Outlaw!

Swim start. I'm the one standing up in the middle towards the rear checking my watch. Photo from Bajandiver

The Outlaw 8th August 2010 Race report



The last time I visited Holme Pierrepoint was about seven years ago, when I was running the Robin Hood marathon. The race course came to the lake at HP about halfway up the southern side and we then had to run up to the western end of the lake, back to the other end and then all the way up the other side. It was a stinking hot day and there was a strong westerly wind blowing. When I reached Holme Pierrepoint I was in 17th place (NB this tells you more about the strength of the field than the strength of my running) and going well after about 19 miles. When I left Holme Pierrepoint I was walking and being overtaken by children and elderly ladies. Thus it was with some trepidation that I came to the scene of my earlier humbling once again to test myself beside (and this time in) the 2km long lake. My race preparation wasn’t good: the season had started off well with a couple of sprint races where I managed a PB, but then everything just got a bit pear shaped – I missed a half-ironman in May because I was sick, then June was a nightmare at work after which I had to go to Borneo for a couple of weeks, followed by a week’s recovery from horrible jetlag and then a brief frenzy of training. Overall I averaged a feeble 4.2 hours per week of training average since January 1st. Nevermind, I told myself, you never know how these things will pan out and I did IMWA on about half that training.

I spent the week before the race in my usual state of pre-race hypochondria, convinced that I had a sore throat that was going to turn into a chest infection and stop me racing. My twitchy state wasn’t helped by messages from Tim who had gone up to Nottingham during the week telling me that the lake was full of weed and in a terrible state. Having aborted an open water swim at the Prince’s Club just a few days ago because there was so much weed I wasn’t too excited about having to drag myself through lots more of it. My only consolation was that hopefully the faster swimmers should carve a path through. We left the sprogs with my parents on Friday night and headed up to Nottingham on Saturday morning. Parked at HP, got out of the car and the first person I saw was none other than Mr Male, in his TTTC trisuit, faffing around with his bike. We went round to the NWSC, I registered, sorted out my kit bags, dropped them off, twitched nervously and went back and checked they had everything in, racked the bike, went to the race briefing which was made more entertaining by the race director, obviously already rather tired, trying to rein in his sarcasm when some people asked rather dim questions that mainly revealed that they hadn’t read the race information.

Had a nice dinner at Pizza Express with Pam and Tim, back to our delightful Ibis hotel and its population of football fans and hen parties and off to sleep. Since it was only a 10 minute drive to the venue I’d planned to leave at 5am which should give me plenty of time for pre-race messing around before the start. What I hadn’t planned for was losing the car-park ticket, which led to a period of quiet desperation until I found the car park attendant who cheerfully took some money off me and let me out. It was a beautiful morning at Holme Pierrepoint once I got there and I took my time getting my wetsuit on etc. – too much time, because I then didn’t have time to pump my tires. Fortunately they were still perfectly rideable but I was a bit worried about the increased probability of pinch flats. Still, nothing I could do about it so no point in worrying. Ten minutes to the start and I made my way to the second start bay (1 hour to 1 hour and 20 minutes), had a few practice splashes and bang on 6 AM the hooter went off and we were underway.



The swim was really no fun at all for about the first km. Lots of bumping and barging, no real aggro but just too many people around for comfort. I couldn’t see any of the buoys because we were swimming into the rising sun and so all I could do was just keep the bank on my left. The weed wasn’t too bad, I found: there were some annoying clumps that I had to fight through but the main problem was just all the people either swimming into me or that I was swimming into. I couldn’t get into any sort of rhythm: it seemed that every time I took more than three strokes someone would get in the way. Round the turnaround was nice and then we had the fairly interminable swim back. I got onto someone’s feet for a while and took the time to admire their lovely ballet-dancer like pointy toes, until I got a bit close and found that they had decidedly un-balletic long sharp toenails. Slooooowly the buildings at the finish line got closer and I could track my progress from the distance signs on the bank for the rowing races. In the last 400m I finally got some nice clear water and managed to get some good swimming done at last. As I came to the swim exit I was pretty despondent, thinking that there was no way I was under 1:20, but as the nice men pulled me out of the water my watch was reading 1:12. Wahey! I have to admit that my first thought was “great! Now I can really slack off in T1” but I soon put that out of my head. Another nice man helped me off with my wetsuit and I charged into the changing tent to total bedlam with loads of people everywhere. I found my bike kit bag and tried twice to get into the male change area only to find it completely full. No worries, I didn’t need to change anyway so why was I messing around? I dumped the contents of my bag on the floor, stuffed my wetsuit in, grabbed everything, got rid of the bag and wetsuit and ran round to the bikes. Number belt, shoes, helmet, sunglasses, energy bar in each pocket and I grabbed Serenity and headed out on the start of the bike. Once round the lake and off into the wilds of Nottinghamshire.

