Joining the Sub 6 Club!

It’s 8.45am and a rare occurrence; I’m in the office before 9am! Why am I here so early?! Because Outlaw Half opens for registration at 9am and it is likely to sell out. I have blocked out 15 minutes in my diary and my Skype status is set to “do not disturb”. Unfortunately this isnt stopping people trying to talk to me about last nights Love Island as they arrive at their desks. 8.59 and I spend the next minute clicking refresh on explorer until suddenly registration is open! I filled in the form as fast as possible praying I hadn’t made any mistakes, put in my credit card details….and I’m in! Turns out I did make a mistake on my form and selected to order an additional t shirt. In the grand scheme of the cost of the race an extra £20 wasn’t going to make much difference to my ever decreasing bank balance so I let it slip. My name and age were right and that’s all that mattered.

I entered this before I flew to Portugal as a backup in case I didn’t finish my first half ironman, or if I did so I had a race where I could try and beat my time. Having finished Portugal in a much better time than expected or than I was hoping for I decided that Outlaw was going to be my “A” race of 2019. The one I was going to put all my training into and where I was aiming for sub 6 hours.

The plan went a bit out the window when somehow my Portugal time qualified me for the Pontevedra World Championships Aquabike. Only 2 weeks before Outlaw, my focus switched to longer distance swimming and cycling and running was just a by-product.

Outlaw was now just a race to finish, with Cotswolds in August being my planned “A” race.

I was lucky enough that my good friend Lisa was joining me for the race and she had come up with this great idea that we should camp….an idea which I was not enthralled with at the time but in hindsight was a great idea as we could walk to the race site from the campsite. I persuaded my Dad to swap cars with me for the weekend (not hard when I have an Audi and he has a truck….) which meant we had plenty of room for all our (mostly my) stuff and be able to transport both bikes upright and in one piece. None of this faffing with taking wheels off! After the controversy that ensued about the bike mechanic who took a link out of my chain in Pontevedra, you will be glad to know my Dad performed another bike check before Outlaw, during which he lowered my handlebars which I was not able to test pre race…..

Having been so focused on Pontevedra I was surprisingly calm and collected in the run up to the race. We arrived at the campsite and put up the tent before wandering down to registration and to listen into the briefing. Still none the wiser on the water temperature we headed out for a carb fuelled dinner at Frankie and Benny’s. After consuming unnecessary amounts of spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread we headed back to the campsite via the Northern loop of the bike course. Although I’d ridden the course before and knew it was pretty flat it was good to see the shocking quality of the roads I was going to have to endure!

Back at the car we (mainly me) spent a ridiculous amount of time sorting out our nutrition, squashing peanut butter sandwiches, party rings and jelly babies into my food pouch, before eventually climbing into the tent at 9.30pm.

I slept surprisingly well considering I was in a tent, however I awoke at 3.15 and never went back to sleep! Alarms starting ringing across the campsite from 4am, joined by the sound of a cockerel and some a**hole honking his horn all the way down the road to the car park.

As the men starting making their way down to transition the women were getting up, putting on tri suits and making a million toilet stops in the campsite. All ready to go and we just had to wait for the kettle to boil so we could inhale our porridge. My usual routine involves being the first person into transition when it opens. Safe to say this was not the case with Lisa. Taking a much more relaxed approach we waltzed into transition at 5.50 (it had opened at 5 and was closing at 6….). On route my bike had accumulated a lot of cut grass from the campsite so I spent a good while getting this out of my brakes. I was so chilled I hadn’t even done my 15 min bike check the night before and was just praying that the fact it was still in one piece would be sufficient.

A hell of a lot of faffing later and I was all set. Wetsuit was on, obligatory last minute toilet stop and we were walking down to the pontoon. Still none the wiser on the water temperature my expectations were low so I’d opted for my neoprene headband under my cap.

I can confirm it was f***ing freezing! The only saving grace was the fact that we could touch the bottom of the lake when we got in so could gradually acclimatise. A much better situation than in pontevedra where there was no time to adjust, I was able to reach a point where I could breathe comfortably underwater without feeling like I was gasping for air.

I edged towards the front left of the pack and suddenly we were off. Compared to other mass starts this was relatively sophisticated. Maybe it was because it was womens only wave or because people had positioned themselves as suggested based on their expected swim times I don’t know but I quickly settled into a comfortable pace and was pretty much on my own for the full 1.9km.

I felt like the swim had gone well, I hadn’t been overtaken by too many people and had caught people from a couple of waves in front. As I clambered up the ramp and the volunteer rather helpfully, if not slightly intrusively, unzipped my wetsuit, I suddenly realised I couldn’t actually feel my feet and the “run” to my bike felt more like a waddle (I’m sure I looked like a lost penguin).

“You had a decent swim” I heard lisa shout from her bike. This meant she wasn’t that far ahead of me and therefore her statement was in fact correct and my swim had been a good one. Unless of course she’d had a shocker but I very much doubted that was the case.

Transition was faff central. I didnt know if I was coming or going. I knew it wasn’t going to be overly warm considering it was still only 7.30 so I was trying to get a Jersey on. Stupidly I had selected a Jersey with arm grippers which were refusing to go over my wet arms! Then I was trying to get my gloves onto my wet hands. Eventually I was across the mount line about to climb onto my bike when I realised a bike check would have been a good idea as my food pouch did a 180 and flipped upside down. After strapping it back into place before losing all my food I was finally off, shoving a shot block into my mouth (which fyi is a great look in the photos…).

