The Outlaw triathlon 2012 - "The long walk"

Colin from my D3 triathlon club inspired everyone last year by going 12h37 and become the first club “outlaw”. He praised the event and many of us then registered for what was going to be a great D3 Triathlon day. After already 2 half iron distances, a half marathon, an Olympic triathlon and a sprint this year, the Outlaw was my long distance target for 2012 …

The training for an amateur long distance triathlon is always a bit of a gamble given all the parameters that have to be crammed into an already impossibly packed schedule. I’ve learnt that the hard way this year. After California and a bit of respite, work took over and the amount of induced stress crippled my training and recovery. I love my job, but I allowed it to take too much of my life and it showed in May when I took part in 3 races over 3 week ends, 2 of which yielded organisational and relaxation problems. Cold in the swashbuckler and had too much fluids and/or a bit of heatstroke at the Nuffield triathlon challenge will not be my best racing memories. But they showed that I was doing some things wrong. How worse could it be? Well… What about twisting one’s left ankle 2 weeks before an ironman distance race in a pothole on a 12 mile slow run, while your right knee has already been bugging you for almost a month and a half?

Triathletes are stubborn. I’m no exception. My left ankle was the worry, but it didn’t even give a hint that it had a problem during the whole race. My right knee on the other hand, wasn’t happy at all and made it pretty clear!

The race start wasn’t too early: 6am. A 3:30am wake-up call with a normal breakfast of coffee and buttered bread was in order, while sipping on an energy drink. It had been raining and almost howling all night and I wasn’t too excited at the idea of doing 11h  or so in the rain, but after an ideal race in Spain, I thought “why not?”. It wouldn’t be the first time I race in a crap weather either, but it would be a first for such a long duration. Fortunately the weather went on to be ok for almost the whole day, except for the wind.

Transition was already buzzing when we arrived, but nothing was rushed and race preparation went well until we got called to the swim start. No time to hang around either, so race nerves didn’t even had an opportunity to kick in, which is surprising as I’m usually not relaxed before a long race.

I didn’t like the swim start at all. Not one bit. I’ve done quite a few mass starts in 4 years of triathlon. Small and large ones. But never with 1000 people in one go, some of which seeded themselves wrongly and starting the 3.8K swim of their 12h race as they would a sprint race: fighting, elbowing and being generally disrespectful of other swimmers. There is always a lot of testosterone pumping at these events, but I think people aught to be reminded that we’re amateurs, that there is no prize to win in this race except for a very few at the front, and that we should all CHILL!!

It took the best part of 700m to get some clear water towards the center of the lake, with a nice tail wind and a bit of swell (Yes! Swell in a rowing lake!!) to push us towards thee turning point. I remember thinking that the swim was long in Challenge Barcelona. Not this time. After the feisty start, it was absolutely brilliant! Except for the idiot sitting on my feet the whole 2K back towards transition, it has been a great swim. I don’t mind people sitting on my legs, I've got nothing to prove to them and I’m competing for a general time and against myself. I do however hate when someone’s hands tap my feet at EVERY stroke. I blew a few hard kicks and changed direction in a bid to let them understand, but nothing did it. I settled in a proper rhythm, but I am usually scared as this taping gives me cramps because it always hits nerves in my feet. I got lucky this time with a fantastic (official) swim time around 1h09'20". The real time was more 1h08'30" as it took a while to pass the start line and get going after the horn!

If you don’t know me, put that in the perspective that when I started triathlon in 2008, I couldn’t swim ONE 25m length of a pool without being severely out of breath. That’s why now I mostly laugh at people who say they “can’t swim”. If you’re not deadly scared of water, then you can, and I know lots of people like that!

I took my time in T1. The conditions were windy but not cloudy (yet) but with my left leg taped up for a few days (thank you my gorgeous girlfriend Ellen!!) I though I might as well take it a bit easy overall. After the swim, however, the tape was all rolled up so I removed it, preferring a bit of a potential niggle than a rolled up tape in socks eating away my skin for the next 10 hours. All I wanted in this race was to beat Matthew and see how close I could get to my Spain time given the conditions. Just as I thought about this, Matthew was entering the transition tent… At least it seems I had beaten his swim time. That’s 1-0 for me! It’s a but stupid to think like this, specially because Matt is an amazing triathlete 6 years younger than me, but it makes one feel good to have little battles and markers along the way.

