Well Saturday started early - 4.30am get up and breakfast - porridge with californian jumbo, crimson raisins and agave nectar (breakfast of the gods), then into the car before heading down to the Brendon Hills (Exmoor) for a reality check with the bike course! I attended the first one day intro to the UK 70.3 that Tri Life had run - and it was of huge benefit!
I arrived at 6.55am to find most people already at the lake and in wetsuits - we were not due to get in until 7.30 I had the distinct feeling that they were all a bit keen......
Just before I got suitably atired a nice lady from UK IronMan asked for my name I replied and heard someone in the background say "Iain Sainsbury what are you doing here?" - the voice belonged to David Rich, a former colleague from Novartis - small world!
Anyway we got suited up and briefed by the coaching team from theTriLife.co.uk (who are simply excellent) on the day - a brief swim in the lake ("well it [the temp] might just be in double figures today!") followed by an intro to the bike course and once round the run route - seems easy...hmmmm
Into the lake and OMFG how cold.....within about 10sec noone could feel their feet/hands/face and within about a minute most people had "ice cream head" - the feeling when you eat too much ice cream too quickly! After a brief acclimatisation we did a short loop of about 500m to get everyone use to the lake and the swim conditions and then us keen ones did it again. My first proper experience of Open Water (OW) swimming and I loved it - no walls/slow people/etc great stuff....and the wetsuit (Orca Alpha) - wow! Fantastic - a few rub areas (remember the lube next time I think!)but just excellent - thanks Orca!
After we had warmed up and consumed some energy gels/drinks we got kitted up for the bike. This was the first chance to see how pro or amateur people were based on kit expenditure! One guy turned up with a beautiful Ridley bike which would simply have been wasted on me but most turned up with a selection of road bikes and fairly high spec aero bikes - one or two had ones straight from the shop including pedals and cages (not clipless) which the coaching staff seriously urged them to change later.....
The bike route itself is what one might call complete and more than a little challenging! Straight out of transition there is little time you are not climbing for the first 20mins but after that it turns into a rather pleasant rolling hill course until about 28kms at which point it all goes horribly nasty there are two hills fairly close together which are simply evil - just look at the data - I think I managed a Max HR of 196! Following those is a slightly better two stage hill and then it goes back to rolling with some hard climbs until you reach the course start again. On return to transition the downhill to the lake is fantastic (I hit over 50kph but for some reason the GPS did not pick it up... :-) ) and there is only then a nasty rise before it is all over...
The run defines why this is not called "a littlebitchallengingman" or "mildlydifficultman" but IronMan - after doing two laps of one of the most technical and challenging bike routes on the world circuit the run is not a flat breeze. It starts of nice enough with a downhil bit but then it just seems to be up, down, up, up, up, and a bit down and so on...see the data - very hard! Also you keep going back on yourself which is a little demoralising...
Overall though a fantastic day - equal parts of OMG and thank god I went down to see it. The coaching staff were fantastic and Andrea Whitcombe (former UK elite, Olympic squad and Commonwealth Games medalist) and Richard Jones (also former UK elite) made the bike and run both enjoyable and really informative! Lots of hints/tips including a strong suggestion that swapping out my dinner plate size chainset for a compact might be a really good idea - MasterCard here we go again!!
Now with eyes open training starts again.
I.
Anyway - I am not sure how much training I will get over the next few days as I am off to Rome for a meeting and then away with my other work at the weekend!
Anyway - I am not sure how much training I will get over the next few days as I am off to Rome for a meeting and then away with my other work at the weekend!
