Race Report - The Nottingham ITU Sprint (2015)
Bad to Good
Nottingham seems to be my nightmare race.
Last year was the bike disaster of my rear wheel being loose.
This year was the race run up disaster of me crashing my bike, then not training, then over running myself into injury.
I went into this race having not been on my bike since my crash and having not run due to a weird shin/leg injury, so expectations weren’t high.
I was considering not even going to the race, but in the end I thought sod it, I’ll treat it as a training day.
The Swim
I took it really easy on the swim. I hung around at the back and waited for people to get going after the start.
Because everyone had raced off at a million miles per hour, I was straight into clear water with no one trying to kick or punch me. Pretty quickly I started passing all the people who had over stretched themselves. The swim was actually quite nice, cold, but cleaner than last year.
I used cressi anti fog on my goggles which kept them fog free.
T1
T1 was pretty straight forward. I once again forgot to lube my legs go getting my wetsuit past my calves was a bit of a struggle.
My shoes were clipped onto the bike and I have modified my shoes yet again using tiewraps as heel loops. They worked perfectly, I was able to really quickly pull my feet in. I need to secure both shoes with bands though, as I only did the left side and the right shoe did catch the floor. I mounted past the mount line without stopping.
The Bike
I took it easy on the bike, I didn’t want to crash and lose my skin again. Nothing really to report.
Coming into T2 I took my very cold feet out my shoes and dismounted cleanly.
T2
Transition at Nottingham is split, in T1 you ditch your wetsuit and collect your bike. In T2, you ditch the bike and grab your running shoes. The problem with Nottingham is that it is two looooong rows of racks and my allocated rack was right at the bottom end near the run exit, so I had to run bare foot from the dismount line to my rack, which was around 50 meters!
People who racked at the top end were already in their running shoes and flying past me.
My feet were freezing cold and the surface I was running on was loose dirty and covered in small stones.
I had to brush off all the stones and grit from my feet before pulling on my running shoes.
The Run
Again, I took it easy at the start of the run, thinking that I would probably DNF anyway.
But it felt fine, there wasn’t any of the pain that I was expecting, so I just went with it.
This was my first race with the newton tri racer and they were superb. My only criticism would be that the opening for your foot is a little small and I struggled to pull my cold feet into them.
I didn’t push too hard, not wanting to risk further injury.
Near the end of the run, fellow Oldbury STC triathlete Jonathan Hunt rocked up beside me, so we ran for a while chatting about how the race was going so far. At this point, the competitive side of me kicked in and I thought that I can’t let this young pup beat me over the line ;) as we went down the a little hill, I took the opportunity to push on and up the pace a little.
Still with no pain, I pushed harder to the end and finished with a sprint and a negative split.
Conclusion
I wasn’t expecting much, but I managed to beat my time from last year by three minutes.
Each stage was faster than last year. So in the end, not bad.
Swim = 00:13:03
T1 = 00:01:29
Cycle = 00:32:39
T2 = 00:01:30
Run = 00:20:58
Total 01:09:39
267 OA (589)
40 AG (83)
Nutrition
Breakfast: - Porridge, pretzel, nuts and honey.
Bike:- PHD Amino Drive BCAA and Elivar endure in 600ml camelbak podium (small nozzle) mounted between the aero bars. (I only drank half of it)
post race: - massive English breakfast :D
Kit Used
- Huub trisuit
- Garmin 910xt with quick fit kit and bike mount (multisport mode without transition)
- 2XU Z:1 wetsuit
- zoggs predator flex polarized goggles
- cressi anti fog spray
- Cervelo P3, Zipp firecrests
- Front mounted, 600ml bottle
- Rudy Project Wing57 aero helmet
- Specialized Sport RD shoes
- Newton TriRacer
- Blue Seventy race belt (worn under wetsuit)
- Notes
- Lube legs
- Lube shoes
- Don’t bother with the garmin on the swim
My battered old bodged up shoes