I passed Sarah at the start of the bike around the lake and she was already going on about the wind being strong! She was in one of the two D3 team relay teams, the “Well seasoned chicks”, which with the "Iron maidens" had a cracking day around the Sherwood forest. She still had another 177 Km of wind to go though!

I settled in a relaxed but fast pace early on the bike as I wanted to take advantage of the tailwind that I knew I’d get pretty much all the way until around km 60, including passing the only “climb” of the day, a 400m long “blip” with an even smaller 12% stretch that the 39×23 made minced meat of. I passed Ian on that very climb, who looked good and happy, although in the wrong gear at the time!!

Gaby was the next D3 member I passed on the road, at around mile 30. She’s made so much progress on the bike! And although still bobbing her head side to side “à la Tim Don”, she wasn’t hanging about! Then the the wind started to pick up and I needed to concentrate a bit more. The D3 kit is so easy to spot on the bike it was great to be able to distinguish everyone from the other teams. Christine at the club has done a fantastic job at making the name very visible and that sure helped during the day!!

After the fiasco of my Nuffield Health Challenge race, my nutrition this time seemed to be going alright, and unlike in Spain where it was hot and boring long straights, I had to remember to keep eating and drinking, as thee were very few places that didn’t require my full attention. The Challenge Barcelona bike course, although set along the sea front, is dead boring long stretches of dual carriageway, with the odd village and mini climb thrown in. The Outlaw is all you can expect from our countries roads in terms of twists and turns. Add to this that most of the roads were open to traffic, and you realize that it's a different game altogether! Road surfaces were however brilliant, and it was possible to push a bigger gear without needing to avoid potholes and constantly re-accelerate.

I was quite happy when I caught up with and passed Gerrit, then Dan, who are both phenomenal cyclists, just after 95 Km. I knew they'd catch me easily on the run though. I wouldn’t dream of catching either of them on a run only race! After this and passing the Pirates tri club feed station, things took a tough turn. Wind. Relentless wind. I your face, on the side, pushing you in all sorts of directions, sapping every little bit of energy you have. 180Km o the bars is long. If you’re down to 22Kph as I was at some point, even longer!!! I don’t have a power meter, so I didn’t know what I was pushing, but 22kph in this wind wasn’t easy at all!

The first woman passed me on that stretch of the old A46 with a strong head wind. I might be on TV later as a motorbike was filming her for a long time while she passed! I caught her up a little bit later before the start of the second “southern” loop, and I knew I wasn’t in a bad place overall while still feeling quite good. There was around 60Km left on the bike, most of which would be in a head wind.

It didn’t disappoint, but I pushed through on the way back, feeling great and taking in all the amazing support from people gathered around corners, and specially in the windy turns in Car Colston. You can’t help but feel a bit like a Tour de France elite passing this kind of crowds! That was brilliant! I however got a puncture right after this! Not really phased out, it took me around 7-8min to sort it out while taking my time to check what had caused it. I now have clinchers and not tubs anymore. That helped to change the tube, but it’s also what caused the puncture, as it was a pinch flat. My first ever one in 7 years of cycling!

But punctures and mechanicals are part of the race. We’re on machines which require some mechanical attention, and cutting rubber happens. I have rarely been amazed at the amount of support other riders gave me though, almost all of them asking me if I was ok for spares, including the first woman while she was still filmed and slowed down!!! Now that was something! Thank you for taking the time to be considerate and supportive when you're leading! It changes from the swim start, and certainly from other sports. Where else than in triathlon do you get your competition if they can help you "lace your shoes" or “hold a spanner”?

