Earlier today I completed the Milton Keynes Olympic Distance Triathlon in 2 hours 41 minutes. This was a good time for me but the course had been made slightly shorter due to the torrential rain and flooding of the past few days.
It did not start that well as the hotel I stayed at nearby had a wedding reception their so I could hear all the cheesy 80's/90's wedding songs. I think I got about 5 hours sleep before the alarm went off. I waited for a few more of my alarms before getting up.
When I got to transition I noticed that they had rotated it by 90 degrees to reduce the saturated area in the transition area. However it ended up muddy with patches/puddles of water or mud, this was not helped by their being I think 1,000 people doing this event.
I was unpacking my stuff and I was thinking their is something missing. I realized it was in my cycling shoes which where in the boot of the car. I checked the time which was 5 minutes before the transition should have closed. I checked with the stewards who said I would be allowed back in if the first wave was not out of the water. I ran to the car and back with my cycling shoes, that was my warm up. I then had a further 40 minutes before my wave started. So I put on a old race t shirt instead of being done up in my wet suit and getting really warm.
The 1500m swim was a M shaped course (starting on th right edge) followed by a short ^ shape to the swim finish. I stayed at the back of the wave and did not go of course much on the first turn, the second turn I noticed half way that I was of course by a bit so corrected my direction to the next turning point. About 2/3 the way around I noticed my googles had started to mist up so was making sightening the buoys a bit more difficult especially when the sun was in the line of sight reflecting off the lake. I managed the swim in under 34 minutes, which I was pleased with.
The first transition I took just over 6 minutes which was pretty quick for me. It was helped by my bike being near one of the rack ends near the bike exit. The thing I struggled with was getting my cycling top on when I was still wet, I eventually managed this with the tri suit on top. I was glad I was trying some new black running socks as by the time I made the 10m run out with my bike, my cycling shoes where covered in mud.
The cycle I struggled for the first few miles to get one of my shoes clipped into the peddle. A marshall even helped my get some mud of them, eventually I was able to get them both clipped in to the peddles. The course had been altered and slightly reduced by 2 miles (3km) by the recent flood. This meant the big hill at the end of the loop was not done but they took you on a route which a few more longer undulations before joining the planned route until the last 5 miles (7km) or so. You could see some of the fields below the road to the left which had been turned in to lakes. I completed the cycle in 1 hour 16 minutes which is an average speed of 17 mph (27 kmph). During the first half of the ride I did seem to struggle, this could be due to the lack of cycling done recently and therefore the loss of cycle fitness, in addition to struggling to get the shoes clipped in correctly. However the average speed was about right for this sort of distance.
The next transition I completed it in just over 1 minute, as it is a relative quick change. As it was fairly cool on the cycle only 16C (61F) I decided to keep my long sleeve cycling top on underneath my trisuit to save some time in transition. As a lot people had been in the transition area by now for each of the stages it was really muddy now, so more cycling shoes where covered even further.
The run was 3 laps which a section of about 100m had been removed as it had been turned in to a waist high lake. This made the run 9.6km (just under 6 miles). As you left th transition area their where various puddles and muddy sections which where about ankle deep. I was glad I double knotted the shoe lace before leave, as the mud or water went totally over the show and as they are more breathable fabric, some of the moisture got inside the shoe. I was glad I took a sports drink with me on the run as it was starting to warm up, I was not too impressed of my decision to keep the cycling top on, although it could be partly undone to cool down. Most of the lap was on the road around the park their was a section of about 1km (0.6 miles) off road on the grass/mud and trail paths. I did the run in under 45 minutes which was only a few minutes away from my normal running 10km PB, so I was pleased with that time.
Overall I was pleased I did this event as I learned a few more things and tried some new kit out, I will try some others in training runs.
However this was the last race before Ironman UK which is now less than 4 weeks away!!!
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