Bustinskin Weymouth Classic

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Hi All,

Unlike the real hardcore amongst us who competed at Tenby yesterday i choose what I thought would be a slightly less hardcore more sedate way to finish my season with the Weymouth Classic Triathlon down at Bowleaze Cove, however although not in the same league as IM Wales (big respect to Chris, Sarah and Sean!!!) it was certainly not an easy race in the challenging conditions, a point proved by the amount of DNF's and DNS's on the results list (although results are still provisional and in some cases wrong, but thats another story!)

Ariving at Bowleaze cove ealier that expected before light all i could hear was the wind howling and the sound of the waves clattering on the beach and immediately thought "well, the swim is going to be an adventure!" Setting up transition and a lot of the talk was about whether they were going to cancel the swim, with Human Race having already pulled the plug on their swimming event in Poole harbour because of the conditions being deemed to dangerous!  However Bustinskin had other ideas with the words "Extreme events" written accross the front of their T-Shirts for a reason!  I was actually really looking forward to it using the conditions to fuel my desire to get in and compete.  I think I finally now understand and know how to disengage brain when faced with adversity! Is this just a male thing?!

Anyhow we watched the sprint race go off first and we couldn't start until they were all back in with our start time due at 07:30, however we didn't actually start until nearly 08:00 as it was took the sprint guys so long to finish the swim, their were a lot of triathletes standing on the shore watching the sprint race getting extremely nervous as they watched the sprint competitors getting thrown about in the water.  However our starting horn finally went off at about 07:55 or there abouts and we ran in off the beach to be battered by wave after wave as we started the first of two laps swimming out from the shore, with the real big waves lifting you and dropping you with a smash back into the water, testing the steelieness of your stomach! Sighting was a real challenge making shore to try and site the bouys when you were at the top of a wave so that you could see ahead rather than just the bottom of the next big wave and breathing had to be performed with care so that you didn't swallow the entire contents of the sea, although I have to say there was no signs of cramp throughout the entire race so maybe the increased salt intake did some good! My drink on the bike certainly still tasted of salt for the entire bike leg lol. 

Having swam the 2 laps of the swim required (wow what an experience) it was off onto the bike, now having decided I needed to speed up my T1 i decided before the race that I should place my bike shoes on the bike and put them on once up and cycling, something i had done before with great success on the flat although having not practised for an while and not taken into account the hill out of transition this proved to be rather difficult, as you well no the moment you stop pedaling going up hill you stop and fall off! Which is exactly what happened so on my first attempt to put my feet in my shoes resulting in falling off, I duely decided to cycle the whole way up the hill with feet on top of shoes before a hairy descent down the other side whilst putting feet in shoes something that thankfully didn't result in me biting the tarmac! More practise required!!  Out onto the bike course and the legs were feeling the effects from the last few w/e's exertions at the sportive and bucklers revenge, plus the fact that it was rather windy and tougher than the profile on the web would have you believe! Anyway i clawed back quite a few places up the first big hill over the ridge out of weymouth before putting the hammer down and continuing to gain places all the way round the course making up about 12 places on the bike with my legs eventaully coming back to me about 5 miles into the bike course however it was a hard slog riding back to the coast into the wind, but a satifying one as i continued to real in guys in front of me.  I biked into T2 getting my feet out of the shoes and jumping from my stead with none of the problems i had getting on and flew through T2 only to have a marshall shout out at me "your helmet", now I have often laughed at others when they have run out of T2 with their helmet still on! Now I have joined the club! so I duely took it off and threw it at her, with a rather embarassed look on my face and a shout of thanx before dissappearing onto the run to run down a few more people.

I soon caught two people up the first hill and then caught two more in the next few Km but then it was pretty lonely for a few km before i spotted a few runners up ahead who i set about trying to catch and it was all going pretty well before I became aware of some movement on the bottom of my foot which wasn't my shoe!  Having made the amateur mistake of buying some racing flats and using them a couple of times in training over 5km i duely thought hey these feel really good i'm gonna use them at Weymouth, and use them I did however this was 10km, no socks and with wet feet!  Lets just say the last 2km of the run was rather painful and i know have the blisters on the forefront of my feet to prove it! so I had to relent a little on the pace in the last 2 km especially up the last big hill at 9km which resulting in more pressure being applied to the blisters as you run up hill, however I ended up crossing the line in what appears to be 6th overall and 4th in my age group (provisionla results).

I know there were a few other STC members competing in the sprint race also, so hopefully they will be able to back up my swim description ;-) Howver it was again another enjoyable race from Bustinskin which I can't really fault being my 3rd race with them, well price, friendly marshalls and best of all a full english at the end! :-)

Sam

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Author: Sam Pociecha - 12 September 2011 11:14