Woodhall spa / OSBMidland sprint series

Race preparation started on Saturday a day before the race for me, after a week on holiday at center parcs after the dambuster triathlon id not had any time to think about the last race in the midland sprint series to be held at Woodhall spa

I had a few rides on the mountain bike while away in center parcs and had one decent swim,(and a few goes on the lazy river/various slides :)  ) .I decided not to run on my break from work as Id suffered with yet again another foot injury from the race a week before at Rutland waters, over the week the injury disappeared with time and Had 95% faded to nothing by the day of my race at Woodhall.

The Friday I returned home I had a parcel waiting for me at a friends house, I had bought myself a new Race wheels for my time trial bike, a 82 mm deep planet x carbon tub with flat bladed spokes.and a rear 101 mm planet x with a cover to make it perform like a disk wheel (and sound like an Apache helicopter)  I had herd that deep front wheels can be a handful in windy conditions so on the Saturday I took the bike out for a quick 8 mile blast along a few country roads and past a few field openings to see if i was confident enough to race with the wheel, as it happened it wasn't particularly windy so i had little trouble or evidence of what a gust of wind may feel like and how it may effect handling. I took a gamble to use the carbon wheels for Woodhall, generally i like to wait and test a product a little more before bringing it straight into a race environment however I simply could not resist.

I wrote a itinerary of everything i would need to take from the basic(bike, tri suit etc) to the obscure(stapler electrical tape) and what i would be eating up until the event(simple foods like chicken or tuna and pasta and rice) then I packed my kit on the Saturday, I did this early on so if i came across any issues I would hopefully be able to rectify them before the day was over,I usually like to do this the week before but with being away this wasn't possible as it happens all my race kit was in good nick so I was good to go, for the first time I had started thinking about the event and how I felt about my form.

On the Sunday I woke early, packed the car ready to go, my Friend Scot Hargreaves was competing in his first ever event and was over 2 hours before my start time, which is why i left so early, It also gave me time to check the entry and exit points of transition and cheer on other Louth Tri Club members. I ate my breakfast filled my water bottles up and set off with my Family to cheer him on,  When my family and I arrived the car parking was on a field quite a walk from the transition/signing on area, as trivial as it seems  its quite a effort carrying your helmet, bike and transition box with all your equipment in over a distance, maybe I need to re think how I transport my equipment about? my family are more than happy to help me but i feel guilty enough for bringing them along to stand and watch me in what would be a cold wet and windy day!. Once Scot had finished his swim and was out on his bike I had time to sign on get my race numbers and set up my Transition area,  Here I met up with Ross McGreggor, Martin Ball and Glenn Bonner who are all Members of  Louth Tri Club but also part of a Team I will be competing in a relay with in August for the Club relay National championships, Its nice to see familiar faces at these events to share any pre-race nerves with also to help calm each other down and clear any doubts any of us may have before the race, all fully confident and with time ticking away It was soon time to warm up and head down to the swim start for the start of my wave.(pool events are set off in small heats based on your 400 meter swim time, usually a swimmer per lane with 2 minute intervals before the next wave as to not clog the pool up with hundreds of swimmers of differing ability's )

A count down of 5 seconds was called for the swim start, I started my heart rate monitor and set off when the count down had reached zero, Woodhall is a 33 m pool, most pools are 25 m this means the swim actually falls just short of 400 m (396)however this also means you only do 12 lengths instead of 16, In pool events it is your responsibility to count your own lengths 12 might not seem like a lot however when I'm racing it takes a lot of concentration to make sure no lengths are missed or added, (if any lengths are missed you may end up being disqualified) I had a good Swim and was first out of my wave, My transition went smoothly and i decided to take a drink in T1, where this had worked for me in a standard distance event i believe it may have cost me some vital seconds during the shorter sprint format.

As I set out on my bike and my legs felt a little tired from the swim so i made a decision to use a high cadence for a short while to work my body more aerobically than relying on muscle to turn a big gear, this is usually a little slower for me as i prefer to push a big gear rather than have a higher pedal turn over however at around the 5 mile mark I noticed I had taken my eye off the ball and I was still spinning, I had a word with myself and started to push on, once again I believe this may of cost me some time on the bike leg however at the time in the race I didn't realize how much time I may of lost its only through analyzing the results later I realized this .The bike leg in all honesty felt good to me, the weather was atrocious while on the bike, the wind had picked up and the rain was coming down hard I was a little cautious on the sharp corners however I had no issues with my new wheels in the wind or braking with the carbon surfaced rims.

I headed into T2 feeling Great the rain had stopped and I was feeling confident about the run, once again a smooth transition and the cheering from the crowds only helped motivate me more, I took another swig of my drink (possibly costing me a few seconds more), negotiated the sharp corners leaving the transition area and ran HARD when i reached the drinks station I asked if they knew what distance they were stationed at, the return answer was a mile and a half so i knew I was half way and still feeling great, I carried on at the same pace I had left transition at an continued to the finish only picking the pace up in the last 500 m I finished the 5 km run in 17;06 which i was very pleased with as it was a pb for me, the entire event I had completed in 1 hour 02 minutes and  36 .seconds

I felt at the time I had given the race my all only to find out I had been beaten by Jonathan Frary who was second place in the Midland sprint series 30-34 yr age group (I was currently series leader), I had beaten him twice already in the year however he had managed to beat me by a full minute!!, This obviously put a bit of a smear on my how I felt about my result but I can only congratulate him for the professionalism he showed by being a true contender for me right until the end of the series, he also happens to be a nice guy too which made the news easier to except it also taught me a valuable lesson to not loose concentration in a race again and will hopefully make me a stronger athlete for it.

I packed my kit away as the rain started up again, it was cold and wet but the weather didn't bother me as I was anxious to find out if I had lost the series with the days result(I needed to stay 9 points clear to win the series) we waited for around a hour only for the rain to play havoc with the computer system which harbored the results and a even longer wait for the series results to be published.

After the event the Louth Tri Club met up in a local pub to talk about everyone's day and how we all did, during the meet Ross's Fiancee had managed to find the series results on line,
I'd done it!, I had manged to hold on to enough points and Win the series, This was excellent news and a fitting end to a few races in close succession that had all gone well. The team spirit of Louth Tri is usually quite high and the series age group wins from both myself and Ross McGreggor helped lift the spirits even more