jo - day 8

Day 8 – Races

The final day of the camp and the camp-long points competition has closed. There’s a great mood this morning, I guess because the pressure is off, or the end is in sight. I’m feeling kind of sad that its almost over, but tired and was anticipating the morning swim events, followed by an Olympic distance tri race with some nerves as to how dumb I’d look in the former, followed by how my legs would hold for the latter!

Since there was no more point scoring to be done, and a race later in the day, I had a lie in and no run this morning – spent the time catching up on some emails instead. Light breakfast and a ride in the van to the pool.
We opened with 400IM race – I was glad to be in the first wave – get it over with. I was also pleased that my other strokes have come on a bit since I last tried an IM in Italy last summer – almost made the complete 100m butterfly in one hit. It was hot and great to sit around watching the racing events and have a good laugh seeing some very competent triathletes flailing with the other strokes almost as badly as I had – just a little more practiced! And to see Heath’s demonstration of how it should be done, of course. This race was followed by 200m-kick race – very painful on legs with over 1000km cycling and 100km of running in them for the week to date – and 50m freestyle. Hopeless in both, but up for giving it my best shot.

We cruised out later on in the morning to Rabbit Island, where we’d be racing a point-to-point triathlon. Plenty of pre race excuses being banded around the campers, all kited out in our new Epic Camp Oomph gear we looked the part even if no one was feeling especially fired up. But, of course by the time we arrived – with a little slack navigation and slight detour resulting in Steven chasing a couple of random cyclists up the highway just to get a few more hard miles in his legs – the great spirit of everyone on the camp shone through and we joked on about the race ahead.

3 laps between buoys that John had accurately measured by ’van’ (I assume this means driving the van along the beach and looking at the buoys out of the window), followed by a 40km bike route back to Stoke and a 4 lap run around ‘The Point’.

The swim was choppy, and I ‘m sure it was long, but got stuck in -in my usual race style, which is ‘quite hard’ following swimmers some way in front to guide me to the buoys which I couldn’t spot and make sure I don’t loose position after the first rush. Swim over and suddenly I’m feeling great – raced up the beach, stripping wetsuit. Wetsuit off in a flash and out on the bike in no time.

I rode as hard as the legs would allow – watching the speed stayed over 20mph since the Powertap had packed in. I could tell I wasn’t pushing it at full throttle but was working hard - looking over my shoulder for the inevitable figures of the guys behind me on the horizon. Managed to hold them off to the end, really pushing as fast as I dared along the final stretch that was bike/pedestrian path, figuring the lads would be less cautious than me! Another flying transition in the garden of our hotel ad out into the heat for the run. Most of the guys were already out there of course, which was great fun as we passed each other several times. I managed to make up a few places, and lose non on the course, and pleased that I was able to run well, if not fast.

A great day topped off with early afternoon beers, a lovely meal in very civilized settings of the hotel restaurant, followed by more beers and banter.

An awesome experience, really sound group of triathletes, some inspirational performances and awesome support crew. I don’t think this will be my last epic ;o)