Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Did somebody say Hyde Park Harriers club trip time?

We headed over to Larne in Country Antrim, Northern Ireland for a half marathon along the coast. The route is roughly divided into three sections, with a 7k loop of the down, 7k down the coast to Ballygalley and 7k back. There is a bit of up and down but it is mostly considered a flat course with PB potential. Indeed, the women’s world record was set here in 2021, only for them to discover the course was 54m short.

I don’t think I’ve continuously run for 21k since the Clontarf half marathon last November. I ran around a 2:05:xx at both Lough Cutra and Metalman so I thought I had a good chance of running a sub-2 and lined up with said pacers, alongside Grace who was hoping to run her first sub-2.

The early stages of the race were crowded and it was difficult to find space. It did thin out over time but the coast road also got narrower, which meant there was never much space to drop into my natural stride. The weather was good: cool and cloudy which meant we did not get too cold standing around in the pens for an hour, but also did not sunburn.

There is a reason it is so crowded: the views are spectacular. The town was fine but once we were out onto the coast we had a constant view across the sea and the coastline.

I didn’t get chance for a toilet break before the race so I stopped at around 7k. I caught back up to the two-hour pacers fairly easily only to find Ged reporting that Grace was now way down the road ahead of them. I managed to catch up another few kilometres down the road and we headed into Ballygalley for the turn, as Clare came the other way with a convincing lead over the rest of us.

The way back was even more scenic because we were running on the left side of the road, right next to the coast wall, and could see down to the shoreline. We were both starting to feel it by this point and it was relief to see the remaining kilometres tick down.

My official time was:

1:56:55

Third Harrier across the line and first male. Not that I was counting. A big thank you to Ged for taking it easy on me. And a massive well done to Grace for completing her first sub-2 half marathon. Not just completing it but smashing it with over three minutes to spare. And well done to everyone who made the trip over for the race.

Helmsley Open Air Swimming Pool run a triathlon as a fundraiser each year and it has been on my list for a while: a swim in a heated outdoor pool followed by a bike course around the Moors and a multi-terrain run. It did mean getting up at 4:15 am to drive to Helmsley but surely it would be worth it for the views.

The swim

The pool is beautiful. I wouldn’t quite say bath water but it was a perfect temperature once you were swimming. The swim consisted of 32 lengths (800 metres) and I seemed to seed myself just right, with one overtake and one giveaway during the swim. My lane counter was also wonderful encouraging.

I felt a bit overwhelmed at times during the swim. It’s been very disappointing going from multiple-Ironman finisher to lacking confidence in open water again and here I wasn’t even in open water. It was just a pool that happens to be outside. It has been difficult for me to swim this year and it really shows. I was happy enough with my pace, though.

With one DNF and two cancelled swims, this turned out to be my first completed triathlon swim of the year.

The bike

They said the bike course was hilly. But they also posted a screenshot, with no GPX supplied, saying the elevation gain was 323 metres. I took this to mean they were warning anyone coming up from Lincolnshire that Yorkshire was a bit hillier than home.

But the elevation was simply wrong. We took on the Bransdale Loop through the heather of the Moors, which was very beautiful, but also amounted to 732 metres of elevation gain. There were multiple steep climbs with a maximum gradient of 18%. I was running out of food by the end because I did not expect to be out on the bike course for so long.

The views were stunning, though.

The run

The run starts with a four-kilometre climb up the hill we had just cycled down. I went for a run-walk strategy. Once the hill was completed we turned off the road and went onto trail which was practically all down hill. Game birds were hiding in the hedges and would often run out in a panic as we approached.

Most of it was well-signposted and I only got lost at one point after the farm. The answer was to just keep following the bridleway and I eventually discovered I had indeed been going the correct way. There was a final little hill to get back to the pool and then it was a victory lap of the field.

The result

My total time was:

3:27:34

And my splits were:

This put me 32nd out of 46 in the open (men and trans women) category. This year I have been concentrating on ultrarunning and not training for any kind of speed so it is probably a fair result.

