Well, here we go. Far too early, it's 4am and I'm just waiting for the kettle to boil. Coffee is most definitely on the agenda this morning. 30 minutes to get myself together and get car packed up and set off. As per usual, I can feel every soddin little creak and sore muscle in my body and I look at my bike and I keep thinking 'how do I pedal again?'. My kit is strewn all over the kitchen floor, amongst turbo trainer, track pump, toolbox, footwear a plenty and various children's toys!
Race report will follow later today. Chip timing as well, so race results should be immediate and will get them posted asap!
Right now, where's the sugar...?
Well, race is now over, it's the following morning, and I have just had to get up with the boys at 5:30am!! No chance of a lay in, with it being Mother's Day and all! Oooh, me calves are sore! Race went very well, good solid start to the season. Lovely weather for it and once up there had to queue a while for registration, collected the necessary chip and numbers, visited the ladies loos as the gents was full, got changed and looked at watch, 7:30am, no time for turbo warm up. Got racked and then 5 minutes to go! Stomach not at its best, back to the gents this time! Rushed over to start and off!!
Stomach feeling decidedly rough as we set off, but my legs were in good shape and I soon settled into a comfortable pace, probably a bit easier than I would have liked but not having done this race before, all the rumours of it being tough were praying on my mind. I let a lot of runners go and just shrugged my shoulders and took in the scenery of Box Hill. After 6 comfortable miles the serious climbing began, 2 miles of 6%. And I attacked it, nothing stupid or balls out effort but solid running and it got me past a lot of guys who'd obviously gone off a bit quicker. However, last section of the climb my guts decided to scream for release! Damn, ran off -road to do the biz but loads of general public out walking and didnt think I could go, not fair really, so I go back on road and ran off up to the end of the run and before I got to transition made a diversion to the gents in the cafe! Cost me a good couple of minutes, not in the best of health and felt pretty ropey. But got out of there as quick as I could and off onto bike. I faffed around a bit in transition and after a rocky run to the mount line I got going at a reasonable pace until bang, cramp in left calf. God knows why, I think it might have been the cold wind on the bike, having heated up a lot on the run. Dunno, but I spent the whole of the bike leg fighting it off and couldn't push a high gear. Really annoying as I was feeling my bike legs return. I was solid up the climbs and picked off riders steadily along the course. Very enjoyable bike and could have happily ridden a lot longer had it not been for the cramp. 3 lap splits were very even, and it was nice to do this on new road bike and the Scott CR1 pro was ideal for this race. Didn't miss the aero bars really, but I think it would have saved me a minute maybe, just for the first 3 miles of the loop, but other than that, drops were fine. So off onto second run and noooo! the cramp in calves had returned, so I had to really slow down and gingerly run along until it had gone off and I just slowly began to get into stride and was running strong until mile 5 and then groin went! Not been a problem before but all of a sudden my pace dropped as a result and I was left to plod home for the last 3 miles.
Thoroughly enjoyable day. Made even better as James Gilfillan was on terrific form again with a 6 minute margin win!! He is in great shape at the minute, the turbo sessions have obviously been working as his bike speed is top class and a very strong second run. Well done James. And thank god you didn't buy those horrible looking Nike lunarlite racers!!
So, a lot learned from first race of season, lots of little things went wrong, and with a bit more prep and focus sub 3 hours is comfortably doable. But so far so good, training is obviously working and nice to know coach is pleased with my progress. Well done too to other driventotri athletes, Emma Smith who won the women's race and Piers Constable who finished in 22nd. I was back in 39th, so 3 DTT athletes in the top 40, good stuff.
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