Marshman Middle

Race Report

Now being down south I though you were supposed to get really good weather but as sods law has it in Manchester it was warm and sunny but in Kent it was windy, dark and bloody freezing!

The terrain around Marshman, today was fairly windy and the head winds feel never ending and are soul destroying. Because of the flat terrain you can never free wheel!

About 25 minutes before the race was supposed to start we were informed that the referee had taken the temperature of the water and that being only 10 degrees it was to cold to swim in so unfortunately the swim was cancelled and what replaced it was a monster of a duathlon. The race was now to be a 5.4k 1st run 92k bike and a 21.1k last run.

1st Run- once the race started everyone literally belted it from the start. I thought maybe they were hard of hearing and thought that the race was just a 5k run as it didn't seem like they were holding anything back. I jogged round and took it easy knowing that gaining 20-30 seconds was pointless as your legs would be trashed for the bike and would lose all the time not
to mention the fact there was still a half marathon to go.

Bike- I started off hard on the bike and managed to catch the 1st placed rider by 7 miles. Once in the lead I pushed on for about another 10-20 minutes. I remember looking at my bike computer around 45 minutes in and really struggling to concentrate. I think I went through this phase for about 30 minutes and I just remember feeling really bored as I had an idea I was quite far ahead of everyone but had no one to catch, it was very bizarre but this went on until about 75 minutes in and i manged to snap out of it and reminded myself that there was only 1 hour to go and managed to get back on it and push it all the way to the end.

Run 2- I had no idea what my lead was starting this and as I was a late entrant into the race didn't know what the course was like but I remember looking at my watch and seeing 2 hours 43 on the stopwatch and set off at a hard/comfortable pace which I felt I could sustain for the duration but also if I saw someone gaining on me I knew I had a few gears to pick it up if need be. So that's pretty much what did for the run.

One thing of note however is that for some reason I just felt quite sick on the bike, it wasn't as if I was going to be sick though I just couldn't stomach any food. I don't know if it was due to the early start or what but after 45 minutes I hadn't eaten anything and I just remember forcing a gel down me and i had to do this a few time on the ride. I didn't eat as much as what i normally would and noticed this on the run as the last 30 minutes I felt like I was starting to run on fumes. Very strange.

It was a great event and a solid end to the week and it was a great training session as it's so much easier to work at these intensities and I doubt that if I hadn't been in a race I wouldn't have been able to go that hard after the week before it.

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