Fritton Viking Middle Distance

Race Report

The plan for the race was to Swim hard especially at the start as they normally start off very hard and if you miss the feet of the faster swimmers you can spend the whole of the bike catching up rather then pulling away.

The Bike, I really wanted to absolutely smash this as hard as I could. I knew the course well as it was a local time trial course back home and as it was four laps which ment I could practice my pacing and analyse weather or not I blow up.

One other thing was a good mate of mine who I train with when I’m back home was racing and normally there is only a few seconds between us in tts was racing and we had a bet on who would get the fastest bike split just to spur us on which was great for me as it gave me extra motivation for the bike.

The Run

After the bike I wanted to push it for the first mile and really feel what sensations I was having and to get an idea of weather or not I would be able to do a good run after really smashing the bike as there’s no point if you can’t run.

How The Race Went!

I started off hard in the swim and was quickly in the lead. I struggled to see the buoys though as the sun was coming up which made it difficult. However it was pretty uneventful and I pressed lap on my Garmin at the half way point in 17m 40. On the return leg I tried to keep the pressure on but with no one near me it was quite hard to push it (motivational wise) I also noticed that I struggled with the muscular endurance side of it as my arms were feeling quite heavy and it was seeming like hard work despite not really pushing it to much. I think is due to the lack of long intervals in my swim training. Second half of the swim was 19m 20 so much slower, giving a combined time of 37 minutes for 2.5k

Once on the bike I quickly got in to a rhythm and was working hard the whole way round. It was good that it was laps as mentally it was easy to push it as I treated each lap as a separate tt. By the time I got into transition I was pretty fired which is exactly how I wanted to feel.

The ride Data is below it hasn’t got the split for lap because of heading in to t2

http://app.strava.com/rides/1783357

The moment of truth how would my legs feel starting the run after fully committing to the bike and the answer is just as shite as they do when you don’t push the bike. I started off doing the first mile in just over 6 minutes and it felt hard but I knew that if it was a big race or if I really dug in I could keep it up. The sensations were as good as you can hope for like that. So after that I decided to cruise the rest of the run averaging 6.52mpm for the run which I got at 12.5miles over trails and hills so not bad and 3 hour marathon pace!

Overview

Local races such as this are great for trying new race tactics as there’s no pressure and if it goes tits up you haven’t lost anything and you can figure out what your limits are for when you tackle your bigger races. Another key element which is pretty vital for the future which I found was that pushing the bike hard I needed quite a bit more food then normal as I was quite Hungary on the second part of the run and actually felt very low on energy the last 2 miles which was o.k in the circumstances but if it was a bigger race and if I was pushing it I would have bonked and been forced to walking like an old woman (not pretty or a pleasant feeling). I took on about 85 grammes of carbohydrates an hour during the bike which is roughly 350Kcal and in the past this has been enough (weight was around 77-78Ks). To get this amount in I have Clif energy drink on the bike which goes down well and doesn’t taste to sweet like others and then on the bike I make sure I eat at LEAST every half an hour alternating between clif energy bars, and shotz/gels. Normally I wouldn’t take bars as they can be hard to digest when working hard but the clif ones are easy to digest and on the run you are going to be having gels as they are easier to take when running. I also believe that gels are more likely to upset your tummy so by having the bars you are less likely to suffer gasto- intestinal problems often associated with long distance races.