After the disappointing end to the trip to Aix En Provence at the end of April I had 3 weeks to prepare for my next big race on 22nd May, the British Middle Distance Triathlon Championships at Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire, held by NiceTri Events. This was another race which I’d been looking forward to for a while and having raced the event last year (when it was the Triathlon England National Champs) I knew it was a good and fast event. This year they’d changed the bike course to a single lap with 4 ‘out and back’ sections in an effort to reduce congestion on the course which was a good choice given the ~1000 competitors due to take to the start line this year!
Race morning came around and a 3.30am alarm soon sounded for me to get up and make a nice big bowl of porridge. I quickly ate this and had a quick check of my kit before packing it into the car along with a sleepy Emily and set off on the ~2hr drive to Grafham. On arrival at Grafham we parked up and got registered to avoid the crowds that would likely appear soon. I then set up my transition and got everything sorted and with about 90mins till race start I had a High5 Berry EnergyBar as I always like to have something solid to eat before racing. We found a bench up near the cafe and sat around for a bit before nipping to the loo and then putting on my Zone3 Vanquish wetsuit up to my waist to head down to the swim start. I was also sipping a 750ml bottle of High5 energy powder that I usually try to finish off before the race as I know this leaves me well fuelled for the start.
As we walked down with plenty of time to spare (or so I thought!) they announced over the tannoy that everyone should be in the start pens now and to hurry down if you weren’t already there. I quickly got my swim hat and goggles out of my bag and left the rest of my kit with Emily before running down to the swim start. As I squeezed into the start pen they were just starting the briefing so I put my wetsuit on fully and got my hat/goggles sorted.
This year they changed the swim start to a rolling start in an attempt to reduce the congestion associated with mass starts, so there was a narrow chute going to under the start banner where there was a timing mat that would record everyone as they stepped into the water. This is good as it does reduce the usual argy-bargy of a mass start but also means that the race is a time trial and you don’t really know who you’re racing as someone that you’re running alongside might have started 20s ahead of you etc. I lined up just behind the front line and soon the horn sounded and we were off.
The swim course is a 2 lap clockwise triangle with an Australian exit halfway through. After the usual first 200m sprint to try to get some clear water I settled down onto someone’s feet and stayed in touch with them for the first lap, in around 10th place. Onto the second lap and with a not so smooth dive (see photos below) the guy whose feet I was on disappeared into the backmarkers that we were lapping and I didn’t see them again (not sure if I beat them out of the water or not!!).
On the way back to the swim exit everyone seemed to be swimming a bit of a curve as the wind was blowing at 90 degrees to the swim direction, but I made sure I was sighting every 2 strokes to swim a nice straight line back to the shore and minimise the distance covered. It was also at this point that I realised I’d somehow forgotten to have my usual High5 Isogel Extreme ~15mins before the start, a gel which is packed with energy and also a lot of caffeine and I find really gets me focused and ready to race. I’ve never forgotten this before so was a bit annoyed that I had for this fairly important race! Oh well, nothing I could do about it now so I pushed on to get out of the water and just knew that I’d have to have some energy fairly early on in the bike to make up for not having the gel.
I was soon back to the crowds of people cheering everyone out of the swim and ran up into transition with a swim time of 26.53 for the 1900m, a bit down on last years time but that was expected and I still had the 10th fastest swim of the day, not a bad start but there was still a long way to go.
A quick T1 later slipping off my Zone3 Vanquish and slipping on my helmet and Compressport socks I was out onto the bike with the 6th fastest T1, mostly down to how quick the Vanquish is to get off!
The first out and back of the bike course heads up through Grafham village to the village of Ellington before doing a quick loop round the village and heading back towards the reservoir. This contains a short but steep downhill on the way out and the same steep uphill on the way back which is always a good indication of how the legs are going. Result – not too bad and I’d overtaken 2 others already by this stage of the bike. The course then heads south and takes on 3 more out and backs before returning to transition.
After an hour of the bike I was feeling good and looked at my Garmin to find I was averaging >4w/kg by this point. This was a bit higher than I was expecting to do but I was feeling good and had settled into a good rhythm, though I had been cycling on my own for the whole race so far. I headed onto the third out and back which is the new addition to the course to make it a single lap, and this had added quite a few hills to an otherwise flat course so I knew it was going to make my legs hurt!
My nutrition for the bike consisted of a 750ml High5 bottle with 9 scoops of summer fruits energy powder mixed with 5 energy gels (some containing caffeine) and topped up with water. This tastes incredibly sweet and sickly but goes down well and I sip water from my aero bottle to wash it down. I find this the easiest way to get plenty of calories in on the bike without having to deal with gels taped along my top tube. I also have a High5 EnergyBar at about 50km on the bike to have some solid food amongst the otherwise ‘liquid lunch’, and top up my aero bottle with water from the aid stations. I aim to have a mouthful of the energy bottle every 10 mins along with a sip of water as I find this keeps me well fuelled for the race and keeps a constant supply of energy going in.
