It’s one of the oldest races in the Netherlands, and the traditional season opener - for one good reason: it’s an Olympic distance race with a difference, as the swim of just 1,000m (standard Olympic distance is 1,500m) takes place in a swimming pool.
Obviously, this means that the race is split into waves (there were five in total) - each wave based on predicted time/swim time, with around 30 per wave (5 per lane in 6 lanes). As I was in the final (fastest, yay!) wave, it meant that I had quite a leisurely morning, with plenty of time to get there and register before my 10am start time.
Luckily, I got there early - in theory to cheer on any ATAC and Dolfijn team mates who were in early waves but, in reality, I spent most the time trying to remember how to set up a transition area! The three races I did do last year were all 70.3 which have very different transition set-ups (everything in a bag you collect from a tent) than the fast and furious world of sprint and Oly tris. Finally, the clock ticked 9:45 and I headed out of the cold (10C) but sunny transition area and into the pool, where I had a little time to warm up.
Remarkably, this went pretty well and smoothly. We had a chat amongst ourselves and decided that I was probably going to be the fastest in the lane, so that meant that, while we’d all push off at the same time, I’d have a bit of priority to get out in front - better than all fighting each other for the first couple of hundred metres. When the gun went, I went out hard for the first 100m and opened a bit of a gap. After that, I slowed to a reasonable pace and enjoyed swimming pretty hard and ticking off the lengths. I had to overtake and lap three of the swimmers but did this easily enough and was soon jumping out of the pool, heading out the door, over the timing mat and making for T1.
Swim time: 13:07 - as the timing mat was out of the pool, I figure this means I was swimming around 1:16/100m which is good if not spectacular.
T1
Not good. At all. 1:09 doesn’t sound that slow but I was totally out of practice (not needed to do a fast transition in 2 years!) and trying to pull on a long sleeve bike jersey (it was cold) while wet was mission impossible. Lessons learnt here, as a bunch of Eredivisie guys who were 50m behind me in the swim, used their draft-legal high-end racing experience to leave T1 ahead of me!
BIKE
The bike course had a slightly technical first and last 3km, through the town, over cobbles and over a couple of bridges, before basically being a straight out and back route on bike paths alongside a canal, with just one small loop through some country roads at top end of the course. Due to the strong Dutch wind direction, this made it more or less a tough headwind all the way out and a lovely, complimentary tailwind on the way back.
I was, as always, slow through the technical sections at the beginning and end. My bike handling skills are woeful. Same went for a very tight 180 degree U-turn early in the course, which I almost had to stop and unclip for! And there were several ‘incidents’ on the course due to it not being totally closed road. First came the Renault I got stuck behind coming through the village about 2km out of transition; then there was a couple both perched on a typical Dutch bike idling in the way as I came racing down off a bridge, finally at the top of the course there was a rather large tractor turning that couldn’t be easily passed. I moaned to myself a little during the race, but these obstacles probably cost me 30 seconds in total, and I’m sure other competitors faced similar. Other competitors maybe weren’t unlucky enough for their longsleeve bike jersey to unzip at the beginning of the bike and flap about behind them like a giant parachute for 20km… until I had the smart idea of tucking it into my race belt! Like I said, lessons were learned.
As for the rest of the bike: I rode in a small but legally-spaced group (2 refereeing motorbikes drove alongside us for the whole way, so it was definitely legal!) and, due to the hefty wind, I generally stayed at the back of that all the way out, taking any drafting advantage I could get. It was still very hard work for me, having not done any such top-end speed racing for a couple of years, and a good reminder of the pain that is racing hard on a bike. Due to ‘Tractorgate’, I lost that group in the country lane section and rode all the way back solo, but benefitting from a sizeable tailwind to hold speeds of 46+kph, which was fun. Maybe it was the conditions, maybe psychological due to only racing IMs and 70.3s for past 2.5 years, but it really wasn’t until about 45 minutes into the ride that I felt like I found my bike legs. Eventually, I dealt with the crappy section in town, unvelcro’d the tri shoes, jumped off the bike and headed into transition in a time of 1:05:06 - an OK time given the course and conditions, I guess.
