A try at Tri

A try at Tri.

So D day is here, the day that will determine whether from tomorrow I am once again a cyclist who enjoys(?) a swim or a run on the side, or whether maybe, just maybe, I am a triathlete.

Woke up full of nerves, last time I was this nervous was when I did the Etape several years back -  arrived at the venue still full of nerves and fell into a conversation with one of the least well prepared people I have ever met. 

Miss ill prepared: "So where is the swim course"
CP: Er, we're standing by it, its in front of us
MIP: Oh, where is it then?
CP: er, you see those really big bright red buoys in the water, that's it
MIP: what, going all the way over there in the distance, are you sure?
CP: yes, I swam it yesterday
MIP: and we need to do all of it?
CP:  er, yeah
MIP: oh. I'm not sure I can swim that far, seems a long way.
CP: speechless....

You know, after that I was as calm as a cucumber! I was glad I did the practice swim yesterday, I got the warm up (or complete lack thereof...) in the practice totally wrong and spent the first 15 minutes feeling like crap, struggling for breath and rhythm. It was cool though stopping at the four seasons hotel pontoon and being served expresso by white coated waiters and then jumping back in for the last few minutes back to base. Yesterday though did nothing to change my opinion that I'd be done on the swim in around 50 minutes, give or take. I'm a rubbish swimmer as you know.

And then we're off, along with about 150 others in my wave, I intentionally started at the back to avoid the fight, and all swim I never tangled once with anyone, the breathing and rhythm were there from the very first stroke. It actually felt *good*. I knew the relay guys were starting 10 minutes behind us, so the quickest of them were going to go by me, which they did, but hang about, whats going on, I'm also going past the tail of the wave in front. huh? what's going on? And out of the swim - 38 minutes -  you what? I really seriously wasn't pushing it at all and I just swam 38 minutes for 1,900m -  that's like 8 minutes faster than I've ever done before, crazy.

The organisation of the Tri was fantastic, you literally could not move for support, I had one guy undoing my wetsuit for me, another packing it away into the transition bag, another coming up with water and juice -  all the way round the course it was the same, just brilliant organisation.

And onto the bike. I had no real idea what pace to aim for and in my mind I had the advice "if it feels easy then it's probably about right" i.e. don't fry your legs for the run. So I set off aiming to do a 3 hour ride for the 90km and was quickly cruising past dozens and dozens of other people. In retrospect though none of them were in my age group -  they were all the slow people from the waves in front -  cruising past so many people made me feel like my pace was very good, but that hid the fact that I wasn't actually catching anyone of relevance. It was the drabbest bike course you could possibly imagine, 85km of riding on a deadpan flat closed 3 lane highway, watching all of Bahrain sitting in their cars parked up waiting for us to finish -  we literally gridlocked the entire country! I loath riding flat routes,  I need to be inspired by riding, this did none of that apart from -  bam, we're onto the Formula 1 course for a lap, clipping the apexes a la Lewis Hamilton -  that was pretty damn cool. In hindsight I should of gone a lot harder on the bike - thats just lack of experience of riding flat routes - my other 1/2 IM I have booked (Fueteventura and Mallorca) are hilly, as is Lanzarote IM, that's the stuff I enjoy and I'm sure there I will take chunks of time out of other people. On this course though I went backwards against my age group. Oh well, live and learn.

And onto the run. I wanted to see if I could do a 2 hour run, but more importantly I wanted to do it without stopping (other than to get drinks etc). No walking, that's goal number 1. That goal I achieved, but missed the 2 hour mark by a few minutes, c'est la vie. Relative to my age group the run was actually my strongest discipline which is a bit weird as most triathletes are runners first and foremost and I've only been running since February. Maybe that was my payoff for taking it easy on the bike, picking them off on the run instead?

And that's it, we're done, 38 min for 1.9km swim, 2 hr 54 min for 90km ride, 2hr 9 mins for 21 km run, 5 hrs 54min in total including transitions. Humbling to see the leading guys in my age group finishing the 1/2 marathon just as I was starting. Even more humbling to see the tail-end guys and girls just starting their 1/2 marathon just as I was finishing -  that'll be a long day in the office for them!

So there we are, onto Fueteventura we go. I am officially a triathlete. And Miss ill prepared is probably still somewhere on the swim course...