the return match – one year older, one year slower and…
…certainly not one year wiser.
Yesterday saw your intrepid local triathletes compete in this year’s New Forest Swashbuckler (Half Ironman Distance of 1.9k swim, 56 mile cycle and a half marathon to end with) and it’s not a pretty story with a cuddly happy ending. All was going well as Jonathan and I met at 3.45am (yep, you read that correctly) and hit the M3 in a journey we’d completed several times, latterly only the day before for registration. There’s no way we could get lost as there was no-one else on the road, right? Wrong. Can you believe it we got horribly lost, ending up on the wrong motorway THREE times before finally getting back on the M3 at Eastleigh only to find there had been an accident and the police had closed it! Doh.
Needless to say a certain level of, initially anxiety and latterly outright panic, had now set in as the car park closes at 6.00am, transition shortly after and the starting claxon sounds at 6.15am. It’s universally accepted that these times are non-negotiable and time and tide (as it was a sea-water estuary swim after all) wait for no man. Thankfully the motorway was eventually cleared (how long do they have to sweep up the debris for?) and Jonathan truly drove the tranny-van like he’d stolen it – smoking squealing tyres, jumping red lights (I kid you not!) and spinning the poor van’s turbo at revs I suspect the manufacturer didn’t intend it to. We made it to the car park at 6.05am, where a special dispensation had been granted for it to remain open a further five minutes, and stumbled into transition with only seconds to spare. Numerous proverbs concerning p*ss poor preparation and failing to plan jump to mind but believe me the two strung-out-emotionally-drained stressed and harassed individuals who were the last ones to take to the water as the claxon sounded the off certainly paid the price for it.
Then. Carnage.
Because we started close to the jetty (OK on the jetty) what ensued in the maelstrom of a mass start can only be described as carnage. I don’t think I touched the water on more than a couple of occasions during the first 400m as it was just a teaming cauldron of bodies, froth and aggression. My swim cap lasted about a minute before being ripped of and whilst I didn’t actually lose my goggles they were knocked off at least twice resulting in no ‘seal’ on my left eye and having to swim with one full of lovely salty stinging sea water. Nice. Yeah I know I should have stopped to re-seal them but you stop at your own peril and I suspect I would have been swam over and obliterated even more had I done so. Jon saw a couple of swimmers turn back and many more clutching the sides of boats and vessels in an attempt to get away from the frenetic action and catch their breath. Not nice. He also saw several people deliberately cheat and cut short their laps. B*ggers and they’re only cheating themselves…and the rest of us! Last year saw me exiting the water in 38 minutes, this year saw me crawling out on all fours, throwing up and laying down for a rest in 1.01.43…over an hour ferchrissakes. But I was just glad to be out it.
From then on it did get better, much much better and I have to admit the cycle and run were great fun. The New Forest is a tremendous place to ride being (at those times) largely traffic free, relatively flat and with smooth pot-hole-free tarmac. Watch out for the free-roaming wildlife though as they do think they own the place and will have you off as soon as look at you. En route you dread a puncture or a ‘mechanical’ and I have to admit that every time I see someone with a wheel off I do guilty think that the odds further favour me from actually joining them in such. That’ll get me banded from most cycling clubs in the South West I suspect but it’s the truth! 2.39.28 was six minutes faster than last year and pleased as punch with that I am. Jon and the guys were still way more quick than I but even he was starting to suffer I think – pulling into transition he got out of his cycling gear, dried off and then put his cycling shoes back on…for the run. Doh.
Needless to say that hitting the road at 10.00am on what was to prove the hottest day of the year so far was never going to be THE most pleasurable of experiences. And calling it ‘running’ is decidedly questionable. Until your legs realise you wish them to undertake a completely different motion than cycling they really don’t want to play and won’t do much more than a kind of demented, crippled shuffle where one foot is placed in front of the other…occasionally. By the second lap the temperature was touching 27 degrees and later saw a high of 30. And to think only a couple of weeks ago we faced hailstones and freezing temperatures at the Hart Tri. Crazy weather. Being a ginga I could now feel my pasty white anglo saxon flesh starting to sizzle and when a couple of my fellow competitors warned me that I was I was starting to turn the colour of their favourite seafood crustacean I knew I was in for a world of hate and pain later in the day. But for the time being I had a finish on my mind and managed a bit of a spurt for the last couple of miles coming in at 2.06 – three minutes longer than 2009 but so what and no worries.
So how did we all do:
Steve Campbell (in his first long distance event) – 4.59.07 – a stunning, awesome time.
Tony Marsh (ditto and he’s an old boy!) – 5.01.05…but I bet he’s gutted this morning about those 65 seconds.
Jonathan Greaves – 5.37.12 – twenty minutes slower than last year but not too shabby for a guy who works ‘nights’ and survives on four hour’s sleep a day.
Carl Beetham – 5.47.45 – also exactly twenty minutes slower than last year and again exactly ten minutes slower than Jon. B*gger.
Mike Steven – 6.11.03 – a squash pal of mine who plays for Foster Wheeler and who I was soooo relieved to pass on the bike and not see again!
Next year? No. The big one (UK Ironman) is only two short months away and then I will be giving up the crazy distance stuff. It’s just not good for you, no matter how (secretly) enjoyable it is.