A big thank you to all of the volunteers at Helmsley Open Air Swimming Pool that made the race happen.

What an amazing tournament the Lionesses had in this year’s World Cup.

I managed to catch all of the games, except for the final as I was racing Helmsley Triathlon. Could they somehow sense I was cheering them on in earlier games and that carried them through? Who can say, unfortunately.

It’s unclear how we’re fourth in the world rankings despite being the reining European champions and World runners up. But at least the England team made it through the final without sexually assaulting anybody.

If you’re looking for a flat parkrun, Selby is a good shout. It takes place on an airfield and you run an out-and-back hockey still shape that is entirely flat. There isn’t much else to look at but I didn’t find it boring and there was a good crowd. Thank you to all of the volunteers for making it happen.

Even with a leisurely start time, my alarm went off at 06:00. I debated whether to get up. After a hard time at Lough Cutra and a hard time at Metalman, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to take on Kilkenny. But I also need to get back into the water.

In the end, the swim was cancelled due to water quality anyway. Replaced by a 2.4k run along the same run course we could take on twice after the bike. The first run was easy enough. A lot of people sprinted off and soon realised that had over-paced themselves. Even after T1 the running wasn’t over as the mount line was up a steep grassy hill.

The bike was great. Lots of clear junctions or guards stopping traffic for us. The first half of the course was into a headwind and few other people were using aerobars so even riding at less than 200 Watts I was passing long lines of athletes who were struggling into the wind. Maybe only three stronger cyclists came past me, although I was in the third of three waves.

The second run was also comfortable enough. It is not a flat course but I was just about able to pace myself up the hill. We finished on the top lawn in front of Kilkenny Castle.

My overall time was:

1:20:27

I just scraped into the top half coming 100th out of 212 athletes. Of course, I’m in the M30-39 category, so that only translates to 21 of 34. My splits were:

Pace wise, I was 165th in run 1 and 77th in run 2, so some nice negative splits going on there.

What could be better than doing a middle distance triathlon an then resting? Following it up with a marathon the next day! It is very much unclear why I thought this would be a good idea at the time.

I missed a spot on my collar while applying suncream on Saturday, and even the area I did cover were not looking too fresh. otherwise, I felt an acceptable level of stiff. You might ask how I stayed hydrated the evening before given I had just done a triathlon. This is how:

There were around 26 of us from the running club down at the event so we met before the race for a few team photos.

The first 10k of the race is hilly. I was aiming for a “let’s just get around but it would be nice to go somewhere between 4:00 and 4:30” mood. Given how tired I was from the day before, it soon became clear that 4:30 was going to be difficult but possibly achievable, even with talking the initial hills.

After this, the course moves onto the greenway and levels out. The morning clouds were gradually giving way, though, and the sun kept coming out and slowly baking us all. The organisers had put additional water stations on so I was able to douse myself every 4k or so.

I was tired the whole way around. It felt good getting to the half way point but I began to feel quite anxious after this. I’m not sure if it was the no-mans-land of being past half way and yet no way near finishing, or just being so far away with it being and out-and-back, or just the rest of life getting on top of me. Really disappointing, though, as running is my thing. I kept moving with some running and some walking.

Having raced the day before, it was impossible to come into the race with perfect hydration, so I ran with my backpack and flasks. This mean I had 250 ml of Red Bull sitting in one of them that I saved for the 30k point. The combination of closing in on home and caffeine kick gave me the boost to get through the final hour.

Best of all, there was a crowd from the club cheering us home. My official time was:

4:23:19

We finished the day with a celebration at the pub, followed by a meal and craic. It was lovely to get to know everyone better and thank you for making me feel welcome.

Metalman is a middle distance triathlon on Ireland’s south coast. It takes place in the town of Tramore just down the road from Waterford.

The was on the Saturday so we headed down on the Friday to check into our hotel, get registered, and get a quick fish and chips by the sea. Tramore beach itself is quite exposed with some arcades and a fair ground with a Bridlington feel going on.

