Tag Archives: norseman

Andrew, Race Report

Tenby or not Tenby – Part 3 (Andrew)

Saturday (Bike)

I’m rubbish at reading instruction. That doesn’t mean I read instructions and end up doing the exact opposite of what I’m asked to do. It means I’m rubbish at even glancing at instructions. I give them a quick look, check there’s nothing I need to know, then forget about them until the night before race day.  Then I panic.

This time the panic was over whether we’d actually be able to get round the 112 mile course before the cut off time for the second lap – the course involves a 66 mile circuit and then a 56 mile lap of part of it again.

We were given a 9:45 a.m. start time however the cut off was 1:30 p.m, which meant we’d need an average speed of c16 m.p.h. to make the cut off. And we’d need to make that speed despite a lumpy course and a 25 mph wind. Oh, and it was raining. And it was misty.

We didn’t make it.

Not that I minded. After four hours of cycling through the rain, the mist, the wind and up and down every valley in south west Wales I was glad to finish. I wasn’t too tired so could have gone on but I wasn’t keen to use all my tolerance for bad weather now rather than waiting for Norseman. If Norseman is bad, let it be bad, but at least let it be one of the few times I’ve got to cycle in it. I’ve got enough bad weather over the years that I don’t need to try an train in it to adjust. I know what it’s like to have cold hands, a wet body and a face so scrunched up from the elements that you looks like you’re trying to lift an oil tanker with your mind.

For what we could see, the course was nice and varied with plenty to see. It starts in Tenby, heads through Pembroke before a long but not too steep climb out to the coast where you cycle through dunes and pass beaches that, for this ride at least, were buffetted by strong waves and spray. Returning to Pembroke you then cycle through high hedges as the wind and rain swirls around you like midges. There’s some fantastic closed road sections where you head downhill among the hedges and feel like a pinball in a tunnel as they tower above you. The last third of the course has the majority of the steepest hills. A sharp climb up a valley  and through the town of Narbeth before returning along the coast with 18% plus climbs at Wise Man Bridge and Saundersfoot.

I ride with Iain for most of the route but start to edge ahead when we get to the final climbs. With only a few miles to go I stay ahead and, because I’ve not read the instructions, I get the finish all wrong. I didn’t know that riders would be redirected to the finish line if they missed the cut off. I thought I’d taken a wrong turn and almost stopped before the finish line to wait for Iain to check where we should go but I was through the finish line before I knew and relieving a medal I didn’t feel I deserved. I’d not finished the race. However, it turned out I had, by missing the cut-off we’d finished the 66 mile race instead, and still received a medal.

In the end we’d missed the cut-off by 24 minutes. Not long given the circumstances and the fact we’d not raced to try and beat it. But, even if we’d made it, I’m not sure I’d have gone out again. While I don’t read instructions, I do read the weather and the forecast for the afternoon was for heavy rain and gales and I was happy to miss that.

Andrew, Race Report

Tenby or not Tenby – Part 2 (Andrew)

Friday (Swim)

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There’s no water, which is a problem when you’re swimming.

We’re one hour away from starting and the tide is out. We could jog to the first buoy and walk half the course. However, as the beach is flat, it didn’t take long for the water to rise and for me to take off my trainers and put on my goggles.

By the time we start, as fireworks explode to our right blanketing the start in smoke, we actually have some water to swim in, which is good, as there’s 2000 people behind us in wet-suits.

The start area is crowded. Somehow we ended up near the front of the pack. The swimmers aren’t separated into different groups so it’s everyone for themselves as we’re herded into a big pen on the beach. It’s good to be near the start because even with only a few hundred around us the water is crowded for the first 10 minutes. Everyone is turning, kicking and trying to find their rhythm. 2,000 people means 4,000 legs and 4,000 elbows to avoid.

But the swimmers quickly become spread out. The swim course at the Long Course Weekend takes in two laps of Tenby harbour in a rough anti-clockwise triangle along the coast, back through some fishing boats, before turning back to shore for an Australian exit, which is not an upside down exit, but a short run along the beach before returning to the start for a second lap. I don’t know why it’s called an Australian exit. It should be an Austrian exit as you’re surrounded by land.

I’ve not swam 3.8 km this year. The longest I’ve swum is 2.5 km. It’s also a sea swim and the last time I swam in the sea I was sick after drinking too much salt water. I wasn’t looking forward to this but, while choppier than it looked, the conditions were good, I was able to settle into a rhytmn and I had the advantage of being near the start and getting the benefit of the tide. How can the tide be a benefit? Well, as it was coming in, those at the back has to swim further than those at the front who get the benefit of splashing through the first few meters and having more of the beach to run up for the Australian exit.

