Race report

(hope not too boring/grammatically bad for anyone reading, need to get all this down while it's fresh so I can learn for next time, after a very long break!)

Woke at 4am. Breakfast; porridge. Left hotel for 4.30 got to T1 for 5am.

Wearing tri shorts and top under clothes with white transition bag with swim kit and another bag with all the stuff to put on the bike - shoes/elastic bands, garmin, aero bottle with drink, tool kit, gloves. Track pump.

Most people make the adjustments to the bike and then get into their wetsuits. A few put them on first thing - long time to have it on though. Mistake I've made a few times is to get it on and then realise I've forgotten the heart rate monitor strap. Anyway all fine and for the first time shorts weren't rolled up under the wet suit. Pumped tyres up and was ready to go. Usually drink High 5 xtreme carbs from now as it's got 150mg of caffeine in it and certainly wakes you up!

The sound of a tyre exploding was a little disconcerting - no one knew who was going to get out of the swim to that.

Swim
Not much time to figure out where to position myself at the swim start. Eventually was about 5 people back and everyone was suddenly going. I just followed in the washing machine for quite a while. The plan had been to go for it at the start, get in a good position and then ease off - that didn't happen. Spent the first 5 minutes avoiding blows from the other swimmers. For once I was certain I was swimming straight whilst all around me were swimming all over the place - main task was to do my own thing and wait till it sorted itself out. Ella had come up with the plan of concentrating on one technique aspect until each turn - so the first thing was to blow out continually whilst under water - this stops you getting panicked and short of breath - it worked well. Second thing was to count every ten strokes and then look up - seemed to be going straight. Third thing was to concentrate on that early vertical forearm. Lastly tried to emphasise the stroke right to the exit of the hand from the water. Felt a little fatigue for the last 200m or so but otherwise good.

Didn't know how I'd done. A few friends and Ella were shouting "great swim". Last year was 1.16 and my best ever when I worked much harder than this was 1.06. Asked the first bloke I met on the bike -who said we'd done something like 58mins! Couldn't believe it.

T1 - remembered to take googles and hat off and leave them in the sleeve. Helmet on, number belt on grabbed gels etc and on to bike. Managed the shoes on bike affair despite being fairly new to it.

Bike http://connect.garmin.com/splits/43047164
Then the problems hit, all to do with the gloves - on glove blew away so I went back for it, then tried to put them on - didn't see the sleeping policeman hit it hard and went over the top of the bike. Tool kit skittered off down the road, big graze to arm, knee and ankle. Gear shifters bent, aerobars angled down now. Picked myself up and carried on - confidence really shaken so just took it steady and surveyed the damage. Luckily the bike seemed OK mechanically (gear shifters bent back and still worked). Looked down at my leg - couldn't believe all the blood and grazing as couldn't feel a thing - I think there was a lot of adrenaline involved. I just remember thinking that's going to sting in the bath tonight.

Next problem - aero bottle started playing up, I'll spare you most of the details. Tried to tape it down whilst moving but after a while thought better of it as the chances of crashing would be too high. About 20 people passed during all this - it didn't bother me too much at the time but looking back the whole "if only" starts up.

The bike course is very technical - lots of bends and shallow hills that if you take them just right can save you a lot of time. I was far too nervous to do this and was on the breaks all the time, only by the third final lap did it all come good, my confidence returned and I rode it as I would have liked to from the start.

Couple of other problems
All the climbing meant the saddle started to point up. Need to really secure this well.
Couldn't tolerate as much carbohydrate as I forced down - had good going stomach ache till last half of the marathon
Hamstrings protested a lot, eventually figured out this was due to being too far back on the saddle which put them on a stretch. Felt great when I moved further forwards on the saddle - more modification of position needed. This may have been related to the saddle pointing up as well.
Looking at the heart rate data, I backed off a bit too much. I was aiming for an average around 140bpm for the bike but was way below this. Would love to know how I would have fared on a normal road bike, I could have climbed better etc, May warrant a trip up there in the future to settle that score.

T2
Pretty amazing to come into there with virtually no one around, makes you think you haven't counted the laps properly! Almost forgot to get out of the shoes and leave them on the bike. It's very easy to sit and take your time. Found myself putting my watch on etc when all this was meant to be done on the move but pretty happy.

Run http://connect.garmin.com/activity/43047170
First part of the run took us into the woods, very muddy. I was glad I wasn't going up here after a thousand other people had made it even worse. Heard some shouts saying great running James, it didn't even register - in a world of my own. It was only on doubling back when I realised it was my friend Ben - thanks for the support. Stomach ache was still there - I was working on the premise that this was due to the high concentration of carbs still sitting in my stomach so planned to get as much water down me to dilute that and get my stomach emptying again.
So there was a choice here, run at the pace you'd like to average for the whole marathon. This means going slower than you feel like, the adrenaline would go down and the stomach would empty. Or because you feel good run fast and hope it gets better. I chose the later 4.10 - 4.30 min/km pace. Managed to keep a good pace for the first third and then started to slow a little - gradually I changed my goal to average 5.00/km which I knew would give me a 3.20marathon. Had three toilet stops in all - really gutting to see the people you passed then pass you.
Decided to take it relatively easy until the last turn around and last third run back into Bolton, lifted the pace again and tried to stay below 5.00 as much as possible. I had decided to take my speed and distance from the footpod on the trainer as the GPS can be a fairly inaccurate suddenly saying 2.00 and then the next minute 6.00.
Carried a running drink bottle about half of the way, eventually ditching it when I realised I couldn't stomach it and it was starting to annoy me. Had to settle for Coke and water at the aid stations (water over the head every time as well) - I have never been able to manage with these cups they give you but did a lot better this time (even if a lot went down the front). Don't think I'll bother with the running bottle again. Did manage a couple of gels (mainly for the caffeine) but was right on the edge with the stomach.
A couple of paracetamol and codeine also seemed to help (could have easily been placebo though)
2km from the end I heard someone working hard behind me - he said "were going to have to work really hard if we're to break 10.30" and the race was on! Went up to 4.00min/km, he overtook me running down the hill into Bolton (I'm not great at running down hill) We then fought it out over the last km with a sprint finish. I was told the finish would probably get on TV - who knows? it was great to be able to finish strong except part of you thinks if there was more left could you have pushed more.