Race Review - Knockburn Standard Triathlon

Knockburn is the first of two standard races I have on my plan for this year. With Huntly coming late in September expected to be the cold and wet one, Knockburn at the start of August is actually meant to be nice weather, warm water to swim in, nice dry roads to ride on, maybe a bit of a light breeze. The weather forecast all week was suggesting anything from lightning storms to the end of the world. And the night before the race it seems like they were all going to be delivered as it bucketed down through the night. But by morning it had cleared. It was still a bit cloudy but it was nice.

In my race preview I set a few targets for this race based on my previous performances here. 
Swim < 28, Bike < 1:20, Run< 50, Overall < 2:45.

I also have in my Annual Targets that I wanted to clock a new PB at this race which would be 2:48:03. 

I was well organised and arrived early. I had prepped for rain  the night before so I already had everything bagged up and waterproofed for each transition and a spare bag of things I might need if the weather turned nasty. 

I got suited up and listened to the briefing. Then the race start was held up by a technical issue. In that technically someone had told the first aiders to turn up at the wrong time so we had to wait for them to arrive. By the time we did get in the water the weather had changed, but not in the expected direction. It was bright and sunny and the temperature was up. 

The water was really warm and I coasted out to the start feeling really comfortable. I took a space near the front but off to the side so I could see what was going on. The start was a bit less frantic than last year.

The swim was as uneventful as I could have hoped for. At one point I did get kicked in the wrist which ached for a bit but nothing serious. Apart from that it was smooth, and about as fast as I could have expected. I was managing to get into groups and draft on the straights but also getting plenty of space around the tight turns. I came out of the water in amongst the same sort of people I expected to. 

I got stuck getting out of my wetsuit and that meant T1 was pretty slow.

The bike section I had planned to write a lot about, but I have then sat on this blog for over a week and I can't remember all that much about it. It felt really fast, and felt like I was working hard all the way. The garmin power estimate says I was pushing over 200W average again (just) so I should be happy again. The wind must have been different to last year though as the time was less than a minute faster despite the extra effort I was putting in and the people I was passing. The results say I only made one place but I actually passed about 7 people and lost to about 6 different people. 

T2 was very slick and I was straight out and running and with a string of people ahead of me to chase I was looking to start making up places. 

I shouldn’t have skipped the first water station though. At the time I thought I had hydrated enough on the bike, but I hadn’t allowed for the next water stop being 3 miles and it turned out to be 30 minutes away. I started fine but within about half a mile my hip started to tighten up. I managed to ignore it until the uphill section but then I was having to walk/jog/walk up the hill. This got continually worse until I got to the next water station and at least got a drink and splashed some water on myself, but by this point I was really suffering from the heat and the pain in my hip was getting bad enough to think about quitting. I convinced myself that it was almost as far to go back as it was to go round and kept jogging into the forest section. 

About half way through the forest section the pain in my hip was superceded by a panic attack. I ran through a cloud of flies and midges and a few of them started buzzing round my head. Normally when I am running this wouldn’t bother me as I just run on and wave a few swipes at them and they would all be gone, but this time I was going so slow that they weren’t leaving me. For some reason this started to get into my head that it might be a serious thing and it felt like I was being smothered in bites. In hindsight it was probably more caused by a combination of my scalp burning from the sun, and sweating into my eyes, and a few annoying flies, and already being on edge about how bad my hip might get. I think it was probably triggering thoughts of the hip/back problems I had at Edinburgh marathon which in turn loops into the start of my breakdown and so on.

Then as I was on the verge of stopping for a cry I went over the top of the hill and just in the middle of the track there was someone's timing chip lying in the middle of the track. I walk/jogged a few steps past it then managed to engage enough of my brain to stop and go back and pick it up. 

That petty little distraction was enough to clear my head of the panic attack. I managed to get back to at least jogging on the downhill sections from there. My hip and back were such a mess that it was ridiculously slow, but it was consistent forward movement so I managed to get from there round to the end, although I lost a few more places on the descent. 

Overall I did manage to beat my PB for this course. I also managed to beat my swim target. I then set a PB for the bike leg but missed my target by a long way. Then I ran like a donkey, but still actually faster than previous triathlon runs on this course. So 2 of my 5 targets and of the three I missed I still set PB times on the bike, and run. So a little bit disappointed with the time, but maybe just a bit too ambitious with the targets. 

More disappointed with the panic attack and the sunburn.

Split times
	Total time	Pos. male	Senior	Split time	Speed split time
Swim(Time: 27:56) - Pos. 34
Swim	27:56	34	22	27:56	1:51 min/100m
Transition 1(Time: 2:13) - Pos. 59
T1	30:09	38	22	2:13	-
Bike(Time: 1:22:08) - Pos. 40
Cycle	1:52:17	37	23	1:22:08	29.22 km/h
Transition 2(Time: 29.0) - Pos. 11
T2	1:52:46	37	23	29.0	-
Run(Time: 53:22) - Pos. 60
Run	2:46:08	46	26	53:22	5:20 min/km