It was a pinch flat, nothing much, but also one of the reason why I had promised myself not to do an iron distance on the UK potholed roads. I have to admit though, the roads around there are in beautiful condition. Kudos to the organisers, it was almost 180Km of perfect road. “Almost" though as the last few miles made us go through some rough tracks where I would never, under any conditions than racing a set path like this race was, take any of my road bikes. Not even my commuting beater. It was so bad on the last that I went straight on at a junction thinking it was the way to go… No, the race course was indeed the rough track. Not happy to do that on a £4K race machine I can tell you!!

That phased me out a bit as I completely forgot to undo my shoes before arriving into transition and was left wobbling on my saddle while trying to remove my feet out of them before the dismount line. That must have been fun to watch, but also a dead slow approach while I’m used to flying dismounts.

Gerrit and Dan, who passed me while I was putting back my tools in the saddle bag after my flat, and whom I passed on the way back to T2, caught me in the changing tent where I took my time again. My right knee had started to make itself known on the bike and I wasn’t sure how it would cope on the run.

Nevertheless, I started the run at the pace I wanted to get initially: around 5'10" / km. Gerrit wasn’t disappearing too fast and I was feeling very good, both muscular and stomach wise. I thought that was holding very well and I was happy. We all got drenched at around 6h45 in the race (about 2.5Km on the run for me) with a massive downpour for about 10 minutes before the sun shone again. By then, I was around km 7, and my right knee was starting to yell at me…

The long walk then started.

I was in that race to finish it! The cut off time is 23:00, 17h after the gun, so I had still around 10h30 to walk 35km :-) I opted for the shuffle/walk strategy and it paid off. I was smiling all round and was only disappointed at the fact that when I could shuffle/run, I could hold easily 5'30"/km! Muscles wear absolutely fine, stomach too, and only the knee was annoying. Not even my left foot which I twisted two weeks before was giving a hint of pain. Just that old knee niggle.

At the end of the first 11miles lap, I dumped my race belt with our amazing support crew (Blinda and James) as I really didn’t need to carry the extra weight. There were feed stations every 1.5 miles, so at the pace I was doing overall, there was really no need to carry an extra kilo around!

All the guys that I passed on the bike passed me again on the run. Gerrit looked tired, Steve in the relay team was flying and enjoying himself, Mike, although a bit pessimistic as usual was looking good and not realising what he was achieving. Colin, last year’s outlaw, was looking strong too.

I was mostly walking, but I was happy. Chrissie Wellington always says we need to keep smiling. I did. The whole way around. 26 miles of shuffle/walk with a large, happy grin on my face! It was even hard to walk at times, but I didn’t care for a second. It’s in these times that you realize and appreciate the support that everyone around you gives you all the time. I was in it to finish not only for me, but also for them all.

So I soldiered on and shuffled till the end, walking passed the last feed station with one mile to go, joking with the volunteers that I could as well walk one mile after almost walking 26! But no, I ran it. I wanted to finish running, raise my arms too, like all the other ones before. Grab that banner and raise it high, because like all the other ones on that day I deserved to be named an "outlaw".

As I said above, this is not just my victory over my own body, it’s my challenge, but it involves so many people other than just myself! From all the little messages from Ellen that I found in all my food bags and in my saddle bag, to the always cheerful, amazing D3 crew, and to my worried family back home! You are all better than me in so many ways! Thanks for making this possible!

Next on the calendar is cheering up Ellen on her first middle distance at 70.3 Antwerp in Belgium, where I’m sure she’ll have a blast given her progress in training. Then a leisurely summer with an end of year target of 70.3 Lanzarote, which promises to be a cracker, if only for the scenery! In the mean time I shall also do a long 220Km sportive with my ever impressive dad who cycles more than I do at 62 years young. Talk about an inspiration…

Oh, and I just found out… That prickly thing under the big ring shifter that I noticed after less than 1Km on the bike… It was actually the gear cable housing already fraying and bits hanging out!! Glad I spent most of the day in the big ring without changing then… Disaster avoided, but I’ll contact Yokozuna about the longevity of their stuff… Only 100miles on the bike before the race…

Results and data

Finish Overall position: 169th and 35th in my age group.

Rank data obtained from Tritalk.co.uk forum excel spreadsheet provided by Poet