Lara Clay and Time Gray were at the ETU Championships in Lisbon last weekend competing in the Standard Distance event.
Tim reports: ‘All in all, a reasonable result. My swim, for some reason, wasn’t as strong as normal which left me around 30th out of the water (field of 72) in 23.52. My woes were further added to by a dreadful T1 – couldn’t fit my helmet correctly first time and as a result, knocked my visor off in the process. Overall impact was probably no more than about 30 seconds but considering 8 GB athletes came home in a space of 60 seconds, it left me ruing what may have been! Anyway, managed to get away on the bike and into some sort of rhythm. The bike course was largely flat and on closed dual carriageway which, although a little dull, was fast and mostly flat. Coming out of town and working hard to hold the 40kph average that I wanted, I took a brief moment to check out the view towards the river, enjoy the sun on my back and pinch myself that I was racing again in GBR kit surrounded by the best in Europe (well, possibly not!)
The bike course was over two 20km laps with a dead-turn at the top of a 1500m climb halfway around each lap and another dead-turn at the corresponding end of the course. It was tough work grinding up the climb but an extremely quick descent down the other side with a gentle roll out to enable you to carry as much speed as possible for as long as possible. That said, there was a nasty little wind blowing right to left on the descent which meant that you had to keep your nerve and keep the power on to keep the bike steady at 65kph. The bike leg was little long so my time of 1.09 was okay but not great although was within the top 20.
Back into transition and was fairly smartly through and out. The run course comprised four laps of a weird course with a section actually entering the main arena before heading back out. There were some issues about lap counting which resulted in a number of DQs plus some narrow sections where passing slow traffic and missing oncoming traffic were a challenge in themselves. However, I managed to work pretty well on the run phase and delivered a 37.11 time, again, within the top 20 times but not enough to pull my overall position inside the top 20 which was my target. Anyway 2.13.56 gave me 22nd position (out of 76) and 10th fastest Brit, which since I’d qualified as 17th in the team of 20, meant that I have significantly over-performed against my team ranking. So, not all bad but still leaving me looking for that elusive perfect race……still, Blenheim on Saturday – will see if we can do better over the shorter distance….’
Lara reports: ‘I didn’t have the greatest preparation for Lisbon, injured most of the winter with both ankles. Then an Achilles issue since March which had stopped me running, but it had been fixed and I thought I could at least get some run training in beforehand. Then I tore my peroneal tendon, so no running for me. I cleared it with the team manager to just do the swim and bike, but having been told surgery would be the same whether I ran in Lisbon or not, the temptation was too big. I tested running at Eton and it was pretty slow, but I could do it, so I made my mind up to run in Lisbon and just have fun. It wasn’t like I could expect a good time on my next to zero run training. It was quite refreshing to be stood in the starters’ pen looking forward to doing whatever I could, rather than stressing that my training had been less than ideal and feeling the pressure of trying to put in a good performance. It seemed I was in good company, my ankle was taped, another girl had a stress fracture wrapped up, another had a bursa on a bunion so big the side of her shoe had to be cut out. All in all it made quite a jovial start to the race.
The swim was in a harbour, so it was salt water but quite sheltered. I drafted on someone’s hips for a while, but despite the first buoy being a couple of hundred meters away, it was a washing machine in there and I lost the person I was drafting. I then ended up being the person to draft off and was swimming in clear water. Coming to the exit I had an unsavoury character next to me who kept elbowing me – the exit was a ramp less than 2m wide – so everyone had to swim close to make the exit. In T1 I had made the decision (for the first time ever) to leave my shoes off my bike as I’d had a bad bike mount in Eton. Cue me grabbing my bike and running for the exit only to remember I needed my bike shoes!!! Shoes firmly attached to feet I started the bike course.
The way out was amazing, really fast, loving every minute, then at the dead turn I realised why. The headwind was spectacular! The second half of the bike was spent gritting my teeth, grinding away. Then my tri bar gears didn’t work and I was pushing too hard a gear uphill and too easy downhill. Realised fairly late I could still use the other shifters, but by that point I was pretty much back at transition. For once I wasn’t panicking about the run whilst on the bike because I knew it was never going to be good. I shot out of T2 and was surprised to see my pace, I thought my Garmin must have missed a couple of satellites, but 1k in I realised I was going way too fast to hold it and it probably had something to do with the caffeine gel I’d had!!
The next 1k was quite a struggle, then my friend from swim squad who was supporting ran next to the course to spur me on. I picked up the pace again but realised fairly quick that I didn’t have the run fitness to go that fast. The Viceroys motto was going round in my head, I’d been through the arena once and could picture it the second time when I would finish, so I just kept going. Inside the arena I saw a GBR girl in front and then one came in front of me from my left shoulder. Well, that did it! I sprinted all the way down the finishers’ chute, I overtook the girl who had got in front of me, she couldn’t match it, neither could the girl in front who I’d also overtaken. We crossed the finish line and all landed in a heap! Then I realised neither of them were in my age-group!!!! Oh well, it caused some cheering from the crowd at least! I didn’t come last, despite fully accepting I would. I’d done quite well on the swim and bike, but I lost about 10 places on the run. I had fun though and gave it my all, and that’s all that matters.’
Awesome racing guys.
