But it sure beats doing a triathlon in the snow!

Four weeks ago myself and the other resident Tri247 columnist John Levison were amongst a few hundred souls who braved the elements at the first race in the Thames Turbo sprint series on 25th March. My previous column told the sad tale of my woeful performance and promised better things to come.

Well, for a start the weather was a whole lot better. The sun was out and what wind there was, was a crosswind for most of the bike leg. By the time I got round to the run leg, I was beginning to regret packing the arm warmers and leaving the sun cream at home! But what about the race itself?

My expectations going into the race were quite clear. I knew that I was still a million miles away from anything like race fitness, but since the first race, I had managed to increase my training load to about four hours a week. At my best, in 2004, I was managing about seven or eight hours a week, so I am still well short of my optimum training load, but I was still confident of improving on my March performance. Then, Mike Morris whopped me by a massive six minutes but this time around, I had set myself a target of finishing within three minutes of him. I had even gone to the length of getting a super-short haircut the day before, in the belief that the only rational explanation of the yawning gap between us was his lack of hair and too much on my part!

Mike and I were off within a few places of each other on the swim and after a comfortable 438m swim in 7:40, I ran into T1 just as he was leaving. Having recorded a personal worst time of 41:07 on the bike in March, I was determined to make amends. The conditions couldn't have been better and my new Van Nicholas Blaze was also about to make its race debut in Team Tri-UK colours. Given the flat nature of the bike leg, I had gone for a Zipp rear disk and front deep-rim carbon job and compared to all the other bikes I have ridden on this flat, but unforgiving course, the Van Nicholas was a dream to race on. There was none of the road buzz associated with aluminium frames and even for a high cadence spinner like me, I could feel an immediate injection of speed every time I put more pressure on the pedals. Over the opening miles, I was recording a heart rate of about 165, almost 90% of my max, and common sense should have suggested that I ease off and leave something in the tank for the run. But since when did common sense have anything to do with racing! No, I was determined to prove that the March time was a fluke which could be resigned to history. It was therefore with a certain amount of self satisfaction that I completed the 13.5 mile bike leg in 37:36. OK, this was some seven minutes slower than the fastest split of the day but it still compared favourably with my best time over the new course of 36:12. And although he couldn't have been far behind me at the end of the bike leg, I had also managed to hold off John Levison who, I was convinced, would be passing me not long after the swim!

My decision to hammer the bike was based on the logic that after March's dismal result, I needed a healthy boost of confidence and that the surest way to achieve this was to focus on one, rather than all three disciplines. Having been one minute faster in the swim and four minutes faster on the bike, it was mission accomplished, but as I expected, the effort on the bike soon took its toll on the 5km run. It wasn't that long ago that I was running 19/20 minutes for the run leg and taking 26 minutes in March was depressing to say the least. Just about the only consolation was that I knew I was still overweight and still not packing in the running miles. And as all the good training manuals say, you reap what you sow! I exchanged a few words with Mike Morris in T2, but by the time I had donned my race shoes and left the Hampton Pool complex, he was out of sight. And it wasn't long before John Levison – and quite a few others – overtook me and disappeared into the distance. Being neither an accomplished swimmer or biker, I can take bad times in those disciplines on the chin, but I come from a running background and in the good old days, I could always rely on my running strength to make up for any time lost in the swim on the bike. But these days, I am just about staying in contention by the end of the bike and then seeing everything fall apart on the run. To be honest, this run seemed as slow as the effort in March, but the watch said I was two minutes faster, which overall, meant that I had improved by about seven minutes over the four week period. My finishing time was 1:11:48.

And here is the output from my Polar. It seems that my heart rate during the swim never varied from 162 bpm which I find hard to believe but the graph from the bike leg is pretty much spot on from what I can recall. The dip in heart rate after the bike leg reflects the seven minutes 'dead time' between the end of the bike and entering T1. And the downward sloping graph for the run tells its own tale. I was well and truly spent over that final 5km run!

And for the record :-

John Levison: 9:09 swim; 37:03 bike; 21:31 run; 1:07:43 overall
Mike Morris - 9:26 swim; 37:01 bike; 21:53 run; 1:08:23 overall
Bob Holloway – 9:40 swim; 37:36 bike; 24:32 run; 1:11:48 overall

After the event, I felt disappointed at recording another second rate time, but on the other hand, my head said that given where I started from at the beginning of the season, a seven minute improvement shouldn't be scoffed at and hopefully, suggests that there is more to come. The next race in the series is on 26th May, but before then, I have one of the Eton Super Sprints to race. I really want to post a sub 70 minute time on the 26th which means that I will be concentrating on my running over the next few weeks because that is the one area where, for the same investment in training time, I stand to gain the most improvement. I will use the Eton race to assess my new fitness levels and I won't be hammering it at 90% of my heart rate max! But its surprising how quickly you forget these sorts of pre-race promises once the gun goes!