Report from Martin Cain week commencing 21 May 2012

Martin Cain Week Commencing 21/5/12

Race Reports

 

Wednesday 23rd saw me take on the Oldham mountain time trial from dovestones. This is an 18 mile TT with 1 long steady climb and 1 shorter sharper climb, year on year I have improved my time so wanted to continue this. With a time of 50 minutes and 58 seconds I succeeded in beating my own time by 2 minutes and got a placing of 4th overall.

Onto Friday 25th I travelled to Nottingham and competed in the National emergency services triathlon, this was a sprint distance event 750 metre swim, 20 Km bike and 5Km run. The winning time from last year was 1 hour 2 minutes, I held the course record from the first year of this event in 2009 with a longer course of 59 minutes. With my progress over the last few years I was hopeful of beating the record and hopefully winning. The swim saw me 2nd out of the water but within the first mile on the bike I had taken the lead with a fast bike split of 27 minutes despite the heavy head wind. The run ran out into the same head wind despite this I managed a 16 minute 5Km run which I was over the moon about. This gave me the win and the course record with a time of 56 minutes 40 seconds. This secured my title of the National Emergency services champion for another year.

After these results I was hopeful of another good result at the Beaver Middle distance tri, the night before was a restless one under canvass next to the start line.

At 8.10 am I entered the water not knowing who had already set off in the first wave, I was within the top 5 out of the swim but made a school boy error in transition when I misplaced my bike adding nearly a minute onto T1.

Eventually getting under way I set about chasing down the field ahead this was completed within one lap but didn’t shake off Colin Hill, for the rest of the bike we exchanged the lead still unaware of the progress of the first wave. The bike was a scenic rolling route with one steady hill in it, consisting of 3 laps I managed my nutrition well and started the run with relatively fresh legs.

The run is a 4 lap 1.6 mile climb followed by a 1.6 mile descent, I averaged 6 min 30 sec climbs and 5 min 45 descents, by this point I could see the whole field still unaware of how close it was going to be. After the first lap I was able to gauge that I was catching all the other potential leaders which spurred me onto run harder to give me the best chance of the win. After finishing the bike level with Hill I soon managed to drop him on the run after the first climb. By the last lap I was flying and feeling confident, the course record had been set the previous year by Sam Baxter 3hours 58 mins. My finishing time was 3 hours 52 mins, unfortunately Sam returned this year to further extend his record to 3 hours 49 mins.

On reflection it may not have been the best idea to pack so much into one week but I have learnt some lessons this week and am confident that this week will hold me in good stead in 3 weeks’ time down at Wimbleball 70.3. There is a week of longer training this week next week will see me cut it back to shorter sprint sessions with the week leading upto my first Pro long distance event taking it very easy certainly not racing a sprint the day before.

 

Keep your fingers crossed.

As always a huge thank you to

RedVenom.co.uk - www.redvenom.co.uk/

CNP Professional - www.cnpprofessional.co.uk/

Surosa Cycles - www.surosa.co.uk/