For me at least, a not entirely crappy T2 of 59 seconds.
RUN
The run was essentially 5k out along the other bank of the canal to the side we’d ridden on, then back for 5k. Heading out, the sun was shining and the cold wind seemed to have died down; it was perfect running conditions, in fact. And, incredibly for someone who hasn’t done a brick session in a year or so, I felt pretty darn good.
I’ve been working hard on drills and technique lately and focused on that - bent knees, lean forward, relax the shoulders… with only occasional glimpses of my Garmin to check my pace. However, the head soon started crunching the numbers. I was running at almost exactly 4:00/km pace, which would give me a 40 minute 10k run. My PB over this distance was 42:00 and I’d never run under 40 minutes even in a fresh 10k before, so the fact I was feeling good at this pace really gave me some confidence. Plus, the way I figured it, if I could hold that pace into the wind, the way back - when it would no doubt really start to hurt - should be easier (and maybe even faster). And that’s pretty much exactly the way it worked out, going out at a metronomic 4:00/km and coming back at a less stable 3:40-4:00/km pace.
I saw all my ATAC team mates out there and got a high five from all of them, which definitely helped to keep the energy levels high. What was also incredible was barely being passed on the run; maybe three guys went past me (even that was more gradual than I’m used to seeing!) while I passed about the same number of guys who I recognized from the bike as being in my wave. I was also overtaking lots of slower runners from the previous waves and was trying to encourage them all the way.
The last few hundred meres were hard but I pushed and got my reward: a 39:43 run split, a big cheer from the ATACers waiting at the finish line, and the arms of my girlfriend.
OVERALL
There were a few little issues here and there, but this is a friendly, well-organized race that I’d recommend and would definitely do again. The pool swim maybe made it feel a little more like an official training day, but it was what it was and worked better than I would have expected.
As for me? I was initially fairly pleased with my race - the highlight being that run split. In the couple of days since, though, I’ve become even more pleased. Firstly, I finished 20th of 200 which fits my ‘top 10%’ success ruling - and that was in a format with a shorter and easier swim, so I’d expect to be higher placed had the swim been the full 1500m.
Also, although my swim was good rather than great, and my bike legs simply weren’t able to react to some of the better cyclists out there, I was reminded that I’ve only actually been swimming and cycling at all for 10 weeks after 5 months completely off both and (due to last summer’s illnesses) maybe closer to 9 months off when it comes to my last proper, consistent block of training. With that in mind, this was a good, solid stepping stone en route to Roth.
NUTRITION
I get asked, so I’m going to include it in all race reports now. I ‘carbed up’ the day before with some fries with my evening meal - other than that, I ate no simple carbs at all on the Friday. Just my standard high fat (60%+ fat) diet.
On race day, I had a bulletproof coffee for breakfast: large espresso with a little butter, MCT oil, coconut oil and coconut cream in it. No carbohydrate whatsoever. I sipped on water between that and my race start. During the bike, I drank 300ml of a solution consisting of 10% grape juice, 20% cold green tea, 70% water, with ½ tspn of raw local honey mixed in. So, I’d guess less than 100 calories there in total.
On the run (my fastest, best-feeling 10k ever, remember…) I had a sip of water at the 7.5k aid station. That was it. About an hour after the race, I did eat one Raw Bite organic fruit bar (gluten, soy free etc) as it was around 1pm by now and I still hadn’t officially had breakfast. It was around 2:30 that (admittedly pretty hungry by now) I had salad for lunch in a café in town with my missus and her visiting cousin.
While the training obviously plays a big role too, I’m convinced that I was able to feel good coming off the bike and run well thanks to being so fat adapted. Might not work for everyone, but certainly does for me.