Post 170 - Scottish duathlon championships 2019

It was a quick turnaround after the Grangemouth 10K, with a week before the Scottish duathlon championships in Stirling. Grangemouth had been a tough, fast run, and my legs were sore for a few days. I had one complete day of rest on Monday, then did bike intervals on Tuesday. On my old friend, the turbo trainer. I was pleased enough with the consistency of this session, with my 8 sets of 3 minutes hard and 2 minutes easy getting progressively tougher from 301 watts up to 326 watts, on tired legs. Looking back at this, I needed to be starting off at 320 watts and finishing at 350-360 watts. It was too easy to use the excuse of tired legs. I did a fartlek run the next day and my legs were still fatigued.

That would be all my tough training before Stirling, I didn’t have the legs for anything more anyway… I swam 4300 yards the next evening (3932m) at 1:43.9/100m (i.e. a 65 minute pool ironman swim, which is decent given that it was just an easy swim). With a wetsuit that would be a few minutes quicker, and because it was just an easy swim, my heart rate was only around 130bpm at the end.

The next couple of days were almost “wasted” days, resting up, taking hot baths, stretching, trying to free up my sore left hip, treating the callouses on my feet, and doing just enough easy training to keep things ticking over, and then it was early to bed on Saturday night.

And so it was a 5am alarm on race day. I do not enjoy these early starts for multi-sport races. Porridge down the hatch. Car loaded. Off to Stirling university – the race venue for the Scottish national duathlon championships. It was to be a nice day – sunny and warm, but I should be finished by 10:30am, before it gets too hot. Registration, bike racked, change into race gear, warm up. Legs feeling neither brilliant nor terrible.

To the start line. Could I win this? I was third last year, a bit of a shock result for me, the first time I’d ever ridden my “new” second-hand bike. I outran an elite and a pro last year. Neither of those two who’d beaten me were starting this year. Could I win this? I hoped to at least challenge.

The race started. One guy went off like a 100m sprinter. I let him go. If that was his pace, he’d either win it or blow up. One other guy went with this pace then dropped back. I was in third. My first mile was too quick, but I knew some of the guys behind me, who may make time up on the bike, I wanted to get a gap. I thought I would be unlikely to lose any positions when I finished the bike, given that my running in multi-sport events is generally strong.

My pace settled to around 5:30 per mile on the undulating, trail-type course (maybe equivalent to 5:20-5:25 on tarmac). I started to catch the guy in second, and was almost on his tail into transition. I beat him through transition, and was second off on the bike. The leader was long gone. The win wasn’t on. A podium was on though and it would be good to go one better than last year.

I initially felt decent on the bike. But I was a little concerned that my power was slightly down. I didn’t want to push any harder, and told myself that the warmer temperatures weren’t helping. I made sure to hydrate well, and to keep nice and tucked and tight and aero on the fast course. It was the same as last year – second place on the first lap of the bike. And so passed the first lap. Coming through the grounds of Stirling university wasn’t a lot of fun – speed bumps, twists, turns, undulations – none of which were enjoyable on a time trial bike.

Exiting the university, being overtaken. Just like last year. A glance back told me that there was a bit of a peloton of maybe 6 or 7, hunting for the podium. No-one pulled away from me though, and on the second lap of the bike it looked like anyone’s chance. I thought that if I could keep pace with this group and finish the bike with them, I should be strong enough on the run to challenge for a podium place.

My bike legs started to fade in the final quarter of the bike. I somehow forced myself to keep pace with the leaders until the final uphill kick before the university, when my lack of power started to show and people pulled away. They were merciless/brave/crazy going through the university, over all the speed bumps, round the twists and down the hills. I lost nearly a minute in the final few miles. Bummer. I came into transition alone. Ran down to rack my bike. Unclipped my helmet. Still plenty to run for, as the final run is usually my strongest point. Bent over to undo my shoes. Stood up. To final a marshal in my face…

Oh noooooo… What had I done? “Do you know why I’m stopping you?” I had no idea. I’d kept all the rules. Had kept out of all the draft zones. Had been fair. Hadn’t crossed any white lines or broken the highway code. I hoped a motorbike official hadn’t seen anything at the wrong moment, such as me going into someone’s draft zone to overtake them – wrong time, wrong moment. Something like this was possible but a penalty in such circumstances would be really harsh as you’re allowed 20 seconds in the draft zone to make a pass, but a motorbike official might only have a few seconds of a glance. Plus a whole peloton had hunted me down – even if you’re not drafting in a peloton, you still get benefits by being in a group.