It’s not enough of an advantage though to beat Iain. As our GPS showed later, he was able to swim in a straightline, I, on the other hand, made at least three breaks for the open sea. My sighting is so erratic that for one leg of the swim it looks like I’m drawing a staircase on the GPS map.

I finish five minutes behind Iain. The second lap feels easier than the first though at one point I spot one man clutching the anchor rope of a fishing boat with an expression which said “I will only release this for death or a rescue boat – and I will gladly accept death than swim another meter!”

I know how he felt after needing the rescue boat myself the last time I tried a sea swim. It was at the Weymouth Half in September 2014. The organisers had promised a calm swim but the wind was in the wrong direction and the water was choppier than a hyperactive lumberjack. It was impossible to swim over the waves, instead I had to duck under and try and swim round while trying not to drown or get pushed back to shore. By the second lap I was vomiting from drinking too much salt water. By the final 400 metres I’d called over a canoe twice to give me time to hang on while I vomited over my wetsuit. The third time I called the canoe I knew the swim was over. I was too weak to keep fighting and I just needed to get back onto shore.

That’s why I was nervous about this swim. I hadn’t swum in salt water since and I knew I needed this swim as good preparation for Norseman. I needed to know I could swim the distance and that I could swim in the sea.

So, while I was feeling tired towards the end of the swim, I was also feeling happy as I knew the distance was okay and I’d overcome my nervousness about swimming in the sea.

Then I found out that Iain had finished ahead of me. And that I needed to win the run and the bike if I was to have any chance of beating him in competitions this year.

Andrew, Race Report

Tenby or not Tenby: the Long Course Weekend part 1 (Andrew)

I’ve only been to Wales three times (excluding the Deva Triathlon’s bike leg in and out).

The first time I’d booked a room in an 18th century inn near Cardiff. It was lovely. Or at least I think it was – I never saw my room. They’d double booked me and the previous resident hadn’t left. They were very apologetic as they were completely sold out. They tried to find me another room but all they could find was an ex-council house in a room so small it had a sink above the bed to save space. If you want to find out what it’s like to brush your teeth while tucked up in bed then let me know and I can point you in the direction of “Sheila’s B&B”.

The second time I was in Wales I ran down a mountain. I was taking part in the Three Peaks Challenge and we’d reached Snowdon on hour 21. It took two hours to get to the summit so we had no choice but to run as fast as we could down the mountain to complete the challenge. I’m not saying I’m a hero for performing such a, well, heroic feat but, if you want to use that term…

The third time I was in Wales I faced another mountain. I was having dinner and ordered the Eton Mess. The Eton Mountain would have been a better name.  It wasn’t a plate of food, it was a clear out of their freezer.  A mound of meringue, a field of strawberries and more cream than a cat who’s actually got all the cream. I didn’t need a sink above my bed that night, I had no teeth left after all that sugar.

But, in all the times I’ve been to Wales, I’ve never realised how long it takes to drive through it. It’s around 130 miles from Chester to Tenby on the south coast but, four hours later, you’ll still be driving through a series of road signs that look like my texts before auto-correct fixes them.

Wales is a long way away…

Last weekend, I had my fourth visit to Wales for the Long Course weekend – though, as it starts on a Friday, it should be called the Long Course long weekend…

The Long Course weekend does what it says on the tin. It’s a weekend where you can take part in a long course triathlon (Ironman Wales) but over three days rather than one. It also offers shorter distances too each day.

We were due to take part in the 2.4 mile swim on Friday, the 112 mile ride on Saturday and the marathon (for Iain) and the half marathon (for me, as I didn’t want to run 26 miles a few weeks before Norseman) on the Sunday. But things didn’t quite go to plan as not only is Wales a long way away, it’s also quite hilly…

Iain

I should buy a road bike (Iain)

The first race I entered was the Glasgow Half Marathon. I was so unprepared I thought it was 10 miles long. I got to the point I expected to finish and was disappointed to find an extra three and a bit miles to go.

One of the people running with me (I think he was a friend of Andrew) had a backpack. At the end he looked in his backpack and discovered he’d been running with a pair of boxing gloves and a 2l bottle of juice. He commented “I thought I’d taken them out before I started!”

He also revealed that running with a backpack meant people shouted at him: “Are you going up a hill?” at least one hundred times. It wasn’t funny the first time.