The ride was largely uneventful. I caught up with Lisa after 5 miles and I just hoped I could gain enough time on the bike that would mean we could finish together when she inevitably caught me on the run (as you will discover later I did not). TT bike after TT bike came flying past and I spent 40 miles wondering how I could persuade my Dad I needed a TT bike (open to suggestions on this one!) I clocked over 20 miles in the first hour and felt strong. I sailed through the first feed station without picking up anything only to end up throwing my full bottle of lucozade on the floor 500m later as I panicked with a van up my backside trying to get it back into the bottle cage….not ideal!

Near the end of the northern loop I went round one bend where I recall from our recce that the road surface was pretty awful and the sign telling us so was a bit too late, as evidenced by the sea of water bottles littering the floor!

The Southern loop had a lot less traffic and fewer pot holes so I took the opportunity to consume my peanut butter sandwich as I was starving. My watch clocked 2 hours on the bike and I worked out that I only had 17 miles to go. 17 miles in an hour was doable so it was on; mission 3 hour bike time! The road back to Holme Pierrepoint was dodgy to say the least. As I rattled over pot hole after pot hole I was losing jelly babies and m and ms left right and centre. The tipping point was when my tube of shot blocks (which to be fair was largely empty) hurtled out of feed pouch and across the road. I was glad I had another packet back in transition to get me through the run. The road quality worsened as I entered the grounds through the country hall; speed bumps, cattle grids and a ton of gravel on top of the pot holes made for an uncomfortable ride into transition. By some miracle I had managed to complete the 56.7 mile (yes the extra 0.7 miles matters!) bike course in under 3 hours….by 1 second! What I discovered later was that at this point I was in fact 2nd in my age group and had just completed the fastest bike ride I have ever done averaging 18.9mph. Having never broken 18mph on anything longer than 5 miles before this was some achievement!

Had I known at that point I was in 2nd I highly doubt it would have made a great deal of difference to my run because I had given the swim and bike everything I had. Mainly because I’m better at these and also because I had barely run in 3 weeks after my foot injury so I had no idea how far I’d get round before I had to walk.

The run was 2 loops consisting of an out and back section and a lap of the lake perimeter. After another faff session in transition I headed out on what felt like the longest out and back I have ever encountered. Where the hell was the turning point?! Miles away (literally!) is where! Finally I reached it and headed back towards the lake where I soon saw Lisa going the other way (not far behind me). For the next 3 miles everytime someone overtook me (which was very frequently) I was expecting it to be Lisa; she reached me at the end of lap 1. By now I was getting quite hungry again so decided to munch on some banana soreen in an attempt to avoid taking any gels.

With 5 miles to go I finally looked at my total race time and realised I if I could average 11 minute miles I could break 6 hours. Now 11 minute miles might seem quite slow but I was getting exceptionally close to this pace as every mile went by. I decided not to walk anymore feed stations (at this point I’d walked them all…) in an attempt to get my sub 6 aim. This didnt mean I stopped picking up water at each feed station, it just meant I got half of it down me instead. Finally I was back at the lake and 3 miles has never looked so far. Having avoided gels so far, now was the time to risk it. Clean toilets were only a parkrun away…..

Somehow I had managed to settle into a (slow) pace which I continued to maintain for the majority of the run and finally the finish line was in sight and on the same side of the lake as me! I crossed the finish line in 5:55:29 – hello sub 6 club!!! And a PB by 18 minutes finishing 5th in my age group! I was only 7 minutes off 3rd; so close!

As I collected my medal a rather broken looking Lisa was on the floor having crossed the finish line 3 minutes before me. We had both smashed it and we celebrated with a sweaty hug before collecting our finisher t shirts. I had ordered a small which I had been told would fit a size 10….a 10 year old child maybe! If I needed any motivation to lose weight this t shirt was most certainly it!

After eating, drinking and having photos we headed back to transition to locate our bags, pack up our stuff and head home. Oh wait…we still had a tent to take down, at which point it conveniently started raining!

Finally back at home my body was ready for bed but my consumption of at least a tube of caffeine shot blocks meant my brain was wired. Could I sleep?! Absolutely not!!

I spent the next few days in a complete daze of exhaustion. But there’s no rest for the wicked. Not only is my next half ironman in less than 10 weeks but if I take too many days off my body thinks it’s time to relax and tends to inflict me with numerous illnesses. Two days rest was more than sufficient before easing myself back into.

A week on and I am still buzzing from my result at Outlaw. Grinning like a Cheshire cat I’ve contemplated how I can improve on my time at the Cotswolds and what made Outlaw such a success for me

1. Chill the hell out. Not being quite so stressed about every minor detail really did have its advantages.

2. I need to stop faffing in transition!

3. Obtain a TT bike….

4. Improve my running. Probably the hardest one but the one that could potentially have the biggest impact but equally is mentally the hardest one to do (because I hate running the most!)

5. If you’re going to put a jersey on in transition make sure it doesnt have arm grippers and also inform your spectators what top it is else they will miss you as you cycle past and they’re looking for a pink and black tri suit!

5. Enjoy it – take the pressure off and take in the atmosphere, the views and the sport I love.

Let’s see what the Cotswolds has to bring but either way I’ve now achieved my 2019 target of a sub 6 half ironman so I can sit back, relax and enjoy (or maybe not the sitting or relaxing part!) Why pre define your “A” race? It’s like setting yourself up to fail!