I did it. I completed the Fambridge Half Iron triathlon at the weekend and it was hard. So far I have raised £690 for Blind Veterans UK. Please feel free to add to that total. I still have a little way to go before I hit my target of £1,000. BVUK is in its centenary year so it would be great to help fund the work they do with service, and ex-servicemen and women young and old.
Despite it's closeness I haven't really spent a lot of time in Essex. Once you cross the Thames and turn right there is an air of being in a foreign country. Baked soil, brown grass. water towers and push ahead drivers. As Motorway turned to A road and A road to B road and finally lanes I felt I was abroad, well almost.
The Fambridge area is a beautiful place with weatherboarded houses, marshes and rural lanes. I camped at the Fambridge Yacht Haven which offered great views of the boats, marshes and the nearby nature reserve. Alongside the locals chatting and tinkering with their boats were Spanish voices, French and Dutch. After a quick recce I pitched the old Vango Force Ten and settled ( as best I could ) and waited for the race start.
I am no stranger to triathlons and even Ironman races so I'm still trying to figure out why this one hit me so hard. Could it be:
- Camping the night before not realising that the Brownstock festival was in the next field. Cue music 'till 4am
- The rock hard ground which made the run really hard on the feet.
- The tide during the swim presenting a challenge
- The wind on the bike ride being in your face for half of the course
- Not enough training
- Me looking back at past events through rose tinted spectacles
- Me getting old
Talking of spectacles there was major casualty. On the road leaving transition was a destroyed pair of white Oakley Jawbones. I did spot a lens among the debris and I think they may even have been a prescription pair (I didn't spot anyone crying by the side of the road so perhaps they were plano). I was behind the enveloping protection of my Bolle 6th Sense S for both the bike and the run. They stayed clear for the whole race and the moderator lenses provided plenty of light for the gloom and then shaded down in the afternoon as the sun struggled to poke through. It had been raining in the morning with quite poor light so full on sunglasses didn't seem like a good option. I had opted for some Johnson and Johnson 1 Day Acuvue Multifocal contact lenses as in registration there is reading to do but distance vision is vital on the course. For the swim I went for a clear, plano Aqua Sphere Cayman goggle. Its bigger eyesize helps for those 'accidental' collision that always seem to happen in mass swim starts. Triathlon is a contact sport.
I've already made my excuses with the poor night's sleep but I haven't mentioned the rain. Not a bad thing as it took the sting out of the heatwave and might even have softened the ground ( sadly not). In a tent rain is noisy, so up I got and put the porridge on -- nice. Tent then packed transition box sorted, wetsuit out, goggles, tyres pumped, tri suit on, lip salve (sun cream? --nah), ID for registration, energy drink, banana, on the bike into registration.
Registration and bike racking was incredibly quick, I could have had another hour in the tent. All done in ten minutes I was left with an hour to wander around (getting cold) noticing that the majority of competitors seemed pretty ripped. The event helpers were great, really friendly with a family atmosphere and all sorts of people pitching in but this wasn't some regional fun run. The competitors fell into three camps: really serious-looking types, the usual age groupers and some fun runners. The bikes in transition were seriously carboniferous and the place home to more Ironman tattoos than you could shake a heartrate monitor at. I just had to wait and get a little more familiar with the murky waters of the tidal river Crouch.
Wait over the race briefing was given and we walked down the slipway to be counted into the sea. The first shock was the tide, most of the swimmers getting in the water were being dragged past the start line by the tide and were furiously swimming back for the start. I'm not sure how many made it but we were off anyway. Hey this is pretty easy, I thought. I had trained in a pool so I put this down to the buoyancy of the wetsuit and the sea water. At the turn I realised that it had been the tide, a tide I was now swimming against and not very successfully, that was hard. Luckily it was two loops of a thin rectangle so before long we were back in the flow. The biggest problem now was avoiding the swimmers I had coming at me from left and right as they sighted but failed to swim in a straight line, or perhaps it was me.
1.9km completed in the water it was up the slipway and onto my worse discipline --transition. I looked at my time for T1, it was over five minutes against an average of less than one minute. But whatever, the bike's my thing. It was a great course, I knew the wind had got up so paced myself as many of the mean machines with disc wheels and full TT set ups passed me by. I overtook a few, and a few more, as the course wore on, it was an enjoyable three hours or so in the saddle, 90km, and I knew I had done it. Essex is flat, but not that flat and the wind is relentless. My clip on tri bars were a useful addition but the position is hard on the old back.
Into T2. Similar form to T1 rerally, I'm slow. The run should have been the most enjoyable bit of the race as the spectators packed the race centre and the garden of the 500 year old Ferry Boat Inn. I like a chat and some banter and as I ran along the grassy sea wall I looked forward to an enjoyable 18km run. Towards the end of the first lap my feet were beginning to suffer from the pounding on the sun-baked, rutted and cracked soil. It was as hard as the road and much more uneven. I slowed the pace as I felt the blisters forming on my feet still soggy from the swim and the bike.
In a strange way I did enjoy the run, had a bit of banter with the volunteers and waved at the crowds, but the little toe on my right foot was paying a heavy price. were getting mashed. There were plenty of strugglers and a fair few runners stretching out cramp so I dug in and got to the end. I'll admit it, it was hard and I knew I was in an endurance race. With the drive home in mind I was limiting the damage.
So why was it so hard? Lack of sleep, tides, wind, strong competition, an old bike, baked ground. None of the the above. It was a proper half Ironman race and they are not easy to do.
And, let's face it, I'm not as young as I used to be.
A quick analysis of my results reveal some shocking stats.
Depsite not pushing for a good start position in the swim I came out of the water in 42.48 placing me in 58th place. Having spent 5.54 in T1 I came out in 157th place. Three hours and five minutes on the bike I came in into T2 in 90th but T2's 4.21 minute stay left me in 153rd. I staggered around the run in 1hour 55 minutes placing me overall in 101 place.