I spent an hour or so prepping my bike for the race – stripping off the extra water bottle holders I’ve had on for longer training rides, and putting on my race wheels, making sure that nothing was loose – and then gathered my things. I felt ready.
In the morning, I woke up and showered (a great Chrissy Wellington tip: even if you are going to jump into a lake soon, have a shower and wake your body up in the way it wakes up every day). I then had my cup of bulletproof coffee: for me, essentially that’s a double espresso with a lump of butter and a tea spoon of both coconut oil and MCT oil. OK, ready to go.
The race was on the other side of Amsterdam which was perfect – I’ve discovered that, when possible (it isn’t always), a short ride of 30 minutes or so beforehand is great for me to warm up for these shorter races. I threw in a few jumps of 20 seconds or so then registered and headed to transition.
I like getting to transition pretty early – sure, it meant I had some time to kill, but I also felt like I had everything under control and could enjoy the atmosphere of transition, even helping out a few newer triathletes, then doing a 5-10 minute run warm-up with some brief dynamic stretches thrown in. Other than a spot of wind, it was a glorious day for triathlon with the sun shining bright.
25 minutes before the start, I pulled on my wetsuit, listened to the race briefing and got into the water as early as I could. The water was still a little cold, so I wanted to be fully used to it before the race start. I did a good 10 minutes of warming up: a combination of steady swims, drills, short 5-10 second sprints, and just floating and getting my bearings… where the buoys are, what the last stretch would look like etc.
A carbon copy of last year’s swim. The start whistle sounded, there was a bit of argy-bargy for 100m or so, then the field settled with me at the front. Not a lot to report – I felt ok, swam hard and could see that the group behind me was getting thinner and thinner with every hundred meters or so.
Finally, we were in the last 100m and – just as last year – a couple of swimmers sprinted past me as fast as they could. Like last year, I let them go – knowing that they were probably doing the relay and had egos to massage, while they were also doing me a favor as I could jump on to their feet for the last few meters and follow them in.
It does make me wonder whether I’d be better starting more slowly, however; maybe I could let someone else take the lead and follow them next time? Although, being a bit of a control freak, that might work wonderfully (giving me a far easier swim on their feet) but it might also mean that the pace isn’t kept so honest, allowing the slower swimmers who can bike and run well to get closer. Hmmm… tough call!
Swim time: 10:37
Something strange happened here – in spite of being in arguably better swim shape and having an almost identical race (fastest individual swim), I swam 1 minute slower than last year. Several friends also (independently) noticed the same thing…
T1
Disaster in a multitude of ways. I really need to learn my lesson here – transitions don’t just come good on the day. You have to practice. Looking forward to next week’s race to wipe clean the memory of this debacle! 1:55 (20 seconds down on last year)
Bike (22km)
The bike started as badly as my transition. As I jumped on to the bike, my foot pulled the strap out of my tri shoe. With a 22km bike ahead, I knew I needed to remedy that, so I slowly trundled along while pulling my strap back through, losing lots of valuable time to the relay riders who were up front.
The marshals clearly weren’t expecting those riders as they sent them the wrong way. The first part of the loop was a sort of out and back, heading on a bike path up to a turning point and coming back down the road. However, as I headed up the bike path, I saw the two riders coming straight at me having gone up on the road. Logically thinking, now after the race, it was clear that they were in the wrong but, at the time, panicked, breathing heavily and in a race situation, I assumed that they’d changed the course slightly from the previous year… so I slowed a lot, found a small exit on to the road, and crossed down over on to the road. Then I saw other riders behind me sticking on the bike path and realized I’d made an error… so I got to the top turning point and had to essentially clip out to do a complete 180 as there was no turning circle for me to operate in.
That pissed me off, but I tried to keep my head. The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful – I to’d and fro’d with a few relay riders here and there, zoomed past a lot of others who were a lap behind (4 lap bike course), generally made a pig’s ear of all the 180 turnarounds and felt pretty good.
Due to the crappy T1, I didn’t have my Garmin on (don’t ask…) so couldn’t see any data. In retrospect, I don’t think this is a good thing. I was maybe a little conservative early in the ride, not knowing my speeds or power outputs.
