Challenge Championships – Samorin, Slovakia

So back in Pre-COVID times myself and Danny Bluff managed to bag entries for the 2020 Challenge Championships. It was supposed to be over the late May Bank Holiday weekend and a family trip. Roll on 14 months, and our daughter and 7 of her friends are staying at ours and attending a local music festival this weekend, and my wife, Ann has had to stay with them as duty chaperon, cook, taxi driver……so the weekend turned into a lad and dad weekend away .

Armed with COVID tests, vaccination certificates and £20 flights to Vienna (that turned into £200 when the bikes were added!), a 3 hour drive to London Stanstead and an hour’s taxi ride from Vienna to Bratislava we arrived ready to race (must have wanted this one badly!!)

Friday was “put the bike back together and take it for a spin” day, and then registration. We drove to Samorin along the new motorway that would be our bike route – true to form, flat, even, beautiful!!

A quick swim recce on Saturday morning revealed a pretty decent current in the Danube that should lead to a slow first half and faster second half. We did a few short intervals on the river bank, racked the bikes and transition bags and settled in to watch the Collins Cup for the afternoon.

Sunday was race day, and a very leisurely 9:30 start for young people and 9:50 for old people. We arrived in transition around 08:15 to conduct the usual routines of double checking everything twice and adding some liquids to the bike….which took all of 10 minutes and then proceeded to double check the “ins” and “outs” and then saunter on over to the swim start. The most noticeable difference between Saturday & Sunday was the wind – strong and coming from the same direction as the current in the river and directly along the motorway…..should make for an interesting “games of 2 halves”.

The pros were in the water at 09:00 (men) and 09:10 (women), so I had the pleasure of seeing the leading male (Richard Varga) come out in 26 mins and Fenella Langridge (who we both know quite well) come out in 29 mins, I did a quick recalibration of my expectation of a 30 minute swim!!! True the recalculation, the first 500m took me 12 mins with an average HR or 144…..unheard of!! I finally exited in 39 mins, my slowest ever 70.3 swim, but still 8th in my AG. Learning point 1 – make sure your expectations are challenging but realistic, and whatever happens don’t let any single element play on your mind….onwards always.

T2 – in and out – transition bags always slow you down, and the 500M run from the river got the legs going again, no dramas and off on the bike

Bike expectations – sub 2:30…..lets see what the wind has to say about that! 5kmish to the motorway negotiated with no drama and onto the race circuit – first 10km, tailwind, 45-50kph….this is going to be painful after the turnaround. Power maintained and 20km of pure headwind still happy to manage 30kph, turnaround, hold the power, but don’t chase it for 20km…45-50kph, turnaround, and repeat, slow and hard, turnaround and repeat fast again……1km from the end and the next big opportunity. 6 mins to go to my 2:30 target…..time to try a flying dismount for the first time (Learning point 2 – nothing new on race day…maybe ). Long straight ride in to the dismount line, shoes undone, feet out and on top of the shoes and pedal. All done far to easily and quickly which meant far too long to peddle like that….but job done and running into T2. When we registered, the numbers were given out consecutively as you registered, so for probably the only time ever, me and Dan were racked next to each other….always great to see his bike safely back in T2!

Learning point Number 3 – 2.5 hours of solid TT position and your glutes are not your friend….for this type of race, it really is essential to spend hours pushing power on the bars!!

Out on the run and things loosen up, and as ever the first 2 kms are too fast. Target is 1:45 which would give me sub 5 total…..5 min kms – opened up with sub 4:50s…..chill a bit. The course is a real mixture – grass, concrete, tarmac, pavements, sand, gravel and twists around and loops backwards and forwards on itself. We discussed the fact that Garmins hate that sort of run, and its probably better to use the KM markers on the course as a reference, as each KM is marked….bad news, on that basis the first 2 kms were run at 4:30 pace…..really need to chill!! There were 2 feedstations on each 6.5km lap (an extra 2km stretch at the start makes the distance up), so settled into a routine of gel and water from one and salt capsule and water from the other. Plodded away consistently at around 5 min kms collecting wrist bands on each lap, and actually the variations on the course made time pass quite quickly. I saw Dan a couple of times on the first (once coming towards me and once as he jogged gently passed me at 3:40kms ), but knew he’d be finishing and “supporting” soon enough. True to form, just as I’m planning a gentle cruise through the last 2km to a 1:40ish run I can hear him explaining the benefits of digging deep and finishing fast…..go on then – last km at 4:25 and finished in 1:39

Total time 4:55 – expectation achieved on all disciplines and overall, post race food thoroughly deserved and good couple of hours swapping stories and analysing results!! Back to the event location in the evening for the awards ceremony for Dan to collect his prize and me to get some reflected glory…..and on to the “all you can eat” buffet – great idea on race day!!