Thorpe park sprint triathlon

Report from a little sprint race added late in the calendar as a “ESC D3 club championships”. A full on blast trying to nail transitions…

The D3 team on the day

The ESC D3 club champs were initially going to be held at the Big Cow sprint race. Unfortunately, the presence of blue-green algae in the lake led in the first place to the swim leg being cancelled and the event being changed to a duathlon, then completely cancelled due to the amount of entries cancellations and resulting low level of participation. Keith from D3 found the Thorpe lake race with about a week to go to the date, and with a very nice race director we managed to get guaranteed entries for our club event. I would have liked everyone who was registered in the Big Cow sprint to race at Thorpe (arguably a lot closer too), but out of the original 36 entries, only 14 registered for Thorpe. Lazy buggers!! Nevertheless, the club kit got a good showing, and we had a good scrap out on course.

I had in mind to go as hard as I could on this race. A short sprint to blow out the cobwebs a couple of weeks before Lanzarote 70.3! Matthew being under 30 got an early start, 10 minutes ahead of me. The goal was of course for me to close the gap, and maybe catch him if he was going slow. That was great to have this goal in mind, especially on the run.

I entered the water with the first guys of my wave, which prove to be a little too early as I quickly lost the advantage of my warm-up given the water temperature. A lot colder than the 17C expected! But I was for once at the front of the pack (on a sprint race, scary!) and when the horn went off, I managed to hold my line reasonably well on the left side of the pack. About 10 guys stormed ahead past the first buoy, but I was surprisingly leading the chase pack. That never happened to me before, and it was enjoyable to not be battered and bruised all over before the first turn! In fact, I got clear waters all the way to the end from the first buoy. For me, in the male 30-39 AG on a sprint race, this is unheard of! The thing that wasn’t so clear was the water. So. Much. Weed! In places, it was almost possible to pull oneself along tugging on them, and I had to make a conscious effort to keep going and keep my stroke when going through these patches. Forget the cold water, those were like jungle survival moments where a machete would have been useful! Nevertheless, I reached the steep bank in 12'37 (at my watch), with no one around to push aside getting out the water like most sprint races I’ve done. About what I can swim right now. I’d have liked a bit faster as this was a sprint, but I have longer objectives coming!

Support out the water was amazing with the next waves waiting to get in the water, and I heard quite a few D3 shout-outs! I was about 30s behind Justin and Carl was hot on my heels! I nailed T1. No socks, only a helmet to pop on, and off I went. That was a lot better than any other T1s I had this year, and one to replicate in Lanzarote 70.3. I must be fast in transitions! No excuses! I tried a few new things at Thorpe as well: a compressport tri top under my club kit to see if it would impede my swim (it didn’t but I was baking later on in the race), and new tri shoes without a stupid boa system. Those worked al-right, but it took me a little while to get my feet in them, as I wasn’t used to them just yet.

Out of T1

Getting out of the park was a bit twisty, but that where I started to pick up athletes ahead, or from the previous wave. Going out on the main road I could put the power down straight away, and within 500m I had reeled in the 30s Justin had on my out of the swim. I had recced the route the day before, so I knew where to be careful and where I could change lanes to not waste time arriving at roundabouts. That did prove handy to get over the motorway bridges and got flat out all the way around. I spotted Matthew on his way back from the turnaround point and it seemed he was only 4 to 5min ahead of me! IT was going to be close to catch him up and at this point I was determined to do so! I blasted through the 21Km in 33'02" which was the second fastest bike split of the day, and just shy of 40Kph average, which is what I was aiming for. The little details where I lost time were going out and coming back into transition. I removed my feet of my shoes way too soon and did pretty much the whole in-road into the park to T2 with feet on top of my shoes. Not ideal, but better than others who completely lost their shoes on that road!

Almost there!

I almost missed the dismount line as it was right after a hard left turn, but didn’t pick up any penalty there. I just mucked up T2 by running out the wrong way in the transition area (a first for me) and losing precious 10 seconds there! But Helen (Matt’s girlfriend who was our usual amazing D3 supporter ;-) ) had told me right at the entrance of T2 that Matthew was a bout 2min ahead! Game on!!

I had to hit the run very hard and so I did. I knew I could push given the interval training I’ve been doing regularly on my training program so I knew I could hang on at about 3'40" to 3'50" /Km, which I did with a race PB of 18:50. I had a little bit of a lull in the middle with my pace dropping on the third Km, but where I lost most my time was at the very start. I had to stop to adjust my timing chip strap that was digging in my Achilles. Argh! Nevertheless, I had spotted Matthew about 500m ahead of me before the turnaround, and I was pushing hard to catch him up. I got passed with about 1Km to go. The only one who passed me on the day after the swim start, but boy he was fast! That guy (Djalil Bajou from H3 Performance Nottingham) ran 16'27", so needless to say I just couldn’t go with him! One last push for the remaining twisty bit under the park attractions and I was home in 1h07'21" with a new sprint PB, a new 5K PB in a triathlon, and (unknown to me at the time) a 4th place finish!

1h07' is nothing stellar by national standards, but with a season targeting middle distance and long course racing, I’m delighted with that time! I didn’t catch Matthew in the end, he was still about 30s ahead of me, but that race inside the race provided great motivation to push harder than ever.

All the D3 athletes had a fantastic day, with our ever-speedy iron lady Sarah grabbing yet another Female Vet top spot, and Christine being only 13 seconds behind her, a week after racing the world champs finale in Hyde Park! Also, being so speedy in they age group, they got the top spots in our handicap-adjusted club results. There’s no moving these two from these places, and alongside the other D3 finishers, that was a fantastic little club outing. I hope there will be many more like that!

Results and data

Finish Overall position: 4th, 4th male and 2nd in my age group (30-39).