Last year - who knows when - there was a discussion on the TeamTwinkle page about doing Cotswolds 113. It was due to run in June and had a good deferral policy if for some reason we couldn't do it. I was going to say it was the only event this year I had booked, but then I remembered Brighton Marathon, and the Dart 10k.... never mind
Anyway, of course we know what happened next. Pandemic, lockdown, cancellation after cancellation of events. Cotswolds 113 was pushed back to September. I stopped training for a bit, couldn't swim, stuck my bike on the turbo trainer and didn't really push myself as much as I should have. In fact, most of my training was pretty much not pushing myself as hard as I should have, with runs in zone 2 resulting in pretty much half being walking.
My husband and I had decided to take the week before off as holiday and we spent a lovely week in surprisingly warm sunny Fairford. I'd convinced him to bring his bike along so we did a bit of a recce of some of the course before which helped my confidence a bit (after spending so much time on the turbo it takes me a bit of getting used to being back on the road again). Unfortunately on the Friday my husband came off his bike just as we were setting off down the road so he spend most of Friday at the Great Western Hospital. Thankfully he didn't break anything but he was very bruised, battered and got nasty concussion, poor chap.
On race day, we had to vacate our property in the morning. So we were up at 4:30, making sure we'd taken everything with us, and packed up the car ready for the day ahead. We got to the car park in good time, and it was still dark. I of course hadn't packed a head torch but thankfully our phone torches just about worked so I could get the bike back together and set off towards transition. With the new COVID procedures in place, I had to state that I hadn't had any symptoms within the last two weeks and get temperature checked. That done, I could go into transition and start setting up. The guy next to me started chatting to me and told me that this was his first triathlon. He wandered off around the time I started admonishing my bike for being a pain (sometimes when I put the wheel in it doesn't run smooth). I can't be the only one who talks to their bike, right?
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| Transition all set up |
With my transition set up I was trying to feed myself through the mask which was kind of working (!) and I put my wetsuit on. I somehow managed to stretch the cap they had given us so it would actually fit on my (stupidly large) head and walked to transition. I watched the earlier waves go off, every 10 seconds, and noted how some were leaving their sandals at the start so they didn't have to walk over the stony ground. I decided to do the same, but forgot to set up my watch, which meant I got in the way while I was starting it up (oops!).
The swim - I really don't miss mass starts
The lake was a good temperature, but it was pretty cool outside so the swim was a bit on the chilly side. It was nice not to have to attempt to fight everyone during the mass start and didn't feel like I was crowded at all at any point in the swim. Of course you then don't know where you are in the race but given I was pretty confident I'd be near the end it was nice to see a line of yellow hats behind me. Water was a little choppy in places but I've definitely experienced worse. My swim line shows a pretty straight line through the course although it was slow, I'm pretty happy with my effort.
Out of the water and into a "neutralised" transition - they gave you 10 minutes of essentially free time to change and get your bike out to try and reduce the amount of contact you might have with other competitors. Thankfully my bike was sitting on its own so I didn't have to wait to get to it. Off on the bike course...
The bike - That feckin wind
And onto the bike I got. It's fair to say I've had two outings on my bike this year outdoors post lockdown, neither of which were anywhere near long enough, and usually involved a bit of stopping and resting (even had cake in the middle of one!). So I was nowhere near prepared for the ordeal of 90km on terrible roads and with a headwind that was absolutely unrelenting. I spent the first half of the ride freezing and then it started to warm up. I refilled my water bottle at 30 and 60 km, let myself have a couple of minutes rest, and kept going. It was awful. About half way round I was already in agony, my backside felt like it was being tortured by the saddle, and by 50km I was ready to cry. Every lump on the road (and there were many!) was another descent into misery. So many people came past me cheering me on - I had my TeamTwinkle suit on - that was a special bit of the day. The marshalls were brilliant too. I'd convinced myself I'd get to 60 km and stop and have a word with myself. The far turnaround point was about that so I stopped and had a chat to the marshalls. After filling up my water bottle and getting going again, I did feel better, even if my bike did feel like a red hot poker on my backside (I think I need a new saddle!). The last few kilometers were just awful, searing pain, sore top of back, hot weather, endless lumps on the road (you could see others had suffered with many water bottle "casualties" at the side of the road) and I was just fed up of the wind. I demanded a kiss off my poor husband as I came past his marshalling spot to keep me going and then I did the final TT section, and finally got on the road to transition. Which was far longer than I remembered. I felt like I was nearly last by that stage, although there were a couple of others behind me. The bliss of being able to get to the dismount line and finally off the torture device that was my bike was like nothing else. I really needed more time outside on the bike this year.
The run - if you're going through hell, keep going
Through "neutralized" transition again, and on to the run. By this stage any semblance of cold had well and truly disappeared and it was HOT. I mean, not Hamburg hot, but hot enough. The fact that I didn't need to use the toilet at all between swim and the end of my run (about 7 hours of exercise) suggests that I was very dehydrated, which is probably why I couldn't get my legs going at all. That and the endless runs in zone 2 resulted in a desultory run which was poor even for me. The first lap was quite busy, with quite a few still on the course, and loads of people coming past me, more Twinkle support (thanks guys!). I was really pleased I'd taken my running pack so I could carry a bottle of Tailwind and a bottle of coke with me. The run seemed to involve lots of the lake that we'd previously swum in, an interminable stretch down to Somerford Keynes, most of which was in the burning sunshine, and on the first lap there were several people cheering us on all the time eating ice cream! Gah! I managed to shuffle round the first lap somehow, then got past the finish line where my husband and several Twinks were waiting. Again the support from the marshalls was absolutely brilliant. At some point the Twinkle behind me overtook me and offered to help with my running but I shoo'd her on. She finished well before I did. The second lap was interminable, again round the lake, again down the hot hot road towards Somerford Keynes, and finally to the aid station. I asked them if they'd still be there when I came around again, and they reassured me they'd be waiting for me. I threw more water down my throat, refilled my water bottle, threw water over myself and kept on going. I was half way, even if everyone kept saying "Nearly there now" I knew I still had over an hour of running to go. It was hell. Again. Someone came past me telling me they had only a km and a half to go, but of course I didn't, I had another lap. Finally, I get to the finish line (you could hear it from a mile away!) and started on my final lap. Got past transition, wondering how many bikes would be left by the time I came around again, then started off on my final lap. It was about this stage a very lovely marshal called Helen decided to join me on my shuffle/stumble/pootle. She was walking so fast that she didn't have to run beside me to keep up with me. I can't really remember much of what she was talking to me about (or prattling on, as she insisted) but it really helped me round my final lap. To my amazement she joined me for the entire 7 km or whatever it was. Soon enough there was a mountain biker behind us with a Cotswold t-shirt on and I knew I must be last or nearly last. It took me back to Edinburgh where I had a whole cohort following me on my last lap. So on we went, step by very slow step, round the lake, through the trees, on to the burning hot road that never ended to Somerford Keynes. I showed Helen the way and noticed the roads seemed to have lost a lot of the marshalls (there were only a few of us left on the course by that stage). Thankfully the water station was still there so I was able to get my last sploosh over the head with water and back round through the lovely village. As Helen was a maths teacher (or newly ex-teacher) she was able to do the calculations of how much further we had to go, so first it was 5 km ("just a Parkrun"), then it was 3 km, then just over 1 km... on the final stretch I seemed to find something from somewhere and actually got Helen running as I got to the finish line. Over I went, elated and totally and utterly spent.
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| Finished! |
