The little beaver – not so little..
A 5am start meant leaving a little bit early to get up the Beaver Castle. We arrived at 7am and had loads of time to start the process of setting up the bike. I did a quick check of the mount lines and noticed a 400+m run from the water to Transition. My pre-race nutrition plan was to drink high-5 in car but I only managed 20%. But my first mistake was to leave Garmin Edge for the bike at home on charge.
My nutririon plan was to have a sports bar before the swim and a zero tablet in water and 1 gels on the bike. I always suffer from cramp and musclte fatigue after 90 mins. I actually read the following that was handed out in our race packs -
http://www.highfive.co.uk/pdf’s/TRIATHL … ISH_LR.pdf
I realise that nutrition is key to racing and I’ll review my practice and try and reproduce the events in training. So back to the sports drinks for me with the Zero Tablet in the drink as suggested by the High 5 manual.
The Race
Open Water Swim
I felt the swim went to plan got off to a good start and managed to swim next to a few swimmers and thus use the advantages of some drafting. I also felt I had a good line with the sighting. It couldn’t have been all bad as I think I managed 21min but this didn’t include the run that made it 24 mins, I also managed to drop my googles and hat as I lacked some composure.
T1
What not to do, try and put on a watch in T1, why, why, why and I didn’t even look at the watch once during the race. The reason was I forgot my Bike Computer at home and thought that the watch would help. Wrong it cost me at least 30 secs. The bike mount was a success and I even passed 3 people, I left it to a scoot mount but will continue to practice. BUT my elastic band did not snap on the left side and I left it on all the way through the bike course.
Bike
The bike was a good hard course and nothing I hadn’t raced on before. The first lap felt good and I passed a few on the hill as I got into the cycle I was feeling strong. However, as I came onto my 2nd lap I started to get some hamstring pain so eased off. The hill felt like I was cycling backwards and I even had to drop down on the front to tackle in a seated position. I remember thinking If I push now I’ll blow my legs up 
I also did the school boy mistake of not analysing the cycle course and the number of laps, this cost me time as I passed on the first lap. What I did notice by marshalling the beaver is that I corner slower than most and take a great amount of care and lose time, I guess I’ll be in work on Monday….
T2
A success ? I think I did a good dismount and I ran with the bike into T2. I was happy with my pre-race analysis of T2 and this helped in the execution. Then drop the bike and the HELMET 
and off I went onto the run
Run
On Lap 1 I instantly felt my left hamstring and my right quad. I thus eased off and just tried to run some kind of pace (slow). I kept on looking at people’s calf and amazed by the number of F that passed me as my heart sinked. The 2nd lap I felt stronger and managed to pickup a bit but then the 3rd was just too hard to take and my legs just gave up as my muscles just stopped functioning (Hamstring, Calfs and Quads).
Overall
What got me the most was that I had a great swim and good bike and terrible run. Saturday was good as I helped with the beaver and this took my mind off, but Sunday has just been me battling with the science of Mustle Fatigue, think that’s the analyst in me.
Time
Overall Position : 107
Age Group : M30-34 31
Swim : 00:24:13 (91)
T1 : 00:01:18
Cycle : 01:10:53 (144)
T2 : 00:01:26
Run : 00:48:48 (152)
- 02:26:41
