{"id":10224,"date":"2012-05-28T11:33:51","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T10:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/?p=10224"},"modified":"2012-05-28T11:42:17","modified_gmt":"2012-05-28T10:42:17","slug":"big-cow-triathlon-race-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/05\/big-cow-triathlon-race-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Cow Triathlon 2012 – Race Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 27th 2012, Big Cow Triathlon, one of my ‘A Priority’ races this year and something I’d been working hard towards for months. I’m still relatively new to this triathlon malarky having only started last year and this was my first big, higher profile race. Not only were there close to 1000 competitors, many more than any other race I’d done, but it was my first proper mass start.<\/p>\n

The Big Cow Triathlon<\/h2>\n
\"Big<\/a>

Big Cow Triathlon<\/p><\/div>\n

The Big Cow Triathlon was also the British Age Group Sprint Championships, and a qualifier for the ITU Worlds championships that take place later this year in Auckland. This meant that there would be some very fast people here and competition would be tough. Having only done about 5 races until now I didn’t really know what to expect. My previous races had all been fairly small\u00a0affairs. There had been one or two fast people at the pointy end and I’d usually been up there as well. This however was a completely different ball game. The ‘pointy end’ was very pointy, and almost everyone was fast. The best age-groupers in the UK were here and I had no idea how I’d fare in against such competition.\u00a0I didn’t know if I’d enjoy it at this level either but was pleased to see that most people were still friendly and helpful and there was something of a party atmosphere to the whole day.<\/p>\n

Expectations were High<\/h2>\n

My training had been going well, I was fit, getting faster and feeling good. I had very little race experience so didn’t really know how I’d go on the day but that was really the only unknown. It’s always difficult to know what sort of time you’ll do as the course and conditions change from race to race and my lack of racing didn’t help with\u00a0this, but I’d predicted a finish time of somewhere\u00a0between 1:05 and 1:10. If it was 1:10 I’d be satisfied but a little disappointed. If I could do it in 1:05 I’d be over the moon as I was pretty sure I was capable of that, but only if everything went as well as it could possibly go.<\/p>\n

That was until the day before the race when all my training and preparation suddenly seemed to have\u00a0been\u00a0in vain when I ended up in the local A&E Department<\/a>. I managed to recover well from that little incident though and went to bed on Saturday planning on doing the race as long as things didn’t take a turn for the worse again.<\/p>\n

I woke at 1:53am on Sunday, a little earlier than the 4:30 I had planned but it did at least mean there was no rushing. I lay awake in bed for a bit then got up\u00a0and had some coffee and porridge and headed off to Emberton Park to get set up. The organisation was excellent as would be expected from such an event but I soon had my transition area set up, checked out the ins and outs of transition and got myself ready.<\/p>\n

\"Mass<\/a>

Mass Start Swim<\/p><\/div>\n

Anna, Morgan and my parents arrived to watch, I said hello to them had a little chat and then it was time to go.\u00a0My wave was off at 7:40am, a mass start of Male 40-44 year olds. We all had our category marked on our calves so had been branded with an ‘H’. It was a big category and one of the more competitive ones. I lowered myself into the water of the lake and was pleased to find that it was lovely in there. Not only\u00a0was it not cold, but it was actually warm. I did a few little warm up sprints then lined up ready for the start. I’d heard horror stories about mass starts with kicking and punching and all sorts of argy bargy but wasn’t too worried about that as I’m fairly confident in open water.\u00a0With 10 seconds to go I started my watch. 5,4,3,2,1… The whistle sounded and we were off.<\/p>\n

The Swim<\/h2>\n
\"Me<\/a>

Me at the end of the swim<\/p><\/div>\n

I made a bit of a sprint start as planned in order to get out towards the front and stay out of trouble. It seemed to work as there was no bashing and barging and no issues whatsoever. I couldn’t really tell how many people were ahead of me as I was\u00a0concentrating\u00a0on sighting for the yellow buoy but as I rounded the first buoy I eased off the pace a little, settled into a rhythm and thought that I was probably in about 8th place. I kept my stroke clean and steady and had a fairly easy swim. I didn’t push too hard, just kept up a steady effort and had an enjoyable swim around the lake. I put on a little bit of a spurt towards the end and climbed out of the lake. Graham shouted something about a ‘good swim’ from the sideline as I passed him. I pressed the lap button on my Garmin 910XT<\/a> as I crossed the timing mat and saw a time of 11:04 for the 750m swim. I thought I was probably in about 7th place but I didn’t care if I was 7th or 70th I was happy with that time, especially as I’d started my watch early. My official time was 10:49.<\/p>\n

T1<\/h2>\n

Transitions were a bit of an achilles heel for me in my last\u00a0race in Pwllheli<\/a>. In comparison to my positions in the swim bike and run, I was well down the order in transition so have been trying to improve in this area over the past month or so. As well as new ‘speedy transition shoes<\/a>‘ I been thinking quite a bit about it, had decided to try leaving my shoes on the bike and would put them on whilst cycling\u00a0and had practised getting my feet in and out a few times. I came into T1 focussed and concentrating, I was out of my wetsuit in no time, helmet on, grabbed my bike and went. I mounted my bike without stopping and started slipping my feet into my shoes, strapped them up and was off and riding well. There were a couple of tricky gates to negotiate before getting onto the road but I took these calmly and cooly and that\u00a0was that, T1 had gone well. My official time for T1 was 43 seconds, up there with the fastest of the day so I’m pleased with that.<\/p>\n

\"Out<\/a>

Out on the bike - That's me at the bottom right - Nice photo Anna!<\/p><\/div>\n

The Bike<\/h2>\n

The 20km bike course follows an undulating loop and I was soon up to speed. I\u00a0thought there were probably about 7 or 8 people in my category ahead of me, but there were also lots of other people from categories that had started earlier in the day out on the course. I was overtaking lots of these, but none of them had and ‘H’ on their calf so I was holding station in my race. I wasn’t that long though before a few people overtook me and these guys were branded with an ‘H’. They also all seemed massive as they sped past me on their aero bikes with disk wheels and pointy hats. I felt tiny in comparison and a little out of place up to these guys, I lost a few places but only a few and I was going well.<\/p>\n

My heart and lungs were fine, in fact, I had plenty more to give but my right hamstring was twinging a little and I didn’t want it to cramp so there was no point trying to pick up the pace to stay with these guys and I actually eased off a little. I’d told myself that I would have to leave T2 in 45 minutes if I was going to be on target for a 1:05 finish and as I approached Emberton Park it looked as though I was on target.<\/p>\n

T2<\/h2>\n
\"Sprinting<\/a>

Sprinting into T2<\/p><\/div>\n

Time to concentrate again as there were some tricky gates to negotiate, I had to get my feet out of my shoes, dismount at the right place and focus on T2. I got my feet out a little too early really but wouldn’t have lost much\u00a0because of it. I swung my leg over my bike as I approached the dismount line and got off the bike at speed. It took a few frantic paces running barefoot on the tarmac for my legs to catch up with the speed and my calves cramped a little with the sudden change from cycling to sprinting but they did what I asked of them and I arrived at my transition stall, racked my bike, removed my helmet and slipped my running shoes on. I had to pfaff a little with them as the side and tongue turned in on\u00a0themselves\u00a0as I put them on but I sorted them out and headed off on the run.<\/p>\n

As I crossed the timing mat I pressed the lap button and saw a time of 44 minutes something – I was on target for the 1:05 ‘best possible’ time.<\/p>\n