The first bike race I entered was the Glasgow to Edinburgh cycle challenge, a 55 mile race from Edinburgh (Not Glasgow) to Glasgow (Not Edinburgh). Note the issue with the name. The route had switched around that year so it could finish at the same point the Tour of Britain was supposed to finish.

It was a miserable day. The wind was westerly and the rain was heavy. Four of us set out but one dropped out before we even got to the edge of Edinburgh. Andrew dropped out at the first train station he spotted. Myself and my friend carried on.

I didn’t know anything about bikes so I was using my mountain bike. A bike I still use to this day (some 12 years later.) I thought all bikes were the same so couldn’t understand why my bike was slower than people on racing bikes.

It was hard work and I remember a long slog  along a moor into a gale where I felt I wasn’t making any progress. I vowed to get a road bike.

My next race was a couple of years later. It was a 88 mile bike challenge up and round a hill. I hadn’t bought a road bike.  I was the only one on a mountain bike. Everyone started riding and before you could say “Hey, why is everyone on road bikes?” I was last.

It didn’t help that I had a backpack on filled with water bottles and sweets.

I made it up the hill but called it a day at the bottom of the other side. It was just too tiring. I learnt a valuable lesson that day. Get a road bike.

Which is why in my next race I still hadn’t bought a road bike. It was the Edinburgh Rat Race. An adventure race for teams of three. The aim was to bike or run a bit, then complete a challenge before biking and running again.

The problem was the challenges were so badly organised there was a queue to do them. At one point it took 30 minutes to do a challange that had taken us 30 minutes to ride to. I asked the guy what happened if we didn’t do the challenge. He said we’d get a 15 minute penalty.

I thought about this and calculated that if we went and finished the race without doing a single challenge we’d have a better time than if we’d done them.

We went to the finish line.

The organiser wasn’t happy. He wouldn’t let us finish. He said it was cheating. I think it was intelligent racing.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Don’t get a road bike as it doesn’t matter how fast I do a race only whether I enjoy it. (Although I did buy one eventually).

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A picture of me enjoying the rat race. We stopped for a pub lunch as we’d calculated we we’d win easily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew

Fear of a Blue Planet (Andrew)

“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink…”

… because I can see a shopping trolley, a thin layer of green slime and an alkie having a piss behind a bin.

The River Clyde that splits Glasgow in half like a razor through a throat is not a river you swim in, not unless you have a radiation suit, a snorkel and bath of hydrochloric acid to scrub yourself clean. The River Dee splits Chester apart like a blue ribbon. It’s clean, genteel and demands that you dip more than your toes into it. It’s a proper river. Not like the Clyde, which, to Glaswegians, is less a river and more a naturally occurring accessory to murder.

Until three years ago I would never have thought of swimming in any river. I could barely swim in a swimming pool. But, after accepting Iain’s challenge to take part in Challenge Henley Middle Distance Triathlon and swim 1.9 miles in the River Thames, I knew I would have to learn to swim ‘proper’ as I only knew the breaststroke.

They say that before you walk you should learn to crawl, but, for swimming, before you crawl, you need to learn how to drown. Repeatedly. I spent three months just learning to breath out of the side of my mouth without swallowing half of the pool. It was slow going but I kept practicing and followed my coach’s instructions to the letter. Unfortunately, that letter was W for “wrong”, my couch was Iain and while he should have been teaching me my ABC’s he missed out the basics and had me working on a swim shape that made me look an epileptic squid. You’re meant to glide through the water. I sunk.

Lesson: don’t appoint a ‘coach’ who only learnt to swim the week before you.

By July, I’d started to feel more comfortable swimming and had entered the Deva Triathlon in Chester which involved a 1.5km swim in the River Dee. I was nervous. It was my first time swimming in a river and I wasn’t sure what would happen. Would I be able to swim in a straight line? What if someone kicked me in the face during the mass start? And, most importantly, would the water be as warm as a bath or as cold as a shower when the hot water switches off (which everyone knows is the coldest feeling in the world)?

I shouldn’t have worried. I started at the back, so avoided the fight for the front. I swam in a straight line, which was brilliant, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t always the right line…. and the water was warm. Well, warmish. Well, not cold. Well, okay, it was cold, but I soon adjusted.

The Deva Triathlon was the first time that I thought I would actually complete Challenge Henley. I’d survived the swim. The bike race was fantastic, with a trip to Wales, smooth roads, and largely open and traffic free roads, and the run was a very pleasant three laps round the river, a park and a suspension bridge.

In one go, it became one of my favorite races – and I’m looking forward to returning this Sunday for another go. This time, I know how to swim (not like Iain taught me), I know more about racing and I’m out for revenge. I lost to Iain last weekend at the Stirling Sprint Triathlon and this is my chance to even the score.

