Damn Dambuster busted my damn backside!

Earlier this year, when I was planning my 2016 triathlon season, the Dambuster Olympic (standard) distance triathlon at Rutland Water on 18^th June was pencilled in as my ‘A’ race. It was a qualifying race for the age-group world triathlon championships which are to be held in Cozumel, Mexico, in September this year. All the other races, chiefly the Slateman double, were to be used as training races building towards this one. I have to remind myself that prior to this year, I had only competed in triathlons for one season and only one of my three races last year had an open water swim. They were all sprint distance too, so it wasn’t exactly ideal that my first bash at a standard distance race was at the worlds qualifier! When I sat down with Dennis and Liz (Elliot) at the end of last year and planned my line of attack for 2016, the one qualification race they said was best to avoid was the Dambuster as it notoriously attracts a strong field due to its location, setting and superb bike course. What race did I end up opting for? Yes, the Dambuster! Not because I ignored their advice, and not because I was arrogant enough to think that I could still qualify here, but mainly because it was the only race that fitted in with my schedule. The other two qualification races were earlier in the season and clashed with Slateman; also, I needed time to build up towards the hilly 42km bike course and so needed more cycling miles in my legs. So Dambuster it had to be!

This was 2015, then came 2016 and with it talk of zika virus running rife in Central and South America. Suddenly the Olympic Games in Rio had a cloud cast over them and suddenly I am thinking that destination Mexico isn’t the attractive prospect it once was either. The zika issue is complicated and many people will just say, ‘It’s not dangerous, it’s a lot of hype over nothing, don’t worry about it’. And yes, I agree, and I am not some massive hypochondriac that is scared to travel anywhere with tropical diseases – I am well-travelled and not usually fazed by such things. I don’t want to talk about my personal health issues here on a public blog, but just to say that, for me personally, the zika virus has reason to make me question whether the benefits of going to compete in Cozumel outweigh the risks involved in doing so.

So, here I am, two weeks out from the Dambuster and of the mind-set that even if I qualify, I likely won’t take up the place. The age-group qualification system is complicated, and one of the many processes you have to go through is to pre-declare your intention to qualify by registering your interest with the BTF and paying a processing fee of £10. Even if you finish first in your age group, –  indeed, even if you win the race outright at a qualifying event – if you have not registered and paid this £10, you cannot be selected for the GB team. It seems bizarre as it can mean that a weaker team is often selected as a result, but that’s just the way it’s done. I was so adamant that even if I qualified, I wouldn’t take up the place, that I almost didn’t bother to register and pay the fee, but Matt persuaded me that for just a tenner, I would be daft not to and I would buy myself some time to make a proper decision if I did qualify. It did mean, however, that I went into the race less motivated than I would have been, had I been desperate to qualify, like I was at the Clumber Park Duathlon.

And so to race day. The race was the day after my birthday – bad scheduling! – and so I spent the majority of my birthday traversing the UK on various over-crowded motorways. A stop at the Gloucester Farm Services for a proper cup of coffee was pretty much the highlight! I wasn’t feeling all that energized and up for this one. Aside from the qualifying/not taking up place issue, I had been struggling with a string of coughs and colds since Slateman in May. June also comes with the added bonus of being hayfever season. I had just about shifted one cold, then did the South Hams tri and it came back again with a vengeance. As a result, my training volume had had to drop off and my fitness levels had taken a nose-dive. I wasn’t hitting my usual times on my hill reps when running, and my swimming had suffered tremendously. A CSS timed swim one week before Dambuster saw me post a time of 7:24 for 400m: slower than the 7:15s I usually bash out with ease as part of a 4 x 400m intervals set. I was feeling constantly tired, had had to have a day off sick from work for the first time since I’ve been in this job, and basically I knew that what my body needed was a mid-season break, not to be heading into my targeted ‘A’ race feeling physically tired and mentally drained.

On the drive up in the car my nose was constantly running. I tried to tell myself it was hayfever, conveniently ignoring the fact that we were sealed in, windows shut, and air-con on. Saturday morning, race day, alarm goes at 5am and yes, it’s confirmed, I have another sodding cold. I’m totally bunged up, feeling groggy, extremely low on energy and have zero enthusiasm for getting out of bed and going to swim 1500m in a freezing cold lake, nevermind the 42k of cycling and 10k of running that was to follow. There’s only so much that excessive amounts of nasal decongestant spray and coffee can do for you when you’re in this sorry state!

The women’s wave was the last wave to go off, at 7:40am, but all competitors had to be racked before the first wave at 6am. This led to a lot of standing around, getting cold and wishing I could just get on with the thing and get it over with and finally celebrate my birthday! It was the largest mass swim start I have experienced yet, with 150 females all lined up together. The first buoy came very soon, about 100m into the swim, and so it was obvious from watching all the male waves go off that the swiftest and most direct line was by starting on the far right hand-side. The advice is that if you don’t like the washing machine effect, either start at the back, or start on the far edge of the line and take a longer route. No, I’m not the best swimmer, but I am ridiculously competitive and so there was no way I was going to swim any farther than I had to, so I started on the far right, about 3 rows back. We hit the first buoy en masse and it was total carnage. I lost count of the amount of elbows and feet I had pummel me in the face. Two or three people tried to swim over the top of me; it was just horrid! I was glad when we rounded that buoy and the field started to thin out and I could find some clear water, start to establish my own rhythm, and get my breathing back under control.

