The race organisers had setup a bag compound to store your gear while you raced. But you could only use the bag handed out during registration which was way too small to carry half the stuff needed. With transition only open between 6:30 and 7:30am and our waves not starting till 10:10am and 11:20am, we had enough time to setup our transition and then go back to our apartment where we dropped off stuff like the pump and picked up more gear like our wetsuits.
We used the London hire bikes to travel between our apartment and the race site. They were a GodSend, not only saving us lots of valuable time, but also protecting our feet that were still sore from so much walking over the previous days. Having such a late race start, we decided it would be wise to have a pre-race coffee to ward off the caffeine withdrawal headaches. So we popped into a nice cafe on the way back to the race site. It conveniently had a hire bike rack right outside, unfortunately the coffee was pretty average.Once back at the race site the earlier waves were already underway, so we popped over to the transition to see where we would have to run. People can tell you stuff, but it is much easier to remember after watching other triathletes navigate their way through. Then it was time for me to put on my wetsuit and move to the swim start assembly area.
I've made a fair few complaints about different aspects of this event. But the actual running of the race was unbelievably well done - by far the best race organisation I've ever seen. All swimmers were corralled into groups 30 minutes before race start and slowly moved through the different staging areas until it was their time to move onto the pontoon.
We were moved onto the pontoon in single file and lined up against a numbered starting square where we sat dangling our legs in the lake waiting for the race start. I leant down to wash my goggles in the water and the nose piece came apart - very disconcerting with only about 2 minutes left before the gun went off. Luckily I was able to fit it back together, but I lacked a little faith that it would hold for the entire swim, especially if it got whacked by another competitor.
Swim
The swim leg was always going to be vital in me having a good race, it was all about damage control and limiting how far ahead the other competitors got before the bike leg. I actually got a great start and was swimming in the lead pack comfortably on another swimmers toes. Then there was a bit of argy bargy with other swimmers fighting for the same pair of toes and not wanting to loose my goggles I moved sideways and lost the draft. A gap formed almost instantly and continued to grow, my easy ride for a fast swim leg was now gone and I'd have to settle for whatever other toes I could find.
The rest of the swim leg was pretty uneventful. I switched between a few different swimmers toes, suffered the occasional whack from nearby competitors, but generally had a pretty cruisey swim leg. I possibly could have swam faster without drafting, but not much faster and it would have used up a lot more energy. At 12m21s for 750 metres, not the fast draft assisted swim I wanted, but not a bad swim either.
Transition One
Exiting the water, I took off my goggles but still couldn't see properly. At first I thought my eyes must be really sore and couldn't focus on anything, but then I realised it was pouring rain and visibility was very poor.
The grass in transition was quickly becoming mud and I tread carefully so as not to slide over, as many others were doing. Once at my bike everything went well, except it took me a little while to get my race belt on. Other competitors put it under their wetsuits, but I was afraid it would get stuck or tear when quickly getting the wetsuit off. Elaine forgot to put her's on and had to run back (around 300m) to retrieve it before heading out on the bike (as a result her T1 time is very slow).
Bike
As mentioned earlier, it was pouring rain, visibility was very poor and the roads were extremely slippery. The bike course contained numerous speed humps each lap, some gentle and a couple a little on the nasty side. Without having ridden the course beforehand I was unfamiliar with the severity and location of these speed humps. It was very disconcerting riding almost blind wondering when one of these obstacles was going to suddenly appear.
I was also very fearful of the corners. I had already seen people crash that morning, then on the first lap a rider crashed right in front of me. Definitely a day to take the corners very slowly. Unfortunately in addition to the 4 hairpin U-turns there were an addition 26 corners that were very dangerous in the wet.
My first 5km was very slow averaging just 36kph. As I grew in confidence, so did my pace and my average for the next 4 splits were all over 39kph. But the story of the bike leg was passing other competitors on the straights and then getting caught and passed back on the corners - very frustrating.
Overall my average for the bike leg was 38.3kph. Disappointing considering I averaged over 40 kph for every Sprint Triathlon last season (including a best 41.5kph avg). But it would have been a helluva lot worse if I crashed, as so many others did.
Transition Two
As I hopped off the bike my legs felt good and I passed numerous competitors as I ran through transition. My feet were very muddy and for some reason they banned towels in transition, but I figured the mud would just cushion my feet in the shoes.
Run
My calf muscles felt tight at the start which is not unusual, but as normal they loosen up within the first kilometre. I found myself running fairly comfortably at my target pace. Everything seemed to be leading towards a good run leg.
Analysing my run data after the race, I slowed slightly on the far side of the Serpentine when running down Rotten Row on both laps. It is a very gradual uphill, but I suspect it may have been a slight headwind as well. Other than this section I held a pretty much constant pace until the last kilometre when I was able to push to the line.
My official run split is 18m29s for 5km. The run was definitely full distance, but the timing mat was situated a fair way into the run, so the distance of the split is only 4.9km. Either way it would have still been under 19 minutes which was my pre-race aim, so very happy with my run split. Although it was probably helped by the slower bike leg.
Overall
I finished in 25th place in my Age Group out of 107 finishers (there would have been numerous DNFs who crashed on the bike). And I was the 2nd Australian home in my Age Group out of 13.
I figured I would not be able to control factors in the swim or the bike. So the only pre-race time goal I set was to run sub 19 minutes for the run which I achieved. My second aim was to be first Australian home in my age group which I failed by being 2nd. And finally, it was more of a wish than a goal, I was dreaming of finishing top 10.
The conditions conspired against me. In the dry the bike course would have been very fast. And being long at 22.5km would have definitely played to my favour. However the rain and very slippery conditions completely nullified the advantage of my strength on the bike. Without the rain I think I would have been closer to 15th place in my age group and touch and go whether I couldn't have beaten the other Aussie.
Elaine finished 50th in her Age Group and 5th out of 7 Australians. She's a little disappointed she couldn't go faster, but considering the lack of training she did extremely well. Our friend Martin had a great race and came 18th (and 2nd Aussie) in his Age Group.
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