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March 10, 2007
AWESOME - A tale of the Clumber Park Sprint Duathlon 2007
That's what it was! Absolutely awesome!
I woke up this morning at 6 - an exceptionally early morning for a weekend and after pondering staying in bed rather than racing in cold conditions, I got out of bed.
Being scared of a race is never a good thing, my stomach turned and my mind made up all kinds of excuses for me to crawl back into bed. I got the bike into the car and imagined the wheels to be too flat - I couldn't find the pump and there was no way I could race on those tyres.
So then off I went to Clumber Park. I got there with about an hour left to rack my bike. The girl behind the counter checked my BTA license, smiled and pointed me to a desk where they gave me my race numbers. She in turn shoved me towards the next table where a very friendly bloke offered me a shirt. I took it and voluntarily moved to the last table. Here they had a stack of race chips which they explained to me had to be on my left ankle. Without it there, I wouldn't get a result. I clung to my new goodies and walked out the one-way-system-room.
Outside Andy was looking at the people and when he saw me, scampered to help me carry the load that I had just picked up.
We walked to my bike, put the number on it, tied my shoes, got my helmet, got my shoes, got everything else I thought I would need and set off for the transition area. Once there, I racked my bike, put down my bike shoes and made sure that my mixed bottle of sports drink was in its cage. Then I remembered that I had a slipstream bottle, but forgot it at home. I wasn't about to start beating myself over the head about it, so I carried on walking towards Andy was waiting for me. Here I quickly changed the camera lens for him and then waited for the announcements calling us to the start.
The first announcement came - Go check that your bike has been racked in the right space, in the correct manner or we shall remove it.
I nearly ran to my bike, where I realised that I had racked it in the right place, just not in the right manner. I quickly took my bike to the other side of the rack and racked it again. Then I put down my second bottle of sports drink and another shirt that I thought I might need if the temperatures dropped any further. I hopped over to Andy again and watched the men that was about to start the Olympic distance race gather around the start. There were around 350 of them (some of them looked incredibly fierce) and they looked like they were freezing.
They set off and then the women doing the Olympic distance gathered. There were only about 50 of them and it was strange to see so few of them.
Five minutes later it was our turn. They set off all 200 people competing in the Sprint Distance together and it was a little daunting to line up with all of them. After a quick discussion to make sure that we didn't do 2 laps of the bike course or run course, we were off.
It felt strange to run faster than I am used to. 5km is a lot less mileage though, so I wasn't too worried. The 5km seemed to go by so fast that I thought I had about 2km left by the time I reached T1. I glanced at my watch and saw 00:25:35 - in the back of my mind I thought 'you are so going to pay for that during the second run' and jogged up towards where my bike was awaiting me.
I grabbed some water and sports drink, took my bike and attempted jogging up the slippery, grassy hill towards where the bikes were leaving transition. Once I had crossed the magic line, I got on my bike. My right shoe clicked right into the pedal, but then the left one decided to play with me a bit - it took about 20 seconds to get the shoe and pedal to connect as they should, but then I was steadily on my way. The twists and turns that the bike course start out with, took me with surprise, but not so much that I had to slow down too much.
At this stage the elite men doing the Olympic distance started catching up with me. I kept hearing 'on your left' and 'on your right' and sometimes both at the same time, followed by a very quick man passing me on whichever side he mentioned.
The bike course was windy - one guy was injured (I only noticed because I had to bike past the ambulance) quite badly and it scared me slightly as I didn't know whether a car had hit him, whether he had fallen or whether the wind just swept him off the road (to the other side of the road). I kept cycling - the wind was picking up and it came at me from the side and front, but somehow never found my back. Eventually I made it back to transition and this is where the fun started.
I only had 2.5km to run. Really. I got off my bike and after putting on my running shoes, I realised that my legs weren't there. I couldn't feel them. They didn't want to work. I shuffled along towards the turnaround point where a very friendly marshall told me that I had to turn around. I flashed him a big smile and uttered 'You're my hero!' as I made the turn. My legs still didn't feel like they were there, but they were steadily taking me towards the end where Andy, a cup of water and a warm top awaited me.
As I fetched my bike from the transition area, a girl that finished behind me was phoning her mom - I only heard 'Mom, that was completely awesome!' before I walked away. And I have to agree. That was awesome.
Posted by karinm at March 10, 2007 2:44 PM
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Comments
Congrats - I really loved the writeup. Makes me eager to get back in the pack this summer.
Posted by: jank at March 12, 2007 2:16 AM
Well done Karin! I'm very jealous, sounds like you had a great race. There is no feeling to compare the one you get when you finish a race.
Posted by: Andrew at March 13, 2007 7:50 AM