I had no idea. I just gaped at her. “You undid your helmet clip before you racked your bike…” I was gobsmacked. I couldn’t argue, if that’s what she had seen me do. I thought it a bit of a petty rule. There are quite a few such rules in triathlon. Oh well, that’ll be a 2 or a 4 minute penalty then. Bang goes my race. “Carry on,” she said. Eh?! Carry on?! She wasn’t penalising me, and I legged it out of transition.

Within the first few hundred metres I knew my running legs just weren’t there. The heat? Maybe? Overcooking the bike? Maybe? Overcooking the first run, leading to a bad bike fade? Yes. Simply not doing enough bike training? Yes also. Oh well. Run like mad and see what happens. I could see the boys ahead. They weren’t coming back as quick as they usually do. I was suffering. It was getting warm. The mind was willing the body to run strongly. The body wasn’t complying.

Illustrating why I get painful callouses under my little toes -
look at where and how my foot is landing and impacting

I managed to pass a couple of guys but knew the podium was gone. And in the end I came in fifth. I might have come in fourth without the chat with the marshal in transition (there was only a 6-second gap to fourth). The gap to second was just over a minute. I would say I had it in me to be second on the day with what I had. The win definitely wasn’t on. But had I ran more conservatively in the first 10K run, I’d have finished the run with the group who then caught me after 20K on the bike, and I could then have biked with this group (legally of course, not drafting), probably finished the bike with this group, and had better legs for the final run.

I couldn’t help but compare it with last year, where I’d gotten the absolute maximum out of myself on the day. The pace of the first run last year was quite conservative, I had done more bike training and was able to hold a higher bike power, and had much better legs for the second run. Or so it felt. Looking back at the data, the first run this year was significantly faster, the bike power was down by around 15-20 watts, with a big fade in the final 5 miles, bizarrely my average bike speed was slightly higher this year, and even though my second run felt terrible, it was actually a little bit faster than last year.

Still, no disguising the fact that my bike, and my race overall, were disappointing. I hadn’t respected the race enough. I hadn’t done the work on the bike. I’d maybe been a bit too arrogant. An hour on the bike is very different to a sprint distance’s half-hour and I think I am better at the sprint distances.

I went for a warm-down with two of the girls from the club and they dropped me, left me for dead. I had nothing in my legs. By the time I got back after the warm-down, it was hot, and a rumour was circulating that the winner had been disqualified for taking the racing line round the S-bends at the far end of the course, and cutting across the central white line. We had been strongly told that doing this would “at best result in disqualification and at worst would result in death…” This would bump me up to fourth, and if anyone ahead of me wasn’t a formal member of the British/Scottish Triathlon federation, I’d be up to third. I’d win a few quid, a national medal, and a “big bobble hat” – I was really keen on these – Big Bobble Hats were sponsoring hats for all the podium finishers and sometimes for me it’s the little things that motivate.

No such luck though, the winner was announced as the winner “after an emotional morning” (whatever that meant) and I was left a bit disappointed, demoralised and demotivated by a poor performance and a lack of direction going forwards. The duathlon was the final target race before the “ironman summer.” I passed up on the chance to compete at the World Duathlon Championships in Spain next week – it was in a remote corner of north-west Spain and I decided it was too costly a trip and too awkward a trip, and wouldn’t leave enough time before the ironman. Hopefully my performance in this year’s Scottish duathlon championships will qualify me for next year’s world duathlon championships in Amsterdam/Almere – a much easier trip.

Part of my demotivation is that I don’t really know what I’m going to do next. Every decision I’ve made has been for the ironman. I haven’t entered it yet. A huge part of me doesn’t want to do it. The terrible, suffering training. The awfulness of the race, and the race venue. The expense. The likelihood of getting nothing to show for another ruined summer. And yet I feel I have to do it, to apply everything I’ve learned, to give it one more crack, roll the dice one more time – there’s nothing more I can learn after this one. It won’t be happening again. Oh well. Hopefully by the time I next write a blog post, I’ll have entered the race and be committed to it and a bit more upbeat about it.

Training done was as follows: