10th at Jailbreak Triathlon 2007

I have just started training recently. I am overweight and out of form. Just started working on my swim technique and got into my first cycling rides. I have just done one three hour ride. But I wanted to do Jailbreak Triathlon since I just watched it last year and wanted to see how it is to race it.

I was doing the minimum race (1100m swim, 50km bike and 12.5 km run). My plan is to go on the feeling. I could not expect to be fast because I neither train for speed nor I also am able to go hard so early in the season. I am some 7 months away from my peak and also I never do any training for these distances. Ever since I almost cut my toe off in Western Province trials two years ago I also am very careful in transitions in such races - I do not wish to get injured during a low priority race and risk missing training.

It is important for me to explain this so you could have an objective idea about my Jailbreak experience.

The swim started suddenly - there was no “one minute to go” sign - the start caught me facing the land and not water, fixing my gogles. I was some 20 seconds late into the water so I was way in the back. I started swimming medium. I did not do any intensity in swimming yet so I was not ready to really go all out although a distance of 1100 m would require me to go super hard. I just could not do that yet so I swam some strange pace which allowed me to pass people yet far from what I should be able to do when in form. The more people I passed the harder it become to pass people as I was reaching faster swimmers in the front. I worked a bit to pass few people but I felt inadequate to go fast. I had trouble seeing the finish of the swim so I got lost a bit. There was no signage to indicate where I should exit the water although there was a huge balloon at the start of the swim which served no purpose but decoration.

It was still raining super hard as I exited the water. Actually it did not feel like exiting the water, just felt like standing up in the water. Race staff gave me my bucket quickly, maybe I wated for 15-20 secs. I understand this bucket thing gives something new to the race but I would rather I did not have to wait for someone to give me my stuff. It would be better if the race would distinguish itself with something more practical.

I had a super slow transition - maybe almost 4 minutes. Kirsty Weir exited the water with me and was on the bike by the time I was putting my helmet on. I do slow transitions as I am afraid of injury, especially with rain.

I started to cycle and I immediatelly saw a guy dressed in red. He was for a while around me. My goal was to start with 195 watts and slowly increase it. 195 felt quite easy but I wanted to stay at it for a while. Slowly I warmed up on the bike and blood was already in my legs so I felt ready to increase wattage a bit. I got to 210 or so. For me this is quite fast as I am light (even when overweight) and small so I end up going above 36 kmh maybe at above 200 watts.

The red guy was around me, pedalling equally. It was not my goal to follow him, just by accident we had the same intensity. At one point I wanted to experiment how I would feel with doing 230+ watts. It felt OK but it seamed too strong so early in the race. I was not warm enough for that. Ironman training made me warm up very slowly and even though I was cycling stronger it would take me another 30 mins minimum to really start pedalling properly, in the rain probably even more.

Everything is slow when you do Ironman training, as many of you know. No matter how much you are pushing in the start surely you will get stronger later on. The longer the better. Unless you go super hard immediatelly and fill up on acid, and since ultra-distance athletes tolerate acidity badly than you end up in much more pain than necessary, and lower average wattage.

When I did 230 or 240 I passed the red guy easy. Maybe he reacted to that or he felt its time to go harder so he soon passed me again, as I lowered down to 210 or so, and continued at that pace. He was slowly disapearing. My impression was he made a mistake. I think to hold 240 watts for someone who started cycling as I did and was obviously more or less my equal will only result in drop in wattage towards the end or a horrible run. I was sure I will either catch him towards the end of the bike or in the run. If I had a rand for each triathlete I saw over do the bike like this I would be a millionaire now.

Later on I cought up with Weir. She is a super light rider therefore she has little power on flat and tends to attack hills. She ket passing me on each hill as I maintained my wattage and I kept catching up with her on downhills and flats. Her wattage was going up and down enormously while mine was more closer to a flat line. As the first part of the bike is uphill we kept passing each other like this, but as soon as the ride started to go downhill I passed her and she did not catch up with me. It took me around 20 km to catch up the deficite against her I made with my slow transition.

