Windsor this weekend
PC67
Posts: 101
in General Chat
OK, so who's doing Windsor?
Feeling good / bad / otherwise?
I can't wait but am nervous. Have been traveling a lot and was on the lash earlier in the week.
But beer = carbs, so I'm considering it carb loading!
Feeling good / bad / otherwise?
I can't wait but am nervous. Have been traveling a lot and was on the lash earlier in the week.
But beer = carbs, so I'm considering it carb loading!
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hopefully it doesnt rain
Just a quick thankyou to the guys on the "Fast Guy Freight train" that tore up the bike leg, obviously I don't know their names but...
The guys on the :
Blue Serotta, Scott Plasma, Felt F75, Silver Allez
A great group to ride with that really kept me going.
BTW I was the guy on the pikey White Pinnacle
I did a brutal swim. I thought the current didn’t look any stronger than last year and I felt I wasted too much time last year over on the right of the course. This year I took a more direct line to the first corner and then to the buoy.
Funny thing is, I actually felt like I was doing OK, as this year there were guys with the same coloured caps alongside me throughout whereas last year I really felt I was swimming alone, or with the next wave.
Last year I was in the water for 32 mins 50. When I looked at my stopwatch getting out on Sunday I was devastated: 36mins, don’t know how many seconds. My official swim time was 37:26 because I think the timing mat was about 50m from the swim exit.
Last year I did one of the slowest T1s in the whole field. This year, shocked by my slow swim I just went like the clappers through T1 and can’t wait to see my split. I think I left the gates at 40 mins even, 3 mins down on worst-case target, but I think I made up a fair amount of my lost swim time in this year's T1.
It got better from here. Refusing to accept a similar time to last year I never let up on the bike (no matter how much I wanted to) and clocked 1:14, versus 1:17 last year & did a reasonable T2 I think.
My run was 48:40 versus 54:30 last year.
Overall I clocked 2:44:50, inside my 2:45 target, just! Gotta be happy with that, especially after such a poor swim.
I did 1500m in 32 mins in training only last week so can only assume it was the current, but who knows? Maybe I just didn't have a good stroke or whatever.
If I can just improive my swimming (doable in principle as I had no lesson and had very little pool time this year) I think sub-2:40 is well within bounds.
That’s the next goal. To date I’ve only done one race a year and only started swimming in April. I’m going to swim throughout the year and do more events, including some duathlons.
I should add that I had the best bike location of the whole field: the last bike on the last rack beside the run exit! Impossible not to remember exactly where it was. Same racking spot next year please!
rpopper65: did you make your 2:40 target?
steveslay: go under 3 hours?
It was my first Olympic distance having done Blenhiem a couple of weeks ago and a couple of pool based sprints earlier in the season.
Finished in 2:35:05 which I'm fairly happy with despite a slow T1 when despite plenty of rehersals both Sat and Sun morning still couldn't find my bike. I'd counted my paces to my bike however, if you go down the wrong row, it doesn't help locating it....doh
As for the swim, it was like trying to swim in a washing machine! I don't recall finding any 'clear water' until well into the way back when it was nice to glide with the flow.
I have to say I did mentally curse the guy infront of me who on three occasions changed his swimming direction by 90 degrees cutting straight across me, once causing me to stop and swallow a mouthful of that lovelly Thames water.
Loved the cycle despite stomach cramps. I needed a wee but there was no way I was stopping.
Then the run, just as the sun came out to play. Felt good on the first lap overtaking a lot of people. I think that they all overtook me in the second lap as I started to suffer (cramps still there). However the third lap felt better despite being the slowest of the three. Everyone else must have been slowing at that stage!
A week off now, next race MK in JUly
No, not even close. 2:48. I am very disappointed in my performance on Sunday. Got off to a slow start on the swim, never really got the "get up and go" burst that I needed to hit my target time. I tried a new strategy of holding back on the swim and just swimming more efficiently (a la Total Immersion) and then really going for it later, but instead I just came through with a lacklustre performance where I saw all times notably worse than anticipated.
I was very disappointed (and a little angry) with the amount of automotive traffic on the roads at Windsor. I have never had to fight with cars, trucks and buses for space on the road in a race. Although, the countryside was lovely and the weather was nice, so at least it was a good day for riding.
Anyway, it was a good training experience and learning opporunity. The week before the race I took it very easy and didn't do any of the high-intensity, short-distance training I had written down in my training plan, and maybe that explains why I couldn't seem to come up with those high-intensity bursts on the race day.
On the plus side, my recovery from the race was the best I've ever had, with my legs feeling totally back to normal by Monday afternoon and not needing to take a long nap on Sunday afternoon. And this was my first Windsor, so perhaps I will be better prepared and have something to compare it to (you can't really compare times on different courses, can you?) next year.
enjoyed it though i too was disappointed with the amount of traffic on roads for cycling
could also have been improved with distance markers every 5km on the bike which would of made things a bit easier as i didnt check my bike computer at the start so didnt know how far id done/ still to go
also dont understand why we wore timing chips but dont get our transition splits
plenty of room for improvement though before next event london olympic in august
rpopper, I think it's a slowish course so times are probably a little high compared to other events.
I'm very disappointed there are no transition splits as I think I did really good transitions this year and I'd love to see how I did against the rest of the field in this regard.
Idea of a bike course marker is good.