The swim

Rough seas meant the swim was cancelled so it was straight into a 90k bike ride. I was very relieved. I’ve struggled to acclimatise to sea swimming over here and that was before all of the jellyfish started appearing. Still, we went in reverse alphabetical order so I was one of the first people on the start line with a hundred super bikes behind me.

The cycle

The route was described as challenging but when you are from Yorkshire, it would very much be labelled as “Yorkshire flat”. That said, the first half of the loop to Dungarvan included a bit of a headwind. Nice straight roads made for plenty of aero time for those that had been practising it.

After the half-way feed stop it turns back along the coast road. This offers some glimpses of the seas before moving inland for a while and then comes back to the cliff tops for some more undulating terrain. I stand by my previous comment about the profile but there was one climb from a beach to a cliff that did briefly hit 15%.

The run

Once back into transition it was onto the run. This was hilly. There were some flat bits but some quite steep hills, too. One of the hilliest triathlon run courses I have done. Thankfully, it finishes with a long downhill. I walked a lot of the uphills but mostly ran the rest of the way.

I thought the race instructions promised Red Bull at the half way point but alas, there was only water. There was plenty at the finish line, though, which I was very glad to see.

Results

My overall time was:

5:34:40

That was good enough for 165 out of 192 athletes. My splits were:

In an improvement over Lough Cutra four weeks ago, this one was not a DNF. My bike spit was faster by 25 minutes. Lough Cutra was about five kilometres longer but I was definitely in a bit better shape this time, though I had skipped a swim. My run time was less than a minute behind despite all of the hills and none of the cola.

While in some ways it is a defeat because I don’t think I would have made it around the swim course if the swim had been on. But accepting that life is hard right now, the rest of the numbers are promising. I would like to say thank you to the race organisers for being so kind and welcoming.

I did make it into one of the official race photos. You can see me sitting on the wall in the bottom right:

The concept of Around The Park, Around The Clock is simple. Every hour, for 12 hours, we run 3 laps of Woodhouse Moor. It is roughly a 5k course making for a total of 60k over the 36 laps. In between, we sit around getting stiff.

It is organised by Toby who, this year, decided to schedule it on his birthday. That meant not only did we run a lot of laps of the park but we also sang happy birthday over and over again until he hid on the floor in his hoodie.

The weather was kind this year, as it was in 2022. My form was okay. I was pretty tired but plodded through. It’s not an event you need to rush. Nor would you want to: chatting is the best bit.

18 of us made it through all of the laps this year. But it’s not really about that. it is more about the social aspect: people can drop in and out, run some laps, walk some laps, or just sit around and enjoy the sunshine and the picnic.

I even made it to the pub this year where Toby was trying to buy people drinks despite it being his birthday.

Thank you for a lovely team, team. And a big thank you to Toby for organising the event. Finally, thank you to Laura, Toby and Lizzie for the photos.

To date, I’ve completed 54 triathlons across all distances and never had a DNF. That changed this weekend. I headed over to Lough Cutra Castle to take on The Gauntlet middle distance race. It is part of the Castle Triathlon Series alongside Castle Howard which I raced last year.

Preparation

Training had been going okay. I’ve been doing around seven hours per week. I have mostly focused on ultra running this year but I was consistently getting a swim in each week. My weakness was probably the bike as I had not taken it outside much this year.

I did try to get a long ride in a few weeks ago but I got a slow puncture and had to limp home. I had the local bike shop replace the tyre and they put some sealant in it. I gave it a few days and it was holding its pressure: happy days, I was ready to race.

Finally, I arrived at the venue on the morning of the race and found the tyre completely flat with sealant leaking all over my boot. I pumped it up and hoped for the best. Everything else went okay.

The swim

The swim course is a single lap around an island and back down the lake. The water was lovely and warm. Somewhere around 17-18 degrees. The wind had really picked up, though, and it made it very choppy. I’ve never seen anything like it on a lake; it was like having a sea swim.