This Sunday, it’s Todd v Todd.

Iain

The one where I get naked (Iain)

I have allot of things in common with a male stripper – rock hard abs, sweet dance moves and a massive talent!

<Waits for laughter to end>

OK – I’ve only one thing in common with a male stripper. I’ve seen all my workmates naked! Not in a creepy, hiding up a tree with binoculars type of way but in a lets all get naked in a shower way. Mmm – that sounds just as creepy as the tree…

I work for a University and we have an onsite gym. Until recently the male locker room had a communal shower. In the 10 years I’ve gone there I’ve seen a lot of naked men. Its fair to say I’ve seen all members of staff and all staff’s members.

One time I went to use the shower but realized I had no towel to dry myself. My options were:

1. Don’t shower. I ruled this out as I had a meeting to go to and couldn’t turn up looking like something the cat had dragged in.
2. Use my t-shirt to dry myself. I ruled this out as my t-shirt was soaked through with sweat so I’d end up just as dirty as I was before I’d showered.
3. Use the hand dryer.

Which is why a bunch of naked men and students looked on as as a naked 6ft man tried to get his body underneath the hand dryer. Do you know how hard it was to dry my back using a hand drier? It’s really hard! The blower kept switching off as the angle of my back couldn’t keep the infra red beam on!

Since that day my workmates have looked at me with a new found respect because not only have they seen me naked. They’ve seen me naked limboing under a hand drier. That takes real skill!

Andrew, Race Report

Twinning the Etape Caledonia (Andrew)

Last year at the Caledonian Etape Iain tried a break away at mile 70. We were heading to Aberfeldy, on a long flat stretch, he had his brand new aero bike, he turned round, took one look at me and started pumping his legs as fast as he could. He was off.

For the next three miles he didn’t look round. He kept his head down and his speed up. I sat on his wheel, waiting.

At Taymouth he finally looked round, I knew in his mind he was thinking “my job’s done, I’ve dropped him” but that’s when I picked up speed, went straight passed him and didn’t look back.

That was my fifth victory in a row.

This year, I thought it would be closer. I was wrong. I picked up speed at mile 20 as I thought we’d entered a sprint section. In previous years this section was just a mile long. This time it was 10 miles. I thought Iain was with me and we’d have a race towards the finish but, as the miles passed and I realised that I’d miscalculated I also realised Iain had not kept up. I was on my own.

I was feeling good. Despite a cold during the week I was breathing okay and not coughing too much. I kept going, setting small goals for myself. Keep up with this group. Join this chain. Pass these people on Schiehalion. Use the drops on the way to Taymouth.

I know the course so well. We would go on summer holiday to Aberfeldy and I’ve cycled parts of the route many times. It makes such a difference to know the course. You know when to push, when to relax and how long it takes between places.

With every mile I still felt fresh so I just kept going. I had some gels in my pocket so didn’t need to stop so I wondered how fast I could go. I’d hoped to finish in under 4hrs 30 mins. In the end I finished in 4 hours 11 minutes, 18 minutes faster than my previous personal best.

The twinner* again.

*twin + winner = twinner (trademark pending)

Andrew

Holiday Flu’s (Andrew)

I’m on holiday this week. A week at home to catch up with some DIY, some writing for work and, what I thought would be a chance to catch up with my swimming after a poor month of getting to the pool.

The swimming started fine. I went to Tollcross on Tuesday and swam 2k and could have swam more. “I’ll do 2.5k” on Thursday I told myself. In the meantime, I started each day with an hour on the turbo to get my legs spinning before the Etape Caledonia on Sunday.

And then Wednesday happened. A sore throat. The beginnings of a head cold and, today, Thursday, I’m not at the pool. Or on the bike. I’m looking out the window at an almost blue sky and wishing that I was out on the bike. Instead, I have a head cold.

It’s frustrating to be off work and to have the time to enjoy swimming, running and cycling without trying to fit them around the rest of the day. But I know there’s nothing I can do. It’s a head cold. Possibly chronic. Definitely terminal. At least for today.

I’ll be better tomorrow. And this is a good reminder that training is not just about what you planned. It’s what happens when you’re planning.

Last year I was ill for a week six weeks before Iron Man UK. I should have been going on my final long rides and runs. Instead I had to take it easy. There’s no point pushing it, it’ll only make things worse.

So, instead, I ripped apart a plastic shed and carried old paint pots back and forth from the house to the car to the skip. But I didn’t run. Or cycle. Or swim. So, that’s okay then.