cycling strength. My cycling time was exactly in the middle of everyone, and I really would like to see this improve.
T2 was ok, again taking 1 minute, even with me running a few metres with the bike helmet and having to go back to take it off. It really shouldn’t take me more than 30 seconds.
The run went like clockwork, with pacing going as planned and time exactly where I thought it would be. I went a bit easy there, since I didn’t want to lose training time these coming couple of weeks because of this. So, my time was 23:30 for the 5km at a pace slightly under Olympic distance.
The race nutrition was fine, although they didn’t have any water stations on the run, which could have made it a bit better.
Since I’m aiming for a sub 2:30 for the Olympic distance race in Madrid, I was hoping for a 1:15 in Buckingham, and I got 1:15.12. To my surprise, I was ranked 12th in my age group (out of 37), and if I would have taken out the 2 minutes I messed up on the bike, I would have been in the top 5 in my age group! All this with me not pushing too hard. So, I’m happy with this, since, if I take out the couple of things that went wrong and keep the exact same speeds, that should give me 2-3 minutes to spare, assuming I don’t do anything to my speed over the next couple of weeks.
My aim, therefore, over these coming 2 weeks before my taper is to do more hills on the bike, and try to focus a bit more on mental preparation for transitions. All of this, of course, is besides trying to get a new tri suit that will have my name and the ITU logo on it in time before Madrid. It is not as easy to get this done when I'm racing for Egypt as it is to buy the British one off the shelf...
I’m getting extremely fired up!
P.S. Exciting news still coming up in the next update, hopefully before Madrid.
This continues to be interesting to read. Thank you, Hassan. By the way, where do you get a tri suit made with the name and logo you want?
ReplyDeleteNot as interesting as yours! :) You're going around visiting champions...
DeleteThe personalised tri suit wasn't a straight forward affair. There is Champion Systems and z3r0d who do this, with Champion Systems the most flexible in terms of what you can do. Yet, both have to have minimum orders of ten or more items, and I'm not at that stage yet where I want to change that often.
So, I just chose the tri suit I like an get it in a plain colour, and I'm now trying to get iron on ITU logo and letters. I hope it looks better than it sounds.