The first half of the course was into the wind and fighting against the waves was very disorienting every time I tried to front crawl. I kept switching to breaststroke to calm myself down and then trying again but it wasn’t getting better so I did almost all breaststroke to the turn buoy and back, hoping that on the way back it would be going with the wind and therefore easier.

It was not easier. But I was also getting increasingly tired from the breaststroke and increasing cold from not going anywhere. I kept looking at how far away the side of the lake was. I’m used to having a little panic attack in the swim, dealing with and getting on with it. But the panic just kept coming and coming.

After 45 minutes in the water, I waved the white flag. The canoeist came over and supported me until the rib arrived to haul me out of the water. They checked my temperature and dropped me off at the swim start point.

The bike

I spoke to the officials in transition and they said they were happy for me to continue if I was feeling okay. Albeit with an official DNF, of course. I took a few minutes to get myself together and did a slow transition before heading out on the bike.

Th bike course is one single 94k loop. The route heads up to south shore of Galway Bay and takes in a lot of The Burren. The landscape was stark and barren. It reminded me a lot of the the north of England. The coastline was picturesque, too, and there was wide view from the top of Corkscrew Hill.

It is a flat course with less than 800 metres of evaluation gain and only two real climbs over the 94k. I was constantly stopping to check my tyre was holding pressure and thankfully it did for the whole race. But it took me a good 30 km to trust it.

Then I hit the first climb and my front derailleur stopped working. The gear shifter was stiff and nothing happened when I pressed it. I got off and walked my bike to the top of one section. When I got off it, it worked fine. But then I would get back on and it would stop working again. Great, I thought, just when I was starting to trust the bike.

I descended the first climb and at this point, my Garmin decided to suggest I was off course and needed to make a U-turn. I couldn’t remember seeing a sign so I tracked back a kilometre until I saw another competitor going the opposite way. I was on the right road after all. That added an extra kilometre onto my route.

Later on, my front derailleur started working again. That was nice.

The big takeaway from the cycle was how evident it was that I had not spent enough time in the saddle. I was able to put the power out but my bottom was so sore by the end that I had to stop every 10k for the last 30 kilometres to give it a rest.

The run

Finally, onto something I felt comfortable. No drowning, no mechanicals, just regular running. Just 3 x 7k loops.

I felt pretty crap by this point but 21k did not seem insurmountable. I did some walking on the first lap and realised I was probably under-fuelling so tried to have a gel and some coke on each lap. This made me feel better, although my pace was pretty consistent. I wanted to chill out but also get under seven hours even though it was meaningless given I didn’t complete the swim.

The feed station had coke the entire time. Often they run out by the time I’m getting towards the end of my run. They did run out of cups, though, so we had to try and drink from the bottle without touching the bottle which ended exactly how you might imagine it to end.

Things were quiet on the second lap and even more quiet in third. Except for the occasional child on a bike coming past me as by this time, their off-road triathlon had started.

I was very pleased to arrive at the finish line. I declined the medal as I hadn’t really finished the thing. Castle Race Series do a good job of high-quality food for Gauntlet competitors and I was given a beef stroganoff (vegetable was also available, of course).

The result

My official result is, of course:

DNF

But for what it is worth, my watch recorded a time of 6:55:50 which breaks down into the following splits:

The run time was frustratingly slow. I’m not a gifted athlete. So, when I started getting my run times down, like the 1:48 I ran at Outlaw X it felt great. This was slow. Not quite Weymouth slow but I am still training seven hours a week and this is all I get?

I want to say a big thank you to all of the volunteers who cheered me on at feed stations and junctions, and gave up their time to make the race possible. And to the water safety crew for looking after me.

The aftermath

What went wrong?

My training hasn’t been stellar. I haven’t done any open water swimming this year and my training has been loosely structured. But I stress that I am still training around seven hours a week, which is a lot by any normal person’s standards and enough to complete a middle triathlon triathlon.

The lack of structure was also unhelpful. It is one thing to be putting in the hours. But I wasn’t getting the long rides in. This just made things uncomfortable; it didn’t stop my race. But the lack of open water swimming really did kill my race. This is time consuming and difficult in early season and I just haven’t had the temporal or mental capacity to do difficult and time consuming things.