Anyway, finally I pulled off, over the bridge, feet out of shoes and jumped off the bike. Except the line wasn’t where they said it would be in the briefing, so I then had to run an extra 100m or so with the bike to hit transition! Grrr…
Bike time: 33:11 (fastest individual bike of the day)
Marginally less shit. That’s about all I can say… (2:15)
Run (5km)
I knew I was up near the front of the field but couldn’t tell where exactly due to the relays. I headed out feeling ok, and just dug in. Passing the race finish area for the first time, I saw The Wifey which was nice and gave me a boost. The next kilometer was pretty hard and I definitely suffered… I could feel the lack of freshness in the legs. The guys ahead shad turned and were coming back towards me and I could see by their numbers that they were all relay runners. So, I realized as I hit the turnaround at 2km, I was leading the individual race. Holy crap!
As I headed back towards the start to end the first loop, I could see the triathletes behind me and, as always, was looking at their legs and their faces to see how fast they were running and how much they were hurting. The guy in 2nd was a good minute or so behind but he was absolutely flying.
I chose not to run scared. Yes, I’d love to win or get a podium finish again, but racing is all about me and my performance. I was running around 3:50/km pace which is about the best I can hope for – I committed to keeping this up. If I was run down, so be it. But I’d make it as hard as I could.
At the next turnaround (3km) I could see that the gap had closed considerably – he was now maybe 30-40 seconds back. I dug deep, held the pace and made it to the final turn at 4km, when there’s just a 1km home stretch left. But it was almost already too late – he was now barely 5 seconds behind. I tried to respond, hoping he’d pushed too hard to catch up, but after a couple of hundred meters he flew past… with maybe just 600m to go.
I have to admit, I slowed a bit then. I’d led the race for probably 27.1km of the 27.75km of swim, bike, run but it was the last meters that mattered! I was a tad disappointed, I’ll admit. Especially as all those mistakes that had cost me 10 or 20 seconds here or there were now playing in my mind. I looked behind, saw nobody was catching, and drifted into the finish. But, crossing the line, I was still pretty chuffed with my 2nd place (for the 2nd year in a row) and got a big hug from Wifey for my efforts.
Chatting to the winner after the race, he told me he’d run a 33 minute 10km at the Dutch National Champs Triathlon a week earlier. Frankly, there’s nothing I can do about guys who are that fast!
Run time: 18:32… While maybe just a little disappointed with that (I ran 18:02 last year) I have to remember that, until a couple of years ago, I’d never run sub-20 in a sprint tri… plus, it was still one of the five fastest individual runs on the day.
Overall: 1:06:28 (2nd place). The time is a strange one - for some reason, times across the board seemed to be way down on last year when I’d done a little under 1:04. Obviously, I could identify a bunch of places where I’d stupidly dropped maybe a minute or even a touch more… but that doesn’t account for such a drop off all around. I suspect the warmer conditions and strong wind played more of a role than I thought at the time.
It was a nice atmosphere at the finish line, we stayed around to watch our ATAC ladies in the team race. I picked up a drinks bottle and some flowers for my efforts. Then I headed out with my team buddy Luis (who’s in training for Ironman Nice in a few weeks) for a good 100km ride on the Ringvaart, including 2 x 30m at HIM effort. My legs didn’t love me for that!
A good day’s racing and training. Next weekend, I’m representing the ATAC men’s team for the first time in a sprint tri in Brabant, in the south of the Netherlands. I’m looking forward to that race!
Sorry, almost forgot. After the bulletproof coffee, I just sipped on a bottle of water that had half a scoop of UCan in it, up until the race start. No more nutrition of any kind.
I had a few sips of water during the bike. Nothing else during bike or run. After crossing the finish line, I sipped on the smoothie I’d prepped the previous day – it contained berries, protein powder, coconut milk, MCT oil and some dried coconut flakes.
An hour or so after the race and before heading out on the training ride, I had a stroopwaffel (caramel biscuit). This wasn’t ideal but was all that I could find being sold at the race. During the rest of the 100km ride (1h of which was pretty intense), I had one bottle of nutrition (water, 2 x scoops UCan, 2 tspns MCT oil, 1 x tbspn liquid aminos, 1 tspn raw honey), 1 x Raw Bar, and 1 x single serving pouch of organic almond butter.