All my high hopes for this year had fallen away over the last month or two, as injury, and a persistent cold, effectively put a stop to my training.
Nevertheless, I really wanted to be part of the day, and so turned up at 6.15am by the river Thames for the 6:50am start of my race - Wave 12 - blue swim cap. The weather forcast has been iffy all week, but it turned out to be a great day, with blue skies and very little wind.
I was hoping to improve on previous swim time, but the conditions were extremely unfavourable. There was a strong current to swim against, apparently the strongest since this triathlon began. I'm a weak swimmer at the best of times, and I really struggled up to the turnaround buoy. It didn't help that many people decided to walk in the shallow water instead of swim - and the were walking faster than me, and getting in my way.
When I got to the buoy, I mistakenly drifted into the middle of the river far too soon. I had my head down, and didn't realise for perhaps a minute that I wasn't even moving forwards. So I had to try and push really hard to reach the buoy, raising my heartrate by 30 beats per minute to over 170.
29 minutes to get up river, then back down in about 11, some of it just floating on my back getting my breath.
Hit transition, and faffed around again with the wetsuit and wet socks. Gotta ditch the socks and save about 30-60 seconds. Felt OK on the bike at the beginning, though nowhere near as good as last time. I had a Go energy bar in my trisuit pocket, but it fell out 10 minutes into the ride, so I had to make do with just the PSP drink. After 15 minutes my thighs started to ache, and this never went away. Kept good time though, and it was fun being overtaken just after Maiden's Green by Jenson Button, No 1111, with his motorbike film crew. Sadly, my Polar HR monitor ran out of memory so I don't have a record of the last half or T2 or the run. Got annoyed a couple of times by people cycling in the middle of the road downhill, thinking they were going fast, when I was easily able to go past them. Most people who passed me seemed to be on tri/TT style bikes, and I didn't even have aero bars. I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again, I must fix that.
I put in a fairly respectable bike time which I think went well (no splits were recorded by HumanRace, which is disappointing). I grabbed a banaba, and headed off for the run, and my supporters had turned up, which was nice. Up until now, I could possibly have matched my 2006 time. Unfortunately, half way round the second lap of three, my old calf injury came back. The muscle felt really tight and painful, as if it would snap on every step. I tried stretching it, which almost put my left thigh into cramp, so gave up on that. I massaged it a bit, and walked/limp ran for a bit, and took a full cup of water at the Eton water station. Kept this up till the end of the lap, and got another drink just below the castle. Checked my watch here, and decided that even though I was slow, I could still beat 3 hours if I ran, so I started running again. It was painful, but not much more so that the walk/limp strategy, and I made it round in just over 2hr 58min.
Jonathan was also competing, and he had a great race, especially his bike split.
This was my worst performance to date, and I can't help being disappointed. I know I shouldn't have expected much, but I hoped it would work out better on the day. My only consolation I guess is that I know the olympic distance is something I can easily finish without that much preparation. When my leg is better, and my cold goes away (yes, I still have it) I'd like to do a few more to really try and nail the pacing and transitions.
I'll be back at Windsor again, hopefully next year if it fits in with whatever plan I come up with (IMA is a possibility), and I still think 2hr 30 is a possibility.
Result: Swim+T1 00:44:09 1341 (4 minutes in t1 I think)
Bike+T2 01:18:10 651 (that's 690 places better than the swim)
Run 00:55:43 1301 (real slow due to injury)
Overall 02:58:03 1212 (11 minutes slower than 2006)