More to the point, I think I am just in a bad place psychologically right now. The various crises going on in my personal life and being utterly overloaded by trying to do a PhD, work three jobs, be a dad and still train have taken its tole. I’ve felt anxious, depressed, sad, hopeless and overwhelmed. All of these challenges mean my resilience is running lower than usual. And if feeling that way wasn’t enough, here is the proof that things are hard right now. Perseverance is one of my signature strengths but it just isn’t fully there at the moment.

After the race, I felt like I didn’t want to do triathlon anymore. Or maybe just some sprints. It still hurts right now which is no place to make a decision. But I am also on the clock as I already had another middle distance booked for four weeks time.

Let’s look at what went right. I got 45 minutes into the swim. I kept myself safe. I cycled for 95 km for the first time since August. I ran a half marathon and did all of this on the same day: even though this is my fifth middle distance it is still no easy thing to do.

I find it hard to give myself and a break and say these things to myself so I am going to say them here: Chris, I love you and I’m so proud of you. For fighting for so long, for accepting it was time to quit, for getting back out there, and for all of the things you are doing to try and improve yourself.

Thanks for reading this far. I can’t wait to see you all soon.

A backyard ultra is looped race where you have an hour to complete a 6.7 km loop. At the start of the next hour, you have to be back in the starting corral ready for the next loop or you are out of the race. The winner is the last person standing; everyone else is a DNF.

I packed plenty of spare clothes for all weather and a big bag of snacks including some homemade chicken wraps and a pizza cooked freshly in the morning and packaged up into convenient pieces. The weather was much kinder than at the official recce and everyone set up their camp outside in sunshine.

It has “mountain” in the name for the reason: there were around 230 metres of evaluation gain in each lap. Each loop started with a 22-minute slog up the hill that almost everyone walked. There was then a short section along the top before the bog field and a technical off-road descent through the forest. Finally, it joins a gravel track going back down to base camp. This is the hard way around and the opposite way to how we were promised: perhaps a bit of Irish humour creeping in.

100 people entered the race and 87 people started. By lap three, we were four runners down. The adage is “run your own race” but this was difficult given there was such a big crowd walking the first few kilometres. Being a road runner, I was slower on the bog field so slower walkers would then want to overtake me, and then on the downhill where I would open out my stride (and my gravitational advantage) I would go back past them.

I took my backpack on the first loop to get some hydration but soon decided to ditch the extra weight and eat and hydrate at the end of each lap. This was no easy task, though. Laps would take 52-56 minutes which doesn’t give you much time to do more than one thing. If I needed to sort my shoes out, change some gear, or have a wee, as well as my hourly feed and drink, things got very tight.

I was pretty grumpy the whole day. I was grumpy on lap one because we were going the “wrong” way and the technical bits were hard. Then I sank into “why am I doing this to myself”. After lap six I switched from sports drink to caffeinated drinks, aiming to do between 10 and 12 laps. 10 seemed like a round number. But then 11 would be a night lap and 12 would be one better than God’s Own Backyard Ultra.

After lap nine I grabbed my backpack with a base layer in it and swapped my cap for a buff and a head torch. 49 of us set out on lap 10 as the sun went down. I was feeling relieved by this point that I had reached at least ten. By lap 11 the sun had fully set and I was half excited for a night loop but also suffering. I felt myself wheezing up the hill and the bog field was even harder to navigate because it was impossible to tell what was hard mud and what was soft mud. I got back with four minutes to spare but had already decided I couldn’t face a fourth loop. 33 runners outlasted me.

In total I managed 73.7 km (my watch measured 69) with 2,512 metres of evaluation gain. This is double my next hilliest race, Man Vs Coast. I was moving for 9:48:57 of the 11 hours. Congratulations to Kevin Leahy who ultimately won the race with a course record 29 laps, and to fellow Brit Myles Barnes for the assist.