Off round the lake on the bike. Photo from Bajandiver again.

The bike course for the Outlaw has been described using adjectives like “fast” and “flat”. I found it to be neither. You ride out about 12km from HP and then go three times round a big loop, and no part of the loop is flat, with constant short climbs and then a series of long drags up towards the northern part of the loop. This is then followed by a good few miles of gradual descent on good roads where you can maintain a nice high speed, but overall the hills, combined with a fair number of tight bends mean it’s quite tough if you’re trying to ride fast. Obviously it’s not a really hard or hilly course, but it’s certainly a lot harder than, something like IMWA or the Challenge Barcelona course. I put in a fair effort on the first lap and finished it with an average speed of 31.7 kph, overtaking a lot of people which was a pain – I only saw a small amount of real drafting but there was a lot of (probably unintentional) riding in loose packs that made it really hard to get by people if you wanted to ride clean. I saw quite a few marshals on motorbikes but they didn’t do anything to break the packs up which would have been helpful. Lap two was fractionally slower and psychologically quite hard, plus my saddle came loose on one of the climbs. Fortunately the legendary Paul L from tritalk was spectating just where I had to stop, dressed for some reason in a poncho and sombrero. I scrounged some Allen keys (I had some myself but they would have taken a minute or two to get to), tightened up the saddle and off I went again. Lap 3 was good, I kept the effort up and felt good the whole way round, going through 100 miles in 5:07. The overtaking business was a bit of a pain again because by the second half of the lap we were lapping some riders. I had a bit of a nasty scare when I got to one of the aid stations to find they’d run out of sports drink – I had visions of the kind of wall-hitting that had happened to me in Barcelona when I missed a drinks station happening again, but I got to the next aid station with no trouble. Finally back to the Lowdham roundabout and this time instead of turning left for another lap I zoomed straight through on my way back to transition. This was when I realised how many people had only been on their second laps because the road was suddenly empty whereas before it had been full. Back to Holme Pierrepoint was mostly fun although the dodgy roads, gravel and speed bumps towards the end of this section slowed me down a bit. Finally turned back into the watersports centre and was surprised by the dismount line – only just managed to unclip without falling over.

Final bike time was 5:47, exactly the same as my bike split from Barcelona. This one was much more satisfying though because as I’ve said, it’s a deceptively hard course: only three people went under 5 hours, and I kept up a sustained but manageable level of effort the whole way round. Nutritionally I did it all on three gels and probably five bottles of sports drink. The two energy bars that I’d stashed in my pockets to munch on both fell out before I got to the start of lap one.

Into the change tent for T2, sat down next to a guy who was munching an energy bar and asked him how he was doing. He looked back at me with empty eyes and mumbled something and I realised that I was in the presence of the living dead and I left him to fight his own battles. Shoes on, spent way too long messing with the Garmin and off I trotted. The first part of the run is just a run round the rowing lake, followed by three laps of an out-and back along the Trent with a further lap of the lake after each one. Once again I was running on a hot day by Holme Pierrepoint rowing lake – redemption or another disaster? I went off fine, feeling a bit tired but not too bad. The first three kms were fine and I was going at about 4.30 pace. That seemed a bit fast and I eased off to about 5.00 per km. This still seemed a bit fast and I slowed down a bit more. I glanced at my heart rate once and it looked high but I’ve often found that the Garmin gives some strange spikes occasionally so I didn’t pay attention. This was probably a mistake because on reviewing the data later it seems that not long after I started the run my heart rate went right through the roof and stayed there for about twenty minutes. Not sure what it was caused by but had I realised I’d have slowed right down until it went back to normality: as it was I kept up the effort, told myself I was just having a bad patch and tried to run through it. Once round the lake I saw Pam who got quite excited then it was onto the out and back and a big shout and high(ish) five for Tim as he ran along on his way to 6th place overall. I was feeling OK-ish when I got back to the lake, but then I had a stop for the loo and straight afterwards I got nasty abdominal cramps that reduced me to a hobble/walk: Holme Pierrepoint won again.

