My overall time was 1:13:56, which is over two minutes slower!
It's not all bad news though, as I came 36th in my age group out of 82, which is better than half way.
Here's a graph of my heart-rate, and supposedly my speeds on the bike and run.
I was feeling quite good about my pool swimming, got into the water, and it felt OK temperaturewise. Unfortunately, once the race started, my bilateral breathing plan went totally to pot, I had to breathe every second stroke, and oddly enough only felt comfortable doing this on the right. Anyway, I was smimming happily along, thinking I was doing OK, but quite soon was surrounded by people doing breaststroke and trying to kick me. By the first buoy I knew I was trailing, by the second I was still struggling, and in the end I only finished faster than about ten people. Back to the drawing board. Oh, did I mention that I was hating every second of it too.
My bike was situated close to the swim exit, and I hadn't thought to try and get my wetsuit off by the time I got there. So I struggled finding the cord to pull the zip down. Then, I struggled to try and pull my socks onto wet feet. For some reason I thought they were ankle socks, but they were really only trainer socks, so even though they were on as far as they would go, I was still trying to pull them up further. Doh! Had to pick up my energy bar and gel - this was poor planning too, they should be taped on the bike. Nearly three minutes in T2, but quite a long run in bike shoes to the exit, then onto the bike leg.
Felt very comfortable on the bike the whole way round. Passed a lot of people, and nearly the only people who passed me were in a different wave I think. My graph shows that my speed hovered around 25-30km/h mark, which I can't agree with. What's up with the Polar anyway, it kept losing the signal too down the back straight and beeping at me. My time was 37:44, which is an average speed of approximately 32km/h. I should have pushed a bit faster I think. Maybe it was the chilly breeze, but I didn't even raise a sweat.
T2 was much better, as it should be. 1:14 is a good time so no real work needed there. I had a 500ml PSP drink (wrong flavour - get a nicer one next time) on the bike which I almost finished. During the run I did feel a bit thirsty, so I need to think about that, maybe a small gel. I was tired, but OK on the run. My left calf felt very tight and I was worried in case it got worse, but it didn't. My heart rate started as it had been on the bike, around 160bpm. I didn't much want it to go higher, but I needed to go faster, so gradually pushed it up, especially in the last 2km where I got it to a max of 186bpm by the finish line.
Again, I'm not happy with the polar foot-pod timing attachment. It's supposed to measure speed, but even though I'm obviously going faster, there is no indication of this on the graph. I have even had to adjust the graph manually for both the bike and run speeds to remove places where it completely dropped to zero. It's going back to the shop on Saturday if I can find the receipt.
Final results are as follows then.
36th out of 82 in the 42-44 age group. 44%
60th out of 189 people in my BTA 40-44 category. 31%
344th out of 945 overall on the day . 36%
400m Swim 9:49 - place 771
T1 2:52
20Km Bike 37:44 - place 240
T2 1:14
5km Run 22:14 - place 283
and comparing like with like for 2005 results
Swim 00:12:46 (new 12:41)
Bike 00:37:42 (new 38:58)
Run 00:21:22 (new 22:14)
it seems I'm slower on the bike and run, but the same on the swim. Hmm. It was a colder day, maybe that contributed to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment