East Fife Tri 08/04/2007
Apr.09, 2007, filed under Miscellany
The East Fife Tri at Cupar was my first full sprint distance triathlon, coming two weeks after the DNSed Tranent. Frood wasn’t feeling too good, so it was Mum who came by at 07:15 Sunday morning to pick me up. This is an ungodly time to be up on a Sunday — especially Easter Sunday. But registration was at 8, so off we went.
A glorious day was trying to break through the early morning chill. We got the last on-site parking space. Some people had turned up at 07:20. The place was busy even though we were bang on time.
Through at registration I picked up my goodie bag, proferred that all-important race licence and had my left arm/right calf inscribed with “119” (Frood was later to remark that I struck lucky there — it could have been 118) by a nice lady who remarked she wished everyone would shave their legs. Not sure what I was supposed to do with the individual serving sachet of microwaveable porridge oats as I didn’t spot a microwave halfway round the course, but the bike bottle will come in handy.
I was expecting to be in the slowest heat, so was surprised to find myself shoved halfway up the field in Heat Three. Peregrine was sandwiched between one of the many, many Giants and an Edinburgh Bike road bike and I set up my transition area using my plastic box to keep Peregrine from swinging round far enough on the scaffolding pole to fall off:
It was quite windy. That wasn’t going to matter in the pool.
The swim felt okay, save for the usual problems encountered when swimming in a lane with 4 other people who have underestimated their swim time while I have a tendency to over-estimate mine. Mum told me later that the tri chap sitting next to her in the spectator area told her I was a good swimmer, and noted that I was even doing tumble turns, which pleased her no end. I managed to keep count of my lengths, but there was someone banging a float on the pool wall with 2 lengths to go in case I didn’t.
T1 went more smoothly than NYD, helped immeasurably by not having frozen fingers and dispensing with the jacket, although that broken finger still aches and makes pulling my shoes on quite painful. The number belt was a bit awkward – next time I’ll put it on back to front and pull it round instead of fumbling to fasten it behind me. The bike leg wasn’t as fast as it should have been. I overtook about 6 people, particularly on the long uphill section. The tailwind down the end straight was glorious, although at those speeds the agricultural roads produced seriously uncomfortable vibration. The guys on full carbon bikes with deep rims must have really suffered.
T2 and then the run. I had the Suunto foot pod to nag me into keeping to my aimed target of 30 minutes for the 5k, but I ended up walking a couple of times on the 2nd and 3rd laps as my injured back produced serious cramping in my left shoulder. The run was hard. It felt harder than NYD, partially because a three lapper is so demoralising: at the end of lap 1 all I could think was I had to get through that twice more. Wasn’t helped by being overtaken by nearly everyone (or so it seemed), all of whom were yelling “Keep going!” as they sailed past. I appreciated the encouragement but it didn’t make me go any faster.
Results:
| Total | Rank | Swim | Rank | T1 | Bike | Rank | T2 | Run | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01:27’16 | 95 | 00:16’09 | 99 | 00:02’33 | 00:39’30 | 68 | 00:01’23 | 00:27’43 | 111 |
That’s a PB for the swim. By quite some way. And I came in under my targetted 30 minutes for the run. Plus I did the whole thing nearly 10 minutes faster than the NYD tri, so I’ll try not to get too downhearted by my total time being only 15th from last.
I seriously need to work on my running. I wasn’t quite the slowest but I wasn’t far off it. At least I didn’t get overtaken by someone on an old clunker on the bike leg!
Here’s a pic of me at the end:
For other pics, mostly taken by Mum, see the Flickr photo set.
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Singularity
~something that is singular as (a) a separate unit, or (b) unusual or distinctive manner or behavior; PECULIARITY;
~the quality or state of being singular;
~a point at which the derivative of a given function of a complex variable does not exist but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists;
~a point or region of infinite mass density at which space and time are infinitely distorted by gravitational forces and which is held to be the final state of matter falling into a black hole. Sight
