Bala Triathlon - European Qualifier
The problem with that is it's basically bollocks!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not jogging round the run because I'm ahead of pace BUT I am managing my bike effort on what I expect the faster guys will be doing. Then I hope I make up enough on the run to offset the loss I make on the swim. Again, it's all bollocks because I don't feel like I'm head-to-head racing.
Today's race was a big one for me. It's not the biggest race of the season but I've come here in pretty good bike / run shape for the first time this year. I know my swim has gone a bit recently but if I can pull off a half decent split I'm in business. I want to qualify strongly.
Last year I raced the Anglian qualifier. I clocked a 2.07 which is half decent, unfortunately Steve Harrison turned up and pissed (and shit) all over my cornflakes by winning outright and giving me a terrible % of time behind winner for the roll down spot of 110%. Bala last year was won in 2.05 giving everyone a great chance to qualify (as Anglian & had been so tough) and in the end I scraped through.
So this year my only chance to go after an ETU qualifier spot would be Bala and I fancied I could go fast enough to get the job done. I also wanted to show that a big block of recent training would put me much closer to the pointy end that I have been.
The field was pretty strong as almost half the 53 registered intents from the BTF website had decided to try and qualify here. There were no real big hitters from the age group that were going to put in silly overall times so it should be a good race.
I turned up a couple of hours early, got my race pack and got bike / kit set up. First problem was there was a horrific queue getting into transition. Was supposed to close at 9am but at 5 to there were loads of us still not in! I hadn't banked on this and ended up not being able to have my rice pudding breakfast that I'd left in the car #doh
Got set up OK. Got to say Bala transition is perfect, look at the T1 & T2 times to see it's no more than 2 mins total transition time which is nice.
Racked everything perfectly for a change and spending a bit of time on the little things meant that there were no dramas in today's race.
Swim
Wave 3 swim start ended up at around 9.58am (I'd wrongly assumed 10am). Start was pretty civilised. I started far left for left only turns and it worked out alright. I only had one bad bit of biff at a buoy and I found toes to tickle for most of the first half. It felt OK and I reckoned 25.xx on feel, when I got into T1 I noticed 10.24 on the clock so was happily thinking it was a 24.xx swim lol
No dramas in T1, I put bike shoes on as it was such a short run to the mount line.
Time - 26.43
Although this is poor, looking at times around me it's actually not as bad in relation to everyone as I originally thought. 25.0x would have been best I could do so not horrific although at the far end of reasonable if I want to qualify.
Bike
I hit the bike pretty hard from the start to warm up. Within 2 miles I had got to 23 mph avge which was my target. The course is rolling, it's a pretty fair course. Not much flat and no severe climbs but it's pretty much described as 2 miles up hill, 2 down, 3 up(ish), 4 down, turn around, 4 up, 3 down(ish), 2 up, 2 down into T2.
In my head the aim was to keep it tidy until 7 miles then hit the downhill hard. I'd averaged 22.2 to 7 miles and then got to the turn in 23.2 avge. Split was around 29.40 on the Garmin so I knew I was sub hour pace. This was bang on the money as I really wanted to clock 1.02 as an outside 'plan b' time.
I was hitting lots of previous wave traffic (all women were wave 2 which is pretty strange decision) and had a couple come past me. Only relay teams had made it stick though and I knew a few from my AG were around me.
At half way you turn and climb 4 miles uphill. When I drove the course I knew this would be the make-or-break section.
I got a fair bit of traffic but was tapping away nicely. I'd noticed a mini-peloton around and didn't want to get stuck in it. I was putting time in them going up hill, but all the way to the finish they were smashing the downhills as a group. The big problem was anything remotely level they were riding so slightly under my pace that it wasn't worth burning matches to blow them away. I ended up sitting 10m back from them for a good few miles. The last few miles I was happy that I'd stuck in a good split and coasted in a bit to save the legs for the run. This was a bit of a mistake, I'd wrongly expected to come in very close to the hour but ended up 1.01:12.
At this stage I'd anticipated that I'd got about 1-58ish on the clock.
Got the trainers on and straight onto the run course.
Time 1.01:12
Last year this would have been corking! This year it was a couple of minutes behind what was needed. I'd say it was back end of reasonable again. It was a fast day and I probably should have gambled on a fast split.
Run
Started bang on 6/mm straight up the hill. That hill seemed bigger than advertised! Felt OK through the whole run but 6/mm was pretty much all the legs wanted up hill and down hill. Didn't feel like I had the big change up of pace, could probably have run on a bit longer but don't think I could go much faster. Pace stayed bang on it the whole way and I was taking people from the start. Checking results it's surprising that it was only about 15th fastest of the day. Think I was only 3rd in my AG which is disappointing, felt on that course that it was a bit quicker.
Time - 37.18
Hmm, felt good about run until I saw the results! 6/mm is never too bad in a tri but the course didn't allow me to make up the time that I'd lost on the swim.
Overall - 2.07:24
76th place
13th 40-44 AG
Just 4 minutes off a really good performance. All on swim & bike there so at least I know what to work on. Looking at qualification I think that puts me 4 spots off the team so very likely I'll Q. I have a sprint next weekend, that should be interesting!
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