As we headed onto the hillier section of the course I was caught by 3 others who had been catching me for a while, and they soon zipped off into the distance over the hills. On the return of this out and back my legs had started to fatigue quite a lot and with 25km of the bike still to go I knew I was in for a tough rest of the race. It was also on this return that it became evident the draft busters weren’t really doing their job as there was several packs of 20+ athletes all riding within about 10m of road and no draft busters in site. When I did eventually see a draft buster there was 3 of them within about 5mins of each other and 2 were riding side by side having a chat! Nice to see them spaced out through the field… The photo below was posted by British Triathlon congratulating everyone who raced… seems they support drafting!!
The last out and back came and went with a couple more people catching me but I was still maintaining a decent pace. My power had dipped a fair bit and I was now averaging ~3.9w/kg. I knew I just had to dig in and get back to T2 without losing too much time, but with my quads deciding now was a good time to start cramping this was going to be tough!
A burst of energy to get me up the final big hill left my legs pretty tired and I rolled through the final 5km back to transition trying to spin my legs out and get ready for the half marathon that was waiting for me. As I jumped off my bike at the dismount line I knew straight away that it was going to be a tough run and jogged very gingerly through transition to try to make my legs start moving in a motion that resembled running. Bike racked, helmet off, Compressport run visor on, shoes on, garmin and 3 High5 gels picked up and I was out of transition (with the fastest T2 of the day!). At this point I was 12th overall and 1st M20-24 but with others pretty close behind it was going to be tough holding them off.
The run course is 2 laps of 2 out and back sections, the first to the far end of the dam (pretty flat) and back and then out through Grafham village and back (a bit more hilly with a few inclines), which gives plenty of opportunity for spectators to cheer you on, something which I was going to need lots of to get round this run so thank you to Emily and also Clive who had come down to watch. Your cheers of support were much needed!! I held about 4.15min/km pace for the first out and back and my legs had finally started to work, albeit with my hamstrings also deciding that now was a good time to start cramping.
As I headed back past transition I took on a summer fruits High5 gel and washed it down with a cup of water. I was aiming to have a gel roughly every 25mins to keep my energy levels topped up. It was then onto the slightly more undulating second part of the lap where my legs really started to ache and I was now starting to pay for my efforts on the bike. I kept plodding along and soon hit the turnaround point so would be able to see how quickly those in my AG were catching me on the way back. Barney Palmer, who I raced here last year and also at a few other races, was catching me pretty quickly and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold him off too much longer.
As I came back past transition to head onto the second lap I got a good boost from the encouragement from Emily and Clive and pushed on a bit. At the turn on the far end of the dam Barney was even closer and by this point my legs were starting to shut down, running about 4.35min/km pace. Sure enough, as I was nearing the end of the dam near transition, Barney came past. I thought about picking up the pace to try and stick with him but knew there was still 7km of running to go so painfully let him go.
The rest of the run was pretty uneventful and I was counting down the kilometres that I had left to race. As I hit the final turnaround point there was about 3.5km to go so I tried to pick up the pace again to maintain a half decent overall position in the race. Coming back down the gravel path through the carpark knowing there was ~300m left to run was a good feeling and coming into the finishing chute I picked up my pace and tried to run with half decent form for the photos!! I crossed the line with a final time of 4.31.30 and a run of 1.34.14, 6 minutes slower than last year. Oh dear.
After finishing I went to get my results slip from the timing tent and then went down to the lake to give my legs a bit of an ice bath – the water was 13 degrees after all! I then got all my kit out of transition and got a bite to eat, including a High5 chocolate protein bar and a peanut Bounce Ball, my favourite things to eat after racing!
It was then time for the presentations and it turned out that I’d picked up a silver medal in the M20-24 AG, with Barney taking the gold and with it the British title, well done!
It was then time to jump in the car and head home quickly as I had to get all my kit cleaned and sorted and my bike packed ready to fly to Lisbon with Emily for the European Champs on a very early flight the following morning. This packing finished at about 11.30pm and with a 1.30am alarm to get down to Luton Airport for our flight I jumped into bed asap to get what sleep I could!
Having now had a bit of time to reflect on the race overall I’m pretty pleased with how it went. My run training hasn’t been anywhere near what I was hoping it to be and generally training volume has been down a bit, so to pull out a 4.31.30 middle distance race and pick up another British Triathlon medal in a strong field then I’ve got to be happy, even knowing that if I’d run the same time I had last year I’d have got that top step on the podium that I was aiming for. I think I could have paced the bike a little better which may have helped later on in the race but hindsight is a wonderful thing. All in all a decent performance and 26th overall in a British Championship event is a good result and something to build on.
As mentioned earlier, it was straight off to Lisbon after this race for the European Champs so I hope to have a race report from our time out in Portugal up pretty soon, keep an eye out for it 🙂
Finally thank you to those supporting me that make it that little bit easier to race and train and who have helped me onto the podium at another British Championship. Pedal Potential, Zone3, Compressport, High5, BounceBalls and Nature’s Kiss have all been amazing and your support is invaluable, so thank you very much. Thank you also to Emily for cheering me on at all my races, taking lots and lots of lovely photos and getting up far too early to do so, your support really helps 🙂
That’s all for now, thank you for reading this far and hopefully you enjoyed the read! I’d love to hear from you all how your racing/training is going so please get in touch. I’ll have my European Champs report up soon and it’s likely to be another long read for you all 😛
Happy training / racing 😀
Angus.
Angus Smith - Triathlete 