Well it's not my birthday until December but getting dragged onto this site and having a Tri Friend with a 34th birthday this weekend was too much to resist. The suggestion was made, he was up for it and that was that. Game on!
Firstly an apology ................. I'd got plans in my head to capure this all on camera but forgot to pick it up when I left this morning so that idea was out of the window. Anyway, to the tale of the day.
I woke up to my 7am alarm call, grabbed a cuppa and some breakfast. At 7:30 I called Birthday Boy Phill to make sure his Saturday night excess's hadn't left him a jibbering wreck on the floor. He was good to go so the first potential pitfall of the day had already been overcome.
It was coooold outside and my car had a thick layer of frost over it so I loaded my gear for the day in the boot and then spent 5mins clearing the windows before heading down to the baths for our 8:30am meet up. Here's where the planning started. Our Tri Club have a couple of lanes at the pool from 9:00 - 10:00, we'd swim in a lane alongside them and hopefully all finish around the same time so that anybody who wanted could join in the bike and/or run section.
The Swim - Changed and on poolside ready to roll by 8:45 we had to start in a club lane as other swimmers were in the public lanes, we'd be ok for the first 15mins at least. After 1600m we needed to swop lanes which meant coping with another couple of swimmers (who also had to cope with us troughing up and down). There were a few breaststroke moments as we worked our way around the other swimmers but that's all part of the challenge. I wore my Polar 720i to take splits every 400m with 200m splits at IM distance and at the end (look below). As I was slightly quicker in the pool than Phill I went after the 5k swim while he did the required 4.5k. It worked out perfectly as when he finished I only had 2 lengths remaining. 5000m in 1:13:26 averaging 1:28/100m. Leg 1 complete :)
Lap Time Lap Time Lap Note
1. 0:05:58.8 0:05:58.8
2. 0:11:48.5 0:05:49.7
3. 0:17:36.3 0:05:47.8
4. 0:23:33.7 0:05:57.4 Held up a little by slower swimmers.
5. 0:29:36.1 0:06:02.4 Held up a little by slower swimmers.
6. 0:35:24.8 0:05:48.7
7. 0:41:08.9 0:05:44.1
8. 0:46:56.0 0:05:47.1
9. 0:52:45.2 0:05:49.2
10. 0:55:40.6 0:02:55.4 3.8k IM distance swim split.
11. 0:58:34.8 0:02:54.2
12. 1:04:28.6 0:05:53.8
13. 1:10:24.6 0:05:56.0
14. 1:13:26.4 0:03:01.8 5000m done and dusted
The Bike - We were joined on the bike by another clubmate (Tim) who'd brought along his race bike while Phill was on TREK 1000 training bike and I was on my Specialized winter training hybrid.
I was kind of hoping that some of the slower clubmates might have joined us but it wasn't to be. We headed off on our ride and I led up the first climb feeling pretty good, then Tim hit the front and suddenly we were cracking along at close to 25mph, this wasn't good news as he was looking supremely comfortable and I was struggling to even stay on his wheel. A few years ago riding my hybrid with these pair wasn't a challenge, they've upped their game over the last year though and my biking is currently next to useless, this was my 4th ride of the year and my 3rd ride was yesterday....... I was in trouble and the headwinds on the return trip didn't help either!!! For the rest of the ride I stayed on (or more often off) the back as Phill and Tim took it in turns to pull at the front. The flat sections weren't too much of a problem for me but the hills just killed me. There's obviously lots of work needed in the bike strength department because although I really struggled my HR only averaged 120bpm and maxed out at 137bpm. Plenty of work to be done before IM Florida in November but still..... 34.2miles - 1h58m33s - AV Speed 17.3mph. The ride's up on Motionbased here
The Run - Nearly there now (in terms of the Tri and this report). The run was the simplist bit of the day, only 4 miles the finish line is in sight. For me it brought welcome relief from the bike and a chance to stretch my legs, for Phill it wasn't such a good thing. Running is his weakest discipline, he's had a dodgy calf in recent weeks and he'd worked real hard on the bike. We worked on a nice simple and flat course which took in the towns 3 bridges. It wasn't planned in advance, we pretty much just ran until the Garmin told us we'd done 4 miles. There was very little drama involved and thankfully no bouts of cramp on either of our behalfs. Run - 4.05miles - 28m34s average 7.02min/mile. Job done, time to go home shower and eat :). The run's up on Motionbased here
After cleaning up and getting fed we all headed off out with women and kids (not mine) to walk the dogs over the burrows where Phill gave the dogs plenty of exercise chasing the sticks he was launching. Heck as if we hadn't worked hard enough already ;-)
That's it I think. Now I just need to find someone else with a birthday because otherwise I've got 10 months to wait.
3.1mile (5000m) swim - 1:13:26
34.2mile bike - 1:58:33
4mile run - 28:34
Total 34year old Tri - 3:40:33
NEXT!!!!!!!
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