Danny Bluff - LM 140.6 2021 Winner

What an unbelievable weekend! Lakesman 2021 really delivered as it always does and I’m already excited to get back there again next year!

Preparation

The lead up to The Lakesman went really well for me. I was able to stay injury free and remained consistent with my training all thanks to Paul’s coaching and guidance. There were a few scares of COVID with increasing numbers in the office but I took the cautious approach to work from home in the 3 weeks leading up to the race to ensure I wasn’t putting myself in too much risk.

With my A race of Roth being postponed earlier this year, I changed my focus to the Lakesman - a suitable replacement since it’s at a similar time of the year to when Roth usually is. The build up saw a variety of different key workouts with emphasis on running quickly and long endurance rides. Pretty much every Saturday involved a long ride comprising of IM or 70.3 power efforts with a run off the bike which gradually built to 4 x 5km at 4:00min/km (my target IM pace). All these sessions built my confidence and I felt good going into the race.

Swim

Leading up to the race I wasn’t so confident on my swimming. I had spent the winter training in a 20m pool which worked great for tumble turn practice but that’s it really. I managed to get a few open water sessions in beforehand but they were showing some pretty slow times for me (maybe GPS related, maybe just crap swimming), so like always I just wanted the swim over with.

The swim course comprised of 2 laps and it was a pretty uneventful swim. As usual my goggles leaked (never happens in training but always in a race - typical!) but I don’t think it hindered me too much. I managed to find some good feet and got out of the swim in 56:50 measuring about 400-500 meters short - quite annoying but sort of a blessing since I hate swimming.

T1

Transition was smooth but I knew I had some serious chasing to do with the quickest swimmers probably around 10 minutes up the road. My biggest dilemma was whether to wear arm warmers or not but thankfully I chose wisely since the sun was out for most of the bike.

Bike

Onto the bike and my target was to hold around 250w for the start with a tailwind was forecast, and then I’d need to push more power on the return going into the headwind. Whilst this was the plan it didn’t quite go that way…

The first 50km flew by and I remember catching Richard Anderson who I knew would be close to the front of the race. This was a massive confidence booster as he’s a great all-round triathlete and meant my swim mustn’t have been all that terrible.

The coastal road section was another story though. In previous years it’s always been a beautiful tailwind where you can easily average over 40kmh with barely any power. This year it was a big headwind and I just had to keep as aero as possible. I started to fade around half way into the bike, maybe a bit psychological as the wind felt never ending but I knew I had to stick to my nutrition plan and trust it was just a momentary low part of the race.

My nutrition plan was to take a gel every 20 minutes and top up with energy drink provided on the course so I’d probably be at about 80g of carbs per hour. I’ve tried this several times in training so thought it’d go well for me but I felt like I seriously bonked near the end of the ride. This could have been down to an issue at the penultimate feed station where I wasn’t able to grab a bottle of fluid so only had about 300ml to last me for about 30km. I was in two minds about whether to go back and in hindsight I probably should have done but thankfully the last 