Cleveland Steelman (wetman) Race Report

Definitely the wettest race I've ever done!

I went to this event without being sure of my form over the longer distance having only done 2 sprints and 1 Olympic distance this year. The weather was in form and it was raining on arrival, much to my dissatisfaction. I set up transition with my run shoes, cap and cycle top in a plastic bag to keep them dry. The lake was the cleanest I've ever swam in, you could see the bottom even in the deepest areas. The race started and I was off on the 2k swim. I swam well for me and was satisfied with a 29:44. I don't know if I could have kept that pace up for 4k though (thinking ahead to the worlds) although there's still time yet. I had a quite slow transition trying to get my cycle top on over my wet tri top but I'm glad I did. On to the bike and it was 2 laps covering 58 miles. The first 9 miles or so was fairly rolling and with a head wind. I felt I was struggling on the bike and didn't seem to get going very well despite passing other riders it just didn't feel good. The rain hadn't really got going on the first lap but as we went past transition to start the second lap the heavens opened. I can't recall ever racing in rain as heavy as that. It was torrential, there was about 1/2 an inch of water across the roads it was like riding through one giant puddle. I started to feel stronger as the ride went on and the last 8 miles I was flying passing 6 more riders. I came into transition and had another slow one struggling to get dry socks on wet feet. I ditched the cycle top that now weighed about 4 lb and set off on the 12 mile run. I made up 2 places I had lost in transition but after 1.5 mile I decided to empty the bladder. After that I felt a lot better and got back up to speed. It was then that I picked out another RAF tri suit about 30 seconds up the road. The run course had an out and back section and then a loop at the other end to take you back round to start the next lap. It was 85% off road and the tracks were in a terrible state. I started to close in on Greg Macdonald towards the end of the first lap catching him dead on the end of the lap. I passed him and continued to pick up places running from 15th (half way round the first lap) to 8th by the end of the race putting just short of 3 mins into Greg. I'm happy with the result and my times. The Half IM is 70.3 and this was 71.4 so well pleased with a 4hr 22min. Splits are as follows

Swim 29:44

Bike 2:34:57

Run 1:14:50

I feel fine today (Sunday) but will find out how tired I am on Wednesday at Cranwell. See you there.