Its been a fairly quiet year for me on the Triathlon front, truth be told. This year has turned into a recovery year for me in many ways. I chose some races to keep me ticking over and give myself a wee spur on to keep at the training, so Ayr, being close to Glasgow and having fantastic write ups about the cakes in the end was one for me!
The forecast for today was not good - wind, rain, mediocre temperature - and the idea of giving the race a miss and going to watch the cycling in Glasgow instead did flit across my mind, but then I'd've been standing around getting cold. At least this way I would be moving and staying warm, wouldn't I? After a back full of procrastination, I packed up the car and headed down to Ayr. It was windy with a big layer of grey clouds, but no rain, and thankfully it stayed dry for the race. Registration was nice and simple, then it was a case of racking the bike & getting transition set up before donning the wetsuit.
The wind was up and there was trepidation all round about getting into the water; I had toyed with the idea of the neoprene cap under the colour cap provided on the day, but allowed myself to be swayed by the fact that most people were going in with just the single cap. As we snaked into the water, it seemed that everyone entering the water had a squeal of "oooh", "aaaargh" or "aiya that's cold", so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was warmer than Loch Lomond normally is. Don't get me wrong, it wqas a bit nippy, but at no point did I feel that my extremities were at risk.
The swim was a two lap swim in the River Doon, up against the current then back down with it. The first stretch against the current was pretty hard going, and I worried that I was pushing it too hard, but I was in amongst a lot of swimmers and just had to focus on doing my own thing. Before, if I've been in amongst people I have a tendency to freak out a little and loose my rhythm, but for the most part today, the proximity of people didn't bother me - I knew my swim was strong enough to cope with what was going on. The turn at the top was a little packed and a bit of a scramble, but again, I just held my line and swam strong to bring me round and away with the current. It felt like I was sailing back down to the bridge, and its when I really wish I had a waterproof Garmin so as I could've seen the difference in the splits for up and down!
Approaching the bridge, I was getting a bit tired of being in the water malarky, and my mind went into its normal stage of "look dude, there's the exit ahead", but I just pointed out to my mind that there was another lap to go and that it should just shut up and get on with it, which it did. The wind coming up into the mouth of the river sprayed the water back into my face every time I came up to take a breath which was different, but it was just one more thing to get on with. The swim back up river for the second time seemed to stretch on even longer than the first time, but the swim back down seemed even faster, so it wasn't that long before I was standing up and getting out of the water.
I had a bit of the shaky legs running up the bank to transition, but the wetsuit came off in a fairly timely fashion thanks to the body glide, then the hat, glasses and race belt were on and I was coming out of transition.I had opted for the shoes in the pedals approach, and it kinda worked out for me, though it took longer than I would've like to to get my feet in and I never got the strap as tight as I would've like it to have been, but that's just another thing I need to practice on.
The bike itself wasn't as bad as I feared, though it was still a wee bit cold (though bear in mind that I was just in my tri top and shorts, with no socks). The strong winds were mostly cross winds and never seemed to be head on, and there were a couple of points where it even felt like it even gave me a wee push from behind. The bike leg is clearly my weakest discipline at the moment, and I need to work a lot more if I want to get faster, but given the low volume of cycling I've done this year so far, I was pleased with my performance, even catching up and overtaking a couple of faster swimmers.
Heading towards T2, I slipped my feet out of my shoes, ready for a running dismount. As I got up to swing my leg over however, I could feel that the cold had nicely stiffened up my right hip, so I decided that discretion was the way forward, and left it where it was on top of the shoe. Even without the running dismount, I still almost stacked it swinging my leg over a static bike....
You see, that was the real problem today, the way the cold got into my feet and legs. Off the bike and into T2, my feet were numb and my legs felt heavy. I couldn't feel my feet as I fought them into my shoes and scampered off on the run. The winner streaked past me to the finish, so I knew I was about an hour on from the start gun. A couple of people overtook me early on, but I managed to fight down the urge to chase them and settled into as good a rhythm as I could with my legs in that nick. As I carried on, I could feel that my right calf around the achillies was very tight, so I focussed on keeping it steady & forgetting about trying for any heroics, just taking it as a race to be out there. The faster GTC'ers started heading the other way to the finish line and I started catching up on a few people, which cheered me up. Up to the turn, and my feet were starting to thaw. Everything was feeling better, but I kept it steady at the same pace until I crested the last hill. From then on, I started winding it up slowly, clocking someone in front of me and making it my aim to catch him before the line. I'm not sure if he heard me coming, or if it was just the proximity to the finish, but he upped his pace as well, so I dug into a final surge and sprinted to take him just before the line. Always try and finish with a sprint, eh?
The race was brilliantly put together by Ayrodynamic and hats off to all the volunteers that stood around in their winter gear in the middle of summer to stay warm; its much appreciated folks. Its a great route as well, and I would love to have a go on that bike route on a still, sunny day, though potentially I would have a slower bike leg, due to checking out what would be stunning views along the coast! It's definitely a race I will look to do again in the future. Finally, and most importantly, the cakes lived up to their billing.
See you another time Ayr!
