Cowman 70.3 - Mark Taylor

Having come out of the Snowman 70.3 the week before feeling in decent condition (surprisingly decent given how hard that race was in the conditions) I decided that I fancied getting a race in on the TT bike ahead of upcoming races…but a final decision wasn’t actually made until the morning before the race! Fortunately the Cowman (based near Milton Keynes) accepted on the day entries, and in comparison to most races it was blooming cheap! So after sorting out some last minute accommodation an hour from the race I headed off down south.

Registration (and payment etc) went smoothly and the only issue was finding a place to rack as my number didn’t have a slot and I ended up moving 3 times. I knew very little about the race route other than the swim was reported to be weedy and the run a 50:50 split between road and trail…basically I went in blind and was pretty calm about it.

Once we got going the swim actually wasn’t weedy and the water was very pleasant…2 laps, felt decent throughout despite taking a few decent left hooks and having done next to no swimming for the last 6 weeks. Came out feeling decent and in my ‘par’ time of 38 minutes.

The 2 lap bike ride was very breezy (but nothing on the gales of the weekend before) and very undulating, but with no steep gradients so it was the big ring all the way round and the surfaces were generally very good…all in all it was a very nice route. One realisation I had during the ride was that I am still a bit twitchy when going at full tilt downhill or in a crosswind after my crash at Lakesman, but that can’t have cost me too much time so no point worrying further about that, it’ll come or it won’t! The frustration during the ride was that I was definitely going to miss my target time by a reasonable distance, but I tried to focus on keeping the power on target and que sera sera…ended up back in T2 after 2 hours 57 mins. Slower than I wanted but happy with the ‘effort’.

The run was 4 laps with very distinct sections. The first section was flat and on tarmac, this was followed by 2.5k on trail with one long climb and one sharper incline then it was back on the hard stuff for a nice downhill then a 700m flat section back to the lap start/finsh. The off road bits were tricky because the surface was a choice of quite slippy mud or longish grass made all the trickier in road shoes. Overall the run went very well, I knew after a steady lap 1 that I felt good and just kept picking people off. My last lap was the fastest of the lot and I took the last 1km almost as a flat out effort. Run finished in 1 hour 40 mins which I was very happy with given the terrain and undulations.

In summary 5 hours 18 in total, not the sub 5 that I would have fancied ideally but satisfied with every discipline in the conditions. 6th in AG and 34th overall. A recommended race that was terrific value for money.

And the good news was that I got back to my hotel just before the 2pm check out time so I could grab a shower before heading back North.