Dave used to always use Pete Meteau as a fall guy when anything went awry, but maybe it wasn’t all Pete…

 

You now what they say about plans..mine came off rails last week.

 

Lase week was challenging at work, dealing with school closure, my imminent redundancy, being stranded on the M3 with a coachload of 12 year olds for 7 hours.

 

On Saturday I travelled up to Milton Keynes for the Cowman National Middle Distance Championships. It was a hot sticky journey and I stayed, but did not manage to sleep much, in the local Travelodge.

 

Race morning I arrived at the venue with plenty of time. As I have done hundreds of times before  my bike was in back of car held in place by two seat belts. Unfortunately during the journey the bike toppled over(never happened before) and seat belts locked.  Despite my best efforts neither I, nor a helpful marshall, nor a fellow competitor could budge it. Thankfully Rob Griffiths came to my aid suggesting I removed the saddle and seat post and supplying Allen key to do so.  I managed to release the bike and frantically reassemble it with minutes to spare before race briefing. quite honestly I felt exhausted before the start.

 

Amazingly the sun was not shining for the swim..instead we had a swirling mist. The yellow marker buoys appeared and disappeared every few minutes. I was looking forward to cooling down a bit on the swim but the water temperature was 22 degrees. Swim went quickly and I exited transition and mounted smoothly and efficiently only to encounter a group of pedestrians on the path forcing me to hastily unclip my pedal and come to a halt. I resisted the urge to curse and remounted a little flustered. 

 

That was a sign of things to come and I just never got going on the bike.  By the time I reached the run stage the sun was up and the temperature was soaring. I struggled throughout the run and finished in 5:17 about 30 minutes outside my personal target time. I was 80th out of 264 finishers and second in my age group.

 

Time now to recover, reflect, learn some lessons and tweek training plans before Vichy. 

 

Now 6 weeks away.

 

Cheers

Dave