Inter-Services Triathlon 2011

In case you guys in Forum land are not aware, this Triathlon is Standard Distance and is an annual competition between the RAF, Army and navy here in the UK. As you can imagine, the race is a bit of a grudge match and the competition is quite frantic!

The venue this year was Belvoir Castle in Rutland. This is a great venue and home of the Beaver Fest Triathlon every may – I did the Sprint race this year and the middle distance race in 2010. So I know the course. The swim is in a very shallow lake with a muddy silt bottom! Hence the water gets really churned up. Everyone comes out with mud and gunk in every orifice! The bike is a 2 lap fast but challenging loop. There is one hill that is quite long and certainly calls for your easiest gear to get up it. The run is a 2 lap out and back that is basically up a big long hill and back down again!

Here is my race! I did not ease down, but treated this as a good hard training session. My bike/run session of 3 hour turbo/20 mile run at the weekend ensured that I was carrying some lovely fatigue – as prescribed by Coach Charles! I am still waiting for time splits but my overall time was 2:09:22. This includes a HUGE run from swim to T1 across a field – yet more fun!

I am no swimmer and I have to admit that it is my weakest discipline. But the bashing, mud, gunk, people walking around bouys didn’t seem to bother me. I crawled out of the swim exit and promptly slipped over on the Goose Poo! I had to laugh! The swim was not quite so laughable foe all, however, and poor Al Hadnett was taken to hospital with a badly ut foot. The run from swim exit to t1 seemed to take an age and certainly sent the heart rate sky high. Out onto the bike and my strategy for this training race was to ride like my life depended on it. I have plenty of endurance right now so I figured if I continually red lined it I would recover whilst riding strong. This turned out to be true. In triathlon, there are normally plenty of obstacles such as villages and turns that naturally slow us down. So use these as rests and blitz the bits inbetween. I was not overtaken and I passed many people. Interestingly I passed quite a few guys who normally finish the swim/bike combo ahead of me. I nailed the hill like I was on a TT finish and recovered really quickly over the top; so happy with that. My familiarity of the course helped immensely as I was able to take the steep decent at max speed on the tri-bars; many guys did not do this and lost time. I resembled a rabid dog as I approached T2 as the effort levels were through the roof. Daz Sharpe suffered a puncture on the second lap of the bike but still managed to finish the bike leg and no doubt posted a scorching run split!

As I dismounted I saw a number of familiar RAF faces setting out on their run. These guys were the strong swim/bikers and the chase was on because I knew that my running was stronger. Despite the max effort bike my running seemed the same as ever. Just goes to show that taking a steadier bike does not always pay off – well, for me anyway! As I hit the first hill on lap 1 I was making up time on people and my RAF team mates were becoming clearer to see up ahead! I didn't realise that some people were unfortuneate enough to be plonked in the 'sin bin'! Now that is a new one for the Inter-Services, and an element that didn't go down too well!

I past an RAF guy (no names!) on the hill and then as the turn point approached I made a deliberate effort to look relaxed as other guys were on the way back down – a bit of psych never goes amiss! I caught all of the guys that I had my sights on, mostly on the second time up the hill as they were becoming slower, whereas I was revving up more and more. I am absolutely sure that my long bike/run sessions have given some great strength! I turned into the finish and was well happy!

I had won the Inter-Services Vets race and the RAF Vets team had won the team comp convincingly. This is the first time that I have won this vets title, despite trying for quite a few years! I thought that my chance had gone because the Vets cat is 40 years and over. As I am nearly 47, there are more and more ‘younger but old’ guys appearing in the category.

Happy days and I am in good form. Now I need to balance this knife edge between top form and injury/over training. Only 4 weeks to go until the IM. I have one more standard distance training race on 14 August. Oh and by the way, nutrition for this Standard distance Race was sips of energy drink on the bike. Nothing else.