At 1500m this was the longest openwater swim I have done to date, and it seemed to go on and on and on. What I found though was the longer it went on, the stronger and smoother I felt, and in the latter part of the swim I started to pick people off. That said, I was very relieved to round the final buoy and turn for the exit! Swim time: 32:00. Earlier in the year I would have expected 29 – 30 minutes, but, like I said, I haven’t been well for a month or so and this was a pretty accurate reflection of where my swim had dropped off to!

Women's wave mass start at Rutland Water.

Charge! To the first buoy.

Here it comes: the creature from the black lagoon!

A smile of relief that the swim is done!

The usual faff with wetsuit / numb hands from freezing cold lake combo. 

Onto the bike and I knew I had a lot of places to make up (later found out I was the 102^nd woman out of the water – shockingly bad!). We had driven part of the bike course the day before and the race organiser’s description of ‘hilly but not technical; suits a strong biker’ proved to be spot on. There was barely any flat ground to be found, but the hills were long, straight and sweeping and I found I didn’t need to hit the brakes once. It really suited me as I am strong on hills, but a Jessie on technical descents, and these descents didn’t bother me as you could see what was coming. The route was mainly along A-roads, which would have been near empty when the first elite male wave went off at 6am, but were getting busier by the time we hit them at 8:15am, but they were wide enough and, apart from one congested village, I didn’t need to adjust my speed for traffic. It was, however, a very windy day, and although the course was effectively a large rectangle, it seemed that whichever direction we turned into, it felt like a headwind! I knew I was making up ground as I was picking off rider after rider and nobody came past me, but I was acutely aware that that was because there were only about 50 ladies left behind me after the swim and most of those would be the slightly less athletic ones, so that wasn’t really an indicator of me having a good bike, more an indicator of how atrocious my swim was!

Into T2 after a bike split of 1h19, averaging just under 20mph for a hilly course. I didn’t know how this compared to the other women out front, but as an indicator, I knew that when my friend Lucy Commander rode this exact same course as part of the Dambuster Duathlon, in which she qualified for the GB age-group duathlon team, she posted a bike split of….. 1h19! So that was at least a sign that I’d had a fairly decent spin.

Help! Which way to the run out?! (2 hours of hanging around before my wave start and I didn't think to check this, doh!)

Off on the run, which was a flat out-and-back 10k along the lakeside path and out over the dam, from whence the race derives its name. The route is a big curve and so, when you turn at the halfway point, you can see the finish across the lake and it looks so tantalisingly close, and yet you know it is actually 5km away! I felt comfortable on the first half and arrived at the halfway turn bang on 20 minutes. My plan was to lift the pace on the return stretch, but I turned and suddenly realised why I’d felt so comfortable: I’d had a tail wind on the outward leg, and now had a stiff headwind, with nowhere to shelter from it on the exposed dam. My pace dropped off slightly and I was starting to get very low on energy, having to dig really deep into my reserves in the last couple of K. My main motivator was to finish and then I could have my well over-due birthday celebrations and prosecco!! My 10k run split of 40:30 was the 5^th fastest female run of the day. Not enough though to make up for the 10 minutes I lost on the swim and when I went to get my print out of my finish time and position I was both shocked and disheartened to see I’d come 32^nd female overall and 10^th in my age-cat. This is the lowest I have ever placed at any form of race, and it was a bit of a leveller as to where I am at when faced with quality competition. As an indicator of the exceptionally high standard at this race, there wasn’t a hybrid bike in sight, nobody was cycling in their running shoes, and my poor Cannondale was pretty much the cheapest bike on the rack! It again made me question whether there is any point in me even doing tris whilst I am losing so much time on the swim. I certainly had written off Mexico qualification, as I needed top 4 (definitely not 10^th!) in my age group to secure auto-qualification.

Just caught this Jersey age-grouper in the last 200m of the run!

Happy to finish this one.

Mind you, this was before I'd seen the results and realised I'd come 32nd, so this smile soon faded!

The one bonus of finishing so far down the pecking order was that there was no hanging around post-race for prize giving! I’d had enough; I was cold, wet, full of lurgy, and I knew that there was an exceptionally large bath tub waiting for me back at our hotel room! Post-bath, it felt like I’d been up for so long it should be dinner time, but in reality it was still only midday! We spent the afternoon exploring Melton Mowbray. No pork pies were consumed, but a very large (and very early!) meal was enjoyed… and yes, it did include prosecco!

Hello megga tub! My husband has a habit of choosing good hotels!

Hellz to the yes! Let the belated birthday celebrations commence!

After 3 nights in Rutland we went on to Stratford-on-Avon for 3 nights and saw 2 productions at the RSC and made the use of my free staff entry by visiting multiple N.T. properties, indulging in the odd cappuccino and scone along the way! After that we had a further 3 nights in Birmingham and we had tickets for all three days of the British Athletics Championships. A great itinerary, but unfortunately I spent most of the holiday ill: turns out that doing a triathlon on a cold doesn’t actually speed up the healing process, who’d’a thought?!

Pre-show drinks by the river outside the RSC in Stratford.

Ready to watch Dr. Faustus - but feeling knackered and full of cold, as you can no doubt see!

At the British Athletics Championships in Birmingham.

Halfway through the holiday I checked my emails and was flabbergasted to receive an email from British Triathlon to say I’d been given one of 6 discretionary places for the GB team for the world triathlon championships in Mexico. I had totally written this possibility off, finishing so far down the pecking order, but it turns out that as the Dambuster was by far the toughest selection race on offer, due to the high quality field, they decided to allocate all of those 6 discretionary places to participants at this event, so I just snuck in through a rapidly closing backdoor!

Am I going to Mexico? Jury’s still out on that one. I am very near to making a decision though, so will save that announcement for my next blog!