On the run before the wheels fell off. Please admire my ripped quads and don't notice my receding hairline.

Hobble, walk, hobble, walk. I finally managed to get the cramps under control and got back to something approaching running but by now I was melting in the heat and feeling like death. I ran from aid station to aid station and taking walking breaks while I poured water over my head and swilled coke. The second out and back by the Trent was hard and then the third was just mind over matter as I made myself keep going. Finally I made it back to the lake and set off to the far end for the fourth time. I swung round by the final aid station, took a little walk break, girded up my loins and headed for home. Turning left into the finish chute felt gooooood and I crossed the line in 11.16.31 following a 4.06 marathon (a PW for the distance!). I felt fine after the race, ate some pasta, picked up my gear and had a fabulous shower. I then met up with Tim who procured some marvellous beer: even nasty lager tastes good after a day of slurping isotonic long-chain maltodextrin solutions.

I was a bit disappointed not to manage a sub-11 finish but on later reflection I’m happy with how I did. My swim time was a real surprise – lots of people seem to have had fast times and it’s possible the course was a bit short but I think it’s unlikely. More probably the very calm lake coupled with the simple course and easy navigation just led to lots of people going fast. The bike was great, a real breakthrough ride for me with a good, solid consistent effort the whole way. Ifell apart on the run but I think I was basically just undertrained and there’s an easy remedy for that next time. Even given the crash and burn on the run I finished in 146th place out of 714 finishers. Compare this with 453/1023 at IMWA and 439/1282 in Barcelona and I’m definitely moving up the rankings. Best of all this time I finished the race without a screaming pain in either achilles tendon, unlike the last two IMs I’ve done, and this time I should be able to run in the next six months rather than limping around and whinging.

This was the first year that the Outlaw has happened, and the race organisation was superb: pretty much everything was spot on, and all of the important things. The marshalls and all the other volunteers were superb and the whole thing was a real success. The UK now finally has a really well-run, properly organised ironman distance race that charges about half as much for registration as the competition and I would recommend this to anyone wanting to go long in the UK. 

Race 2

I didn't get round to writing anything about race one. It didn't go too well: I got very cold waiting for the start and then suffered in the wind on the bike. I then added to my slow time by making a splendidly stupid error: I spent 8 minutes in the neutralised bike zone going back to transition, when you're only allowed 7, meaning that I had an extra minute added to my race time. I would like to point out that I spent this 8 minutes of dawdling (and waiting at traffic lights) wearing my pointy hat, which probably saved me 15 seconds over the race...

So to race 2. These races have pool swims and competitors are set off at 15 second intervals. I was number 447, so my start time would be around 8:45 am. This wouldn't be a problem at all if I didn't have to register sometime between 6:00 and 6:30 am; but unfortunately, I did; so I had to get up at 5:15 for a race starting 3 1/2 hours later. The early morning had its usual effect: I got up, stumbled around loading everything in the car, kissed Pam goodbye, got in the car, remembered that I'd forgotten to eat breakfast, ate breakfast, got in the car, drove off and then promptly drove back to the house where I went in to get my pump and then finally made my way to Hampton Pool where I picked up my number, had the same number written on various bits of my body with marker pen, racked Serenity and then mooched around for a long time, variously reading, drinking coffee, queuing for the loo, watching people swim, queuing for the loo again but mostly watching the cold Northerly wind shaking the trees. There was steam rising from the heated pool until the wind took it, and it was almost as cold as the last race.

Finally, fifteen pages, two coffees, three visits to the loo and assorted mooching later it was approaching my moment. I sorted out transition, stripped down to my trisuit and went and joined yet another queue, this one featuring an array of shivering goose-pimply misery. "I'm swiiiimmmminng in the Caribbean, the Caribbean and I'm in my haaaaaaapppy place" sang racer 446 as we stood with our feet warming in the kiddie pool waiting to start. 445... 446... 447 and Mr Taylor sent me off.

