A Tale of Three Races

First up at the end of August 2023 was the European Middle Distance Championships in Belgium which was my ‘A’ race for the season. Belgium’s claims to fame are being completed flattened in the war and having ‘frites’ as a national dish. They also had one of the best organised Age Group races I have had the privilege of racing, and a very large GB contingent!

However the river looked as attractive as a four year old’s potion. ‘Keep your mouth shut and drink coke afterwards’ were my thoughts. Glad I did as many were sick and water samples taken on the day failed quality tests. But as results take a week to process, it was all a bit late! It was a pontoon start so I practiced diving the day before. On the day I managed to pull off my first ever dive start and keep my goggles on. I then had an adequate swim and ran into transition, which was the centre of an athletics track where 1200 bikes were racked. Remembered where my bike was and then the least said about the debacle with my shoes the better. Sufficient to say that I need to rethink footwear and that I lost a chunk of time.

Loved the bike though. Just moseying along trying to keep power between 120 and 130 watts as planned. There were some long gradual uphill drags and some fast downhill sections and the two laps seemed to go very fast. For once I didn’t feel alone as an older woman on the course as they set the aquabikers off just after us, nice to have company. It’s the first time my ‘new’ tt bike has really felt solid after lots of experimenting with arm positions, and some tortuous time trials. I could even read all my figures with a new garmin holder. I wondered what the run would bring as I strained my Achilles in early May and have only run 2 x easy 30 mins a week for the last three months. Great prep for a half marathon! The plan was go slowly the first 3 miles or so and let the legs come back to me. I tried, and as I hit three miles someone in my age group went past so that was great motivation to speed up at the planned time. Paddy told me I was third at that point. I worked hard to stay on her tail until I managed to go past with about three miles to go and I just tried to keep going . Delighted to come over the line in second, also delighted to manage to fuel properly on the run, not my strong point, and run negative splits. Job done, very happy. Total time 5:46:00 with a run of 2:01:00 which is around what I manage normally – so maybe this run training stuff is over rated? Or maybe not! Don’t listen to me on that one!

Second and third up Italy, Lake Garda, for the European Cross Duathlon and Cross Triathlon Championships. We did stop off on Lake Como first for a few days of rest and recovery. Hardly ever been to Italy but these areas are beautiful, a bit like Windermere on steroids – better weather, bigger mountains, bigger lakes.

Lake Garda was HOT! 30 degrees plus which is hot for slogging uphill on a MTB dressed in the sweat bag which is the GB tri suit uniform. And FRIENDLY as a number of friends were racing which made for a good crack. The duathlon was first up and with two hours to go the organisers announced that over 60s would do two laps instead of four on the bike course due to extreme heat; that caused a bit of an outcry! It was quite short anyway with an initial 4 mile run on the flat, unusual for cross, and 28km bike course with four laps and 2,500ft of climb, then a final run of just under two miles.

The bike course was then reduced to nearer 13km for us with 1,500 ft of climb. The course was hard work to ride but not technical, lots of steep uphill. I had a poor first run, no idea why really, then onto the bike where I could see Helen, friend and rival, in front. She is better technically than me and two falls on the same corner (duh) put paid to my chances of catching her. Any ego I had left was flattened by a younger male shouting ‘out the way Grampa’ as he shot past! He could at least get the sex right! Survived the last run and ended up 5^th out of 5 with 4.5 mins separating 2^nd to fifth, with racing time just under two hours. Good fun and I learnt lots.

I had 48 hours to digest my learning and recover enough to repeat the experience. So my rest day involved a little swim, a little bike, lots of ice cream and a bit of replanning.

Then I lined up again to compete in the European Cross Triathlon Championships. This was a really interesting race for me as reflecting on the duathlon meant I made quite a number of changes. It was the same course as the duathlon with a swim in Lake Garda to start with. An on shore wind and strong sunlight made the first leg of the swim challenging, like being in the sea without the salt. The oldies won out here though as we were the only ones allowed optional wetsuits, we all chose to wear them. I realised that Angela, the German in my age group, was drafting on my feet. Came out for the Aussie exit with her on my heels, dived back in again and my goggles came off. Couldn’t see so I stopped to put them on, Angela went past and I then jumped on her feet and drafted her for the second lap. We laughed about that afterwards.

Didn’t bother with MTB shoes this time, went straight for running shoes, and left the bladder behind. This also meant I had to re-think my repair kit options as I was carrying it in my bladder rucsack. I just took water bottles on the bike as the course was shortened for us wrinklies again, so I needed less fluid. I arrived at the three flights of stairs along with two others and with Angela in my sights. A flying dismount took me infront of the other two and I set off up the steps waaaay too fast, causing a huge HR spike which meant the whole of the first lap was hell. There was about 15 mins of uphill riding after the steps so I never really recovered. Come the second lap I realised I needed to fuel alot more for the run and that the hills where I’d planned to fuel where too steep to take my hands off so I did a bit of recalculating. Ingested 60g carb in the half hour before the start, then 140g in 1.5hrs of riding and 20g on the run. So a total of 220g, about right. Despite putting more air in my tyres to go faster on the tarmac I managed to stay on this time on the technical sections and eventually came barrelling into transition. Last effort, four mile flat run. Like a park run instead of the usual uphill challenge – thank goodness by then! Eased into it and hoped my legs would come back to me, gradually they did sufficiently to pick up the pace a little. Not anywhere near enough to catch Angela but good enough to hold on for my second silver of the holiday.

A great ten days in Italy, friends, ice cream, sunshine, beautiful scenery and some taxing racing where I learnt a lot.