Cycling back was super annoying with all the rain. Rain drops started to be painful as they hit my cold body. I was going mostly at 40+ kmh. My wattage was starting to be well above 220 watts now. I warmed up a bit more. Sometimes I would feel comfortble at 240 watts for longer time but with all the rain and stuff it was hard to really be so concentrated to go so hard. In any case I was much stronger than in the first half of the ride not because it was downhill but I was pushing much higher wattage.

Again I had a super slow transition. Maybe 3 minutes or even more. I was tying my shoe laces - I did not have my racig shoes with me in South Africa. Weir and I do not know how many triathletes passed me again. I did not care much, I was not really racing and with so many kilos overweight and no speed I did not expect to do much on the run. Just to have a nice brick workout.

I cought up with some people and help Weir at sight. I think she runs at same speed like I do (as I heard we have similar PB on half-marathon) but she was in peak form while I was out of season so after some 5 km I could not follow anymore and she disapeared. Of course I passed the red guy immediatelly on the run, he was running slow and tired.

Minimum Jailbreak Triathlon is longer than Olympic (Standard) distance triathlon so it does require some energy - which I did not take. I drank 500 ml of GU drink and less than one Enervit gel towards the end of the bike but I knew I needed maybe one or two extra gels. Thing is I did not care much, I decided to just run it out and not push much. After I passed few people and I could not see anyone else interesting in the front I cruised. I lost my bounce and my legs felt energyless. I continued like that towards the end and finished feeling “easy”.

When I say easy I do not mean I did not feel tired, of course I was tired, but its far from my max imum effort and my tiredness came form not being used to such intensity rather than giving it all I’ve got.

I was 10th. With faster transition and a bit more effort could have been 6th but thats not important. I just wish there was no competition, it is not very competitive if I can be 10th with such bad form. Maybe the race needs to be advertised more.

Than the real strugle started - I did not think we will have rain so I was out of clothes and freezing. I needed to get in blankets as soon as possible and take some vitamin C. I usually would take maybe 2-3 grams of vitamin C every 3-4 hours in such a situation but I had none with me. The biggest danger was that I get sick and miss a week of training. Since I pay a lot of money to be in South Africa to train I do not want to waste my time in the bed.

Sandra droped me back to the Hugo farm where we stayed and I wraped myself in a blanket and did absolutely nothing for about an hour or two. It helped as I did not get sick.

I really had a nice time doing this race, I stayed with Hugo family again, as last year, who are wonderful hosts and I have met a ton of new people. Unfortunatelly too little time to meet them all but I hope I will get a chance to work on that. This is what triathlon for me is about, partially. I like the routine and the zen of Ironman but I also like going places and meeting people and the lifestyle.

I have to say that the race is far from best, here are some remarks:
- Swim finish needs marking.
- Distance marking on the bike.
- Distance marking on the run (every km) - I had no idea how fast I was running.
- Food and drink should not be given on turns, on the bike close to the top of slow hills and on the run anywhere but turns.
- Finish line was horrible, me and many others got lost and there is no chance of a good finish over the rocks.
- Yes, the rocks! Maybe a carpet to cover the nasty survace while people run inbetween the two halves of the swim and towards the transition.
- The buckets are silly and unpractical, some people can gain advantage by getting their buckets faster than others.
- Race needs more competition or just one race instead of two. My bike and run felt quite lonely.

Last year the organizers had seriously and very dangerous problems with hydration, this year it was not possible to figure out if this was fixed due to rain (the whole race felt like swimming).

In any case, each race is a great experience. Thanks for putting it on

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 at 9:59 am and is filed under 2007, Hugo family, Jailbreak, Jailbreak triathlon, Jailbreak triathlon 2007, Kirsty Weir, Worcester, race report, rain, triathlon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.