Twelve lengths, 426m. The pool is divided into six lanes so you go up one side, turn, back down the other side, go under the lane line as you turn, rinse and repeat. I tried to keep my stroke rate up, my legs up and my head down and just enjoyed the lovely warm water. The seeding was obviously dead on: no-one overtook me, I overtook no-one and the whole swim was easy and trouble free. Coming out of the water my time was 8:13, 27 seconds faster than race 1. I put on a rain jacket in T1 because the cold wind was really Oh so cold, shoes, helmet, sunnies, number, stuffed a gel up the leg of my trisuit and scampered out to the bike mount. Total time (swim and T1) was 10:21.

The start of the bike course is just outside the entrance to the pool, just before a bus stop. Of course, when I got there the bus stop was occupied by a bus which was also blocking the road and so I had to wait until old Mrs Miggins had found her bus pass before I could start riding. Once it had actually started moving the bus seemed to be unable to go at a speed greater than 18 mph as it slowly drifted down into Hampton with me grinding my teeth until the driver swung over in a leisurely fashion into another bus stop, this time giving me enough room to pass. Out of the saddle, bang bang bang and up to speed, down on the bars, take the left turn onto the main road towards Hampton Court and up to 40 kph. That bit was fine, but it was also the only bit where there was any real tailwind. Once round the roundabout and heading back to Hampton it was headwinds and crosswinds, and there was nothing for it but to try to stay aero and grind into the wind. Nothing remarkable happened on the way out to Chertsey. I negotiated the Nine Speedbumps of Doom and the Potholes of Despair in Sunbury without falling off or breaking my bike, and successfully swerved around every one of the Uncountable Traffic Calming Measures of Shepperton. All the way the crosswinds blew me around and slowed me down, and knowing the wind was a Northerly I didn't expect it to get any better on the way back. I was correct.

Coming back the crosswinds were now more like a full headwind, and my enjoyment was increased by the traffic. First I got stuck behind a slow-moving Fiat in Shepperton, and then another car in Sunbury which took it veeery easy over the Speedbumps of Doom, went a little faster for a couple of minutes but then stopped altogether because somewhere in the distance there was a bus coming in the other direction. Nice one. Having escaped Sunbury and its combination of shocking road surfaces, excessive traffic calming measures and drivers who seem to have taken too many mogadons I put the hammer down as best I could for the last couple of kms back to the bike stop, enjoying the close attentions of the driver of a dark blue BMW who clearly thought that six inches space was plenty to pass a bike. Total bike time 39:06 or 33.3 kph average speed. Annoying because I really lost a lot of time to the bus and the Sedated Sunbury Sedan.

Never mind. I took advantage of the neutralised zone going back to Hampton Pool to slurp down my delicious and nutritious gel, and made quite sure that this time I took less than seven minutes. As I rode back through the car park to T2 I took my right foot out of my shoe but only got halfway through doing the same with my left foot before the bloke in front suddenly decided to stop, meaning that I had the interesting experience of trying to unclip with the straps on my shoes undone. Fortunately I managed to avoid the obvious outcome and remained upright.

One consequence of the neutralised zone in the TTTC races is that you suddenly go from easy pootling along to full-on race mode. As soon as I got into T2 I was back racing and after a quick change of shoes, helmet and jacket off I was off running. I immediately felt good: I was moving along nice and fast and everything seemed just right. I nipped around someone on the way out of transition, out onto the road and got the hammer down. Up to bushy park, reeling in another competitor, through the gate
and then onto the big loop that you run. I went past the 1km sign at 4:40 on the clock (including T1), left by the drinks station and past the 2km sign with my Garmin registering a 3:39 km split. Interesting: my stride was shorter than a normal 5k race but my cadence was high and I just felt good. The third km was a bit slower because of the wind but I carried on passing runners, including a lady who was going pretty fast herself. Then back round for the second loop, past 4km in 16:25 and could I manage a 3:35 final km for a sub-20 minute 5km run and transition from the bike? Not quite: I crossed the line in 20:06 and then had to have a little lie down on the grass for a while until I got my breath back and had a nice chat with Kat who had just done her first tri.

