How to deal with failure... The story of the race that never was...
So this year I had one aim... Get fit enough to finish in the top 10 at the Long Distance Alpe d'Huez Triathlon in July. Simple right?! Well last October I got busy with a training program that would turn me into a serious contender. For 9 months I plugged away through rain, cold, wind, fatigue and illness trying to beat out kind of average athlete and emerge a serious threat to the apple cart.
My first race of the season was the DBMAX Brecon Titan Half plus Ironman in June. I was aiming to use this as a springboard to test my fitness and give me an idea of the power I could hold on the bike and still put together a good run. After leaving the water in 24th position I hit the bike course hard. I held a 300w normalised power on the 60 mile bike course and climbed to 3rd position whilst setting the fastest bike split of the day. I ended up finishing an overall 2nd with a 1 hr 31 minute run which was a great morale boost.
After the race I went away for a much needed break to Menorca. Put in a good bit of swimming and a few runs in the heat but mainly used the time to recoup and have some quality time with my partner Jo. I came back 2kgs heavier despite watching my food intake. This sent me on a bit of a downward spiral as I'd always viewed my light weight and high power output as my key weapon.
In panic I picked up the training and cut my calorie intake in an attempt to lose the weight. I started stressing about every little thing on the bike; how much it weighed, was there any marginal gain to be seen from changing to ceramic parts. In a word I was all over the place. The calm and quiet confidence that had seen me ok at the Brecon Titan was gone and replaced with an anxious fool who did a good job of boring the hell out of his partner by repeatedly talking through the intricacies of wheelset weight vs aerodynamic advantage and how that relationship was affected by gradient.
After so much umming and arrring I relied on Best Bike Split for the correct bike and wheel combo. In retrospect I should have taken the TT bike despite the mega 12,000ft of climbing.
The day before the race. Hopes were high!
Quick bike check and warm up spin up the Alpe d'Huez climb complete
Finally race day came around and I crossed my fingers and hoped the nerves would calm down and I could put in a performance that would do my big dream justice.
I arrived down at T1 feeling nervous, it was a cold clear morning. The 12 mile descent from Huez to Lac du Verney sapped at the bodyheat, not something you want when you're about to swim in 15 degree water.
My support crew appeared and I said my goodbyes and headed down to the lake entrance. My nerves turned to excitement as I jumped into the water, shortly followed by an "oh sh*t that's cold!"
I'd been working really hard on my swimming and wanted to leave the water in the top 100 or so swimmers because I knew I had a strong bike and good run to make up the places. I made my way to where I imagined the centre of the pack would be hoping to catch some fast feet and draft my way around. As the other 1500+ competitors filed into the water the support boat pushed the front of the group back. This only served to cram us all tighter together. After about 10 minutes of pushing back and forth the gun went off and the melee began.
I had swum all of 20 meters before being pushed under the water by two swimmers either side of me coming together. As I tried to relax and come up swimmers who were behind me came over the top... I started swallowing water panicking as I tried to come up to the surface. The water was a mix of foaming white water and wetsuit clad bodies, all thrashing to get clear of this icy cold hell hole.
During what felt like a fight with the water and the other athletes I took one kick to the mouth and another to the left of my chest. I felt like I had an unbearably tight band around my torso as the waves of panic attack washed over me. Hyperventilating and feeling like I was being choked by my wetsuit I pulled it off my throat only for the freezing cold water to gush in and add to the suffering. I rolled onto my back and tried to calm myself before rolling back over to watch the front of the race disappear around the first buoy. The feeling of disappointment was as overwhelming as the clamp around my chest tightened.
Not wanting to be a complete failure and let down to my family I started to try and swim again. I couldn't front crawl because every time my face entered the chest clamp stopped me breathing... Breaststroke was my only option. I pushed on and exited the lake in around 500th position and jumped onto the bike hoping the chest tightness would ease off.
As the miles ticked by I knew something wasn't right. I couldn't breathe deeply, the tight band around my chest was ever present. I kept trying to focus on a good aero position on the bike and a smooth pedal stroke but every time I glanced down at my power meter I was putting out nearly 100w less than I had planned. I just couldn't make the bike move and every time I pushed a bit harder the chest band tightened. 70 miles in the alps is a long time to think about a broken dream.
Watching people twice my weight sail past me on the climbs was absolutely heart breaking, especially after coming to the race with such high ambitions. The disappointment brought me to tears on so many times as the miles rolled painfully by. As usual I'd given Jo (my partner) an annotated map of where I'd be on the course at what time. When I was over 1 hour late at the top of the famous Alpe d'Huez climb she knew something was wrong as I'm usually bang on with my timings.
Eventually I appeared, swerving from left to right grimacing as I looked down at the handlebars. She was waiting with my folks at our apartment that fronted onto the main climb. I had been praying for the last 3 hours that they would be there and had pitched my pain threshold to that point. I knew the race was over because I could barely cycle, let alone run. I climbed the 21 hairpin bends of Alpe d'Huez in tears with a stream of snot pouring from my nose. When I finally made it to Jo, I literally rode into her before collapsing onto the floor. The dream was over.
Such a bad place...
My folks drove me to the medical tent at the event village where the awesome medical staff examined me and confirmed I had two broken ribs... that was some consolation as it meant I'd not finished for a good reason.
The DNF (did not finish) hit me so hard because I couldn't quite grasp that despite putting in all of the time training and having a bike that was literally built for that climb (Colnago Extreme C), something outside of my control would be able to derail my grand plan.
Fixing broken ribs with beer... #science
I think this race failure served a good lesson for many reasons, the main two were needing to be honest with myself about my swimming ability and where I should position myself in a mass swim start, and that I need to accept that there will sometimes be a bad day at the office. I also took a lot from the pre-race experience as a guide of what not to do.
One of my favourite quotes
I've now recovered from the ribs and have full mobility. I've been using the downtime to focus on my swim technique which has yielded huge efficiency savings in the water.
The moral of the story is, triathlon is a game of luck. The sh*t days will come regardless of how hard you've trained. You just need to make it count when lady luck is smiling at you.
This one is definitely dedicated to family. I was lucky enough that I couldn't sit and dwell about my DNF because I had a promise to keep. For the weeks and months leading up to the race I'd been trying to convince my partner and folks that they had to tackle the 21 hairpins at Alpe d'Huez. I just couldn't let them go there without doing it. So the day after the race I nailed 500mg of codeine and headed out to chaperone them up the mountain... a few hours, a coffee stop and an amazing burger at the 'O' bar in Huez, we finished a beautiful ride that really put a great end to the trip.
Jo, Mum & Huw on the podium celebrating
Me in pain standing next to my Mountain Goat
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