June 06, 2013

The Swashbuckler 2013 - Finally incident-free!

2 weeks after IM Lanzarote this race was a bit early to have recovered well, or regain proper focus, but I had entered it well before Lanza, and I absolutely had to do it to finally get over my unfinished business in the New Forest. So it was a bit like a tourist that I went there, only initially wanting see how I would race being a bit tired, and also to give Matthew from D3 Triathlon a good kick in the backside and motivate him to go faster!

Another pirate

The difference in focus between this race and any other middle distance I’ve done is quite interesting. The Swashbuckler is so friendly and set in such a nice place that for the three years I’ve been there, I’ve been super chilled-out! Proof, my usual companion even wanted to enjoy the ride!

Passenger

The race prep routine is always the same now, but the fact that this one is on home soil and only a couple of hours drive away probably helps too. Less hassle to get there, and back home the night of the race!

Only Matt did the trip as well this year with his girlfriend, so it was a fairly small club committee! That was totally unlike Thame Turbo who had their “club middle distance championship” at that race and were everywhere on the course and in the results!

This year, possibly because of the calendar change (it was 2 weeks later than usual) and to keep with the tide, the race start was at 6:15. Air temperature in the morning was 6C and heating up nicely, which was a nice change from the chilly 3C going onto 5C last year! Also, nice surprise: it was dry! No rain at racking time, no mud field to wade through in transition, and no frozen grass to get to the water! That water was a balmy 15C (apparently!), which this year is absolutely fantastic given the cold spell the whole of Europe is enduring, leading to plenty of swim cancellations everywhere. So these were great conditions!

Funny enough, talking about cold conditions, the Marshall that was where I stopped last year on the bike course was now doing the race (to “find out what it’s all about”!) and recognised me in the pre-swim rubber clad crowd!! I hope he had a good time, it was surely a much better start to the day than the previous years.

Entering the water from the back of the field, I crossed over to the other side of the bunch to be on the outside of the front pack. That would give me clear water at least to the first buoy if I could stay there. The mass start wasn’t as bad as I experienced it in the past, and the plan worked alright until I ended up face to face with that pesky harbour master in his dinghy! I’m sure I was on a perfect line towards the first buoy, so it’s not clear why he was there (it looked like he was indeed pushing back swimmers towards the moored boats), but it was a close call to avoid him and it meant I unfortunately had to get back in the pack. This slowed me down considerably as I didn’t have clear water anymore. The glare on the water from the rising sun was making it almost impossible to navigate, even with tinted goggles, so when back in the pack, I could only follow swimmers in front. Given the amount of shouting around the first buoy, it’s also clear that there has been many a swimmer getting in the path of the fast guys at the front, who had already rounded that buoy and were coming back towards the harbour. I never really managed to settle in a good rhythm. The return leg is narrow, between moored boats, and doesn’t leave any space for error or direction changes. When you’re mid pack, you unfortunately have to accept that fate, so I went on a well as I could, but I lost focus and didn’t have a great swim, exiting the water in a bit more than 35min. I was stil ahead of Matthew though, who passed me in T1 while I was getting dressed…

A long T1 saw me take absolutely no chances on the cold this year, given that I froze on the bike leg two years in a row, with a forced stop last year as the shivering was getting dangerous to ride. This time I chose to put on my tri top only in T1 so it would be dry, arm warmers, a short sleeve jersey, short gloves AND long ones on top. I will really have to work on speedier T1s from now on though! That’s getting shameful, but I wanted a cold-free race, and it turns out it was the right amount of gear for me on that one.

The bike was a lot better than the last 2 years. No puncture, not cold, and able to put some power down after a little while. Actually I managed to produce quite a fair bit of power compared to my usual outputs! As I didn’t have any special goals for this race other than get over the disappointments of the last two years, I decided there and then to put myself to the test (like one stupidly does on race day, just like this, for no apparent reason!) and push hard to see how this would play on my run! I was stunned to be able to maintain 220W for the first hour an kept it all there until the end with a race best average of 216W, all bang on 80% heart rate! My CP20 being so far 258W, this average for more than 2h rings well! I really thought I’d pay for that on the run, but that was kind of the goal! The only issue I had on the bike with outputting high power was nutrition. I could feel that my stomach wasn’t ready to receive much, and that was confirmed in T2 as I had drank barely more than half my gels bottle and not even eaten half the bars in my box. I had however done a 2h15 for 50 miles, just two weeks after Lanzarote, so it wasn’t too bad!

T2 was uneventful and slowish again, but not as slow as last year when I had forgotten to remove my gloves and had to stop to get rid of them. I had after all more layers to remove than many others athletes, and it still takes a few seconds to remove all that stuff!

I surprisingly shot out on the run course like a man possessed at 4'10"/km and had to slap my wrist again and slow down! But other than feeling a bit tight overall, I was feeling good! Clocking on average high 4'20"s for the first lap, I stopped at a couple of aid stations on the second one to get some water in which slowed down my average overall, but I was running well. Things got a bit tougher at the end of the first lap, but I managed to pick up the pace again after that to pull out a 1h40' for 14miles! Race best in everything (maybe except the swim, and certainly not transition!) but with 4h43 overall, P39 and P20 in my AG, that was a good result with the ‘tired tourist’ prep I had!

Matt came in not long afterwards but didn’t have the race he wanted. I guess he also may have held back a little (consciously or not), as he is doing ironman UK 70.3 in two weeks, which has a very different course profile!!

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so drained after a race though, not even the ones in which I bonked last year, and not even after my IMs. It’s not a bad thing though, as it means this time I did push well enough to be on the limit towards the end, which is all good learnings moving forward!

I can finally tick the Swashbuckler box off my list, as this year I had no issue during the race! I may be back, possibly for another race with the club. The New Forest is a brilliant place to race, and Richard and Joanne are still the most friendly and welcoming organisers I’ve seen in the racing world! Thanks to them for putting on such nice events and to their marshalls for being ever enthusiastic and smiling!