Becoming a half-iron lady

British Middle Distance Championships 2012

 

I had already written this blog in my head before the race had even started and was collecting a bank of words like 'horrific', 'painful', 'terrible', 'never again'.....but actually (and I never thought I'd say this) I absolutely loved it!

Supporter's Hamper

The race day started with a 3:30am alarm clock call.  We arrived at the race venue about 5am and I couldn't believe how waterlogged the transition was.  I began tiptoeing all the way around the edges of the fields but after a while realised this was completely useless and that I may aswell wade through the oceans of mud like everyone else.  It was a dark and drizzly morning but not too cold and spirits were high.  Being our triathlon club championships, my morning was brightened up by the glowing orange trisuits of Rugby Tri dotted around transition.  Strangely, you could choose where you wanted to rack your bike and I opted to put mine right next to a huge puddle! I was still munching on food whilst putting my wetsuit on as I was worried about not having enough energy to last me through the race.

   

A muddy run into Transition

The race started at 7am and after a few warm-up strokes, I positioned myself right in the middle of the pack.  I got a good start when the hooter went and seemed to be in clear water.  Approaching the first buoy I got a bit boxed in with swimmers from my right and left merging and almost forcing me up out of the water, I couldn't continue to swim as their were bodies infront of me so I started to tread water only to me bashed over the head by swimmers right behind me.  A few kicks and punches later and I was round the buoy, swimming to the next one.  I had quite a clear swim until the bottle-neck effect around each buoy, I think I need to toughen up a bit rather than waiting for everyone else to go round. I kept the swim steady and relaxed and was out the water in 32:28 (20th overall including the men!) which I was really pleased with (especially as this was 6 minutes faster than last time!)

A slow transition

I ran through the oceans of mud and into transition and gave Mum & Chris a wave.  I decided to put socks on as I haven't ridden or run as far as the race distance so wanted to be comfortable.  I also put my rear flashing light on my bike as I wanted to make sure I could be seen by traffic on such a busy and long cycle route.  Needless to say my transition wasn't too quick but I really don't think it matters all that much in the long distance races (this made a nice change to the fast, furious and frantic transitions of sprint racing!)

I tootled out on my 58 mile cycle and just told myself to keep it nice and steady.  I wanted to make sure I didn't push a massive gear and that my legs were just spinning the whole time.  I hadn't even been riding 10 minutes when Captain Keith zoomed past me, we gave each other a quick cheer and I carried on riding, totally unphased by the people who were going past me, or the people I was catching, this was all about pacing it and enjoying myself.  I hadn't ridden this distance in training and thought I would massively struggle but actually I really enjoyed it.  Scotty went past me later on and that was nice to have another quick cheer.  I exchanged places quite a lot with a handful of girls and they looked pretty good so I thought I must be keeping good company. 

Finishing lap 2 of the bike

The bike course consisted of 2 big laps and one smaller lap.  Everytime you finished a lap you went past the country park where the support was phenomenal, cow bells, shouting, cheering etc.  I made sure I shouted to Mum & Chris each time (Mum has a tendency of missing me and then panicking that something's happened!) and those cheers were enough to keep my spirits up.  The 2 big laps were completed with no problems and it wasn't until the final small loop that I started to feel really achey in my neck, I think this was probably because the longest I've been on my TT bike before then was 90 minutes. I shifted around in the saddle a bit, had a bit of a stretch and probably lost a bit of time but that didn't matter. Although I was trying so hard not to focus on times or have any expectations I really wanted to come in off the bike in under 3 hours.....so I was overjoyed to come in with a time of 2:53:40 which meant I'd averaged over 20 mph and returned to transition amongst the top 10 women.

The new racing flats!

Dismounting the bike I was still laughing and smiling and Mum & Chris were like "come on, you're in a race!" but it didn't really seem like a race in my head, just a real challenge that I wanted to accomplish.  I racked my bike and put on my gorgeous new racing flats ready for the run.  As I turned to run out of tranisition I looked at the new racing flats.....and then looked at the big mud swamp that lay between me and the T2 exit.  I couldn't possibly run through it, I thought.  It was too long to jump over, so I would try and tip-toe around it.  I put my hand out to just touch the racking as I scuttled around the outside of the swamp but as I touched the racking the whole thing collapsed!!! About 10 bikes fell to the floor in a heap in the biggest commotion you could imagine! Absolutely horrified I didn't know whether I should try to replace the racking and pick the bikes up.  Marshalls were running over left, right and centre so I decided to finally adopt Mum & Chris's approach that I was "in a race" and with that legged it straight through the puddle and out onto the run.

My running has not been going very well this year so I was absolutely dreading the half marathon but when I set off I felt surprisingly fresh.  The run had been changed from previous years due to the bad weather and involved running forever uphill! The nice thing was once you got to the top of the hill you could turn round and run back again before doing a lap of the lake and this gave you a chance to see all the other competitors.  I was pleased to see my club mates on the run and there were lots of high 5s and cheers exchanged which was a nice boost.  The first lap was great and I completed it in 30 minutes.  If I do 2 more laps like that, I'll get a 1:30 half marathon, which would have been amazing! I slowed a bit on the second lap to complete it in 33 minutes and then all of a sudden, my legs just didn't want to run anymore.  I wasn't out of breath and I hadn't mentally given up either but I just couldn't turn my legs over.  Running up the hill for the third time seemed to take an age and this was the first time that I wanted the race to be over.  I lost a lot of places on the last lap.  I queued at the drinks station at the top of the hill for some water and coke and whilst it seemed really wierd standing and waiting around in a race, I knew that a 20 second wait could maybe save me 20 minutes if I tried to carry on without taking on fluids. 

When the last lap was coming to an end I actually felt a bit emotional.  I hadn't done any particular training for this - just what I normally do for sprint & olympic distance - and I had been so nervous in the lead up to it that to know I was actually going to finish was such a wonderful feeling.  I settled in the end for a 1 hour 41 half marathon to give me an overall finish time of 5:11:29 and 6th in my age group.  As I had gone into this with no expectations, it very much reminded me of the first time I ever completed a triathlon, feeling very proud of myself and ecstatically happy! The finish was packed with fresh pineapple, bananas, pretzels, haribo etc and I scoffed my face as much as I could and picked up by finisher's plaque. I hugged Chris & Mum and saw my club mates and also my fellow friends from my new triathlon club (TRIKS), who had all had super performances too.  The cheers from them all throughout the race and from their supporters (especially Amy) and my own fan club (Mum & Chris) made the race that much more enjoyable....thank you! 

Being a half-iron lady is a great feeling, I'm already looking forward to another one!