This is what it's all about, I guess ^_^
Preparation-wise, I think it went pretty well, stopping overnight was a good idea, allowing the day itself to be relatively less stressful. We probably won't need it for Ilkley next year, but it was good to have everything sorted the day before.
I think we were all nervous leading up to the race, although Nom's nerves were slightly more
externalised. The nature of the beast, I guess, doing something for the first time, something extremely tough, in front of crowds of people. Still, there were lots of lovely friendly people around, which helped.
It's funny how, as soon as you get into the water, all thoughts suddenly exit the mind. For all the planning to pace myself on the swim, my first 100m was a ridiculous pace. Luckily, after that, I managed to calm myself down and get into a sustainable tempo. It was still a pretty surreal experience, though, to be able to hear people cheering me on. (it must've been pretty loud, because as I got out of the pool, one of my lap counters commented on my 'fan club'!)
My swim time overall was tremendously fast, somewhere around the 10-minute mark. As to why this happened, I'm not quite sure, whether it was the adrenaline, the preparation, or simply the tri suit. One suspects a combination of several factors. Cost myself about 5 seconds struggling to get out of the pool, but you can't have everything.
On to Transition 1, and the glaring hole in my preparations became clear. My transition training was virtually nil, and I think literally nil in the case of T1. If I had practised this, I might not have left my socks in my bag! Upon noticing this, my brain did about 4,000,000 calculations in a second, concluding to not bother with them for the bike.
Everything else went smoothly, and I set off for the bike leg. I think I started out too conservatively, hanging behind riders out of fear of drafting. What I should have done, as I did later, is crank through the gears and blow past them. I suppose I was a little surprised at being faster than other riders! Made another mistake coming onto Carter's Lane, changed gears down too soon, leaving me spinning like a loon on the fairly flat ground. Eventually, though, the gradient did increase, and though it felt tough for me up there, it seemed tougher for others, as I passed quite a few folks. The downhill was still terrifying, and someone actually passed me on there! He was clearly a good descender, he was about 5mph faster than me, disappearing out of sight on the first lap. (Got past him on the uphill afterwards, though!)
Really cool to be cheered as I passed the Lido, although I think I barely acknowledged people. Focus. ^_^ Lap 2 was fairly smooth, lap 3's uphill was really tough. Had virtually nothing left in the tank to be honest, got myself through by concentrating on riders in front, forcing myself past them by mental strength alone.
Transition 2 came, and body and mind were exhausted. This was made worse by a couple of cyclists in front of me as I pulled in, which weren't racing (yet). This caused my brain to break, and I was advised to calm down by a marshal, as I looked fairly lunatical. Lunatical enough to shout incomprehensibly about my socks to Nom, who was unlucky enough to have been in the transition area at the time. This did approximately no good whatsoever. Anyway, socks were discovered in my bag, and I set off running (having technically racked my back in the wrong position, and the wrong way round). Had a brief adventure finding my way out of T2 - it's a fairly long diversion. Also realised I still had my spare inner tube and tyre levers in my tri suit. Luckily, Mrs. Odd was coming across to take a photo, and I threw the tube in her general direction.
With that, off I trotted. At first, had a slightly dodgy stomach, think it was the fluid I'd taken on board during the bike leg. This had settled down by the time I got to Carter's Lane. I knew at this point that I basically had one mile of tough running before the downhill section. But my goodness, it was tough. Once again, my body wanted me to stop, and my brain had to overrule it. It was probably the hardest 10 minutes I've ever put my body through.
Finally reached the top, and the lovely family at the top who were having a picnic and cheering everyone on, and relief washed over me. Knowing that I had just a downhill and sprint finish to go gave me an extra burst of energy, and I absolutely flew down Curly Hill, certainly faster than I've ever run before. Middleton Avenue was quick (although not quite
as quick), and, despite nearly missing the turn into Denton Lane, found a sprint finish across the line, where I promptly fell over.
Was kinda hoping to be mobbed by well-wishers, but instead the first person across to me was the guy after my timing chip. -_- Oh well.
1:11:18 was the time, then, good enough for a first effort.
Coming next - Part 3 - the future!