The final result was 47th place overall and 11th M40-49. A new PB for that course of 1:09:34, which is about a minute faster than my previous best. My combined swim and T1 of 10:22 was 134th fastest, so in the top third which is better than usual for me. Bike split of 39:06 was 70th fastest and my run+T2 split of 20:06 was 21st fastest and the fastest overall in the M40-49 category. In fact looking at the results I think my run was the fastest for any male >40, so I am officially the fastest running old grunter in sprint triathlons in Middlesex in early May.

Lessons learnt: not much that I could have done about the bus or Mr Mogadon in Sunbury, but I have a real tendency to slow my cadence down and grind when there's a headwind. My average cadence on the bike was only 83, and I know that I do best at about 90-95. The other big lesson is not to listen to myself the night before a race: I really didn'f feel like doing this the night before, and I'm really glad I did now. Finally, Fuller's London Pride seems to work very well for pre-race carbo loading.

High quality race prep.

All normal people are in bed and asleep at 6 AM on a bank holiday Monday. Good for them. I will be standing around in a lycra suit next to a swimming pool in Hampton because tomorrow is my first race of the season: race one in the Thames Turbo Triathlon Club series. My preparation has been, hmmm, questionable so far. I've done some work on the turbo trainer, a bit of running and the occasional swim but there have been lots of interruptions: work, resurgent achilles tendonitis on occasion and then bursts of apathy to slow things down as well. I've taken steps to make up for my lack of form though: most importantly I've got myself a really nice new bike. I picked up the frame nice and cheap from someone on Ebay: the poor guy had got a new frame as part of an insurance deal but had then come into some financial trouble and had to sell it. I felt bad as I took it off his hands but once I started stroking its shiny carbon curves the guilt passed.

I already had the wheels, and I got the components from a variety of more or less dodgy internet suppliers, ending up with a big pile of small expensive pieces of alloy and carbon fibre and a frame. I managed to conquer my fear of headsets and bottom brackets and assemble it into a working bicycle over a few days and only made a mess of one thing, the cable housing for the front brake. Et voila! A splendidly shiny aero super bike. This does put me into an unfortunate position because I have now moved myself into the category of "middle aged bloke on a really flash bike". Add the aero helmet into the mix and my race is doomed: I am looking forward to being passed by people on mountain bikes, small girls on sparkly pink bikes with streamers and old ladies on black sit-up-and-beg single speeds.

Swimming wise I'll be fine though. I got a bit distracted by work and apathy for a while but I went on Friday morning and then again this morning. This means that I have now swum 2/3 as much in the last two days as I did in the previous month, so I should be fine. Running has been continually interrupted by the achilles tendon but in the last few weeks it's got a fair bit better (touches wood) so I went and ran the Bushy Park 5k yesterday. Unlike my normal strategy of running the first two kms way too fast and then spending the rest of the race grovelling along with my tongue hanging out I forced myself to run the first bit more sensibly and had the pleasant experience of finishing strong and passing lots of people. The whole course was saturated and slippery and I ended up in a comedy sprint for 16th place with mud and feet flying in all directions. Final time was 18.58 which isn't fast but given the slime we were running through I'm happy with that.

Swim will be down to my usual standards then. Bike might be OK and the run should be alright. I'm one of the last people off so there should be plenty of time for the prevailing crosswinds to get going, and I'll enjoy running while most other people have finished and the marshals have all got really fed up with hanging around in the cold. As I type this Fabian Cancellara is rampaging up the Bosberg in the Ronde van Vlaanderen just to give me some perspective. At least there aren't any cobbles tomorrow.

Calendar for 2010 so far

OK, getting it back together. Achilles tendon is almost fixed, now I just have some respiratory lurgy. This is my calendar for 2010 so far:

7th March Surrey Rumble 
28th March VO2 Sportive
5th April Thames Turbo Sprint 1
3rd May Thames Turbo Sprint 2
16th May Etape du Dales
23rd May Swashbuckler Triathlon
13th June Bala Middle Distance Tri
23rd-25th July London to Paris in 24 hours
8th August Outlaw Triathlon (IM!)
4th September Vitruvian Triathlon


That really should keep me quite busy. Oh yes. The middle part of May in particular might be a little tiring...