Dinner, Dinner, Dinner, Batman !

 

Holy cow ! Did todays triathlon take me through the streets of Gotham itself ?? Well no, more around it on a sort of bypass, and the Gotham in question itself is not the mythical home of the Caped Crusader, but the small namesake village in Leicestershire ! This of course is not going to stop me providing a Dark Knight themed race report……

 

 

With the clocks going back this morning it made it a mega early start and my swimtime of 8.48am was in reality an hour earlier on my bodyclock, and indeed the 5.25 alarm call was stupid o clock for sure. 

 

The weather had been predicted to be wet and windy all week, but by friday this forecast had changed positively, and to be fair was as good as it was going to get for March, it turned out to be sunny, cloudy and a little breezy. We arrived at the leisure centre with plenty of time to spare, and once I had registered , I took the bike out of the car and took it through to transition where it looked like they were running out of racking already ! The best thing about transitions is that when you set them up, everybody looks like they’ve got OCD and I’m no longer an oddity ! Once everything had been laid out neatly and in order, it was time to make our way to the pool. As we made our way past reception, the Australian Grand Prix was on and I could see the last lap where fellow Triathlete Jenson Button was about to take the victory. This is how things went…..

 

 

Swim – 400m –  11.57

The pool water was certainly warm and we could see steam rising from it, mind you the door was open, and it was still a bit sharp outside. Once we started I tried to concentrate on keeping a steady smooth rythym without going bonkers. The sixteen lengths came and went without any real incident. I wasn’t overtaken, I only overtook once, there wasn’t any barging or fighting for space, it was almost as if people had been truthful about their swim times when they entered

 

T1 – Untimed and included in swim

The run down to T1 was about 150 metres and once in T1 the transition seemed quite quick and could’nt have taken any more than a minute today which was pleasing as it could have gone wrong very easily !

 

Bike – 20km – 48.13

I would say the bike route is undulating like Southwell but the ups and down last the entire 20km. I elected to keep the shoes attached to the bike and again managed to get myself into them on the ride without falling off ! The ride out of East Leake was really fast as we passed the golf course and in a shocker I overtook some people from earlier waves. We made our way to Gotham and all sorts of Batman linked japery was avoided as we had to go on the bypass instead and missed the centre of the village. There were lots of inclines on the way to Kingston Upon Soar, and the wind was straight in my face at this point. On the hills the faster serious tri types flew past me, however my pace was good for me and I’m sure I was quicker on my in than I was on the way out. At T2, I walked the bike back into transition after the dismount because my legs felt a bit numb.

 

T2 – untimed and part of the run

No fannying about, probably my quickest T2, straight out onto the run course.

 

Run – 5km – 29.52

Hoorah ! The run course is mostly on tarmac lanes – brilliant

The run takes you up a slight incline on a country lane til you reach a turnaround point, then its back down the way you came, a circuit of the leisure centre and repeat a further two times. There was a lot of support and the marshalls were great ! My garmin showed a decent run pace and I felt comfortable, i think I could be a lot faster, I really need to spend some time practicing running off the bike.

I crossed the finish line in 1.30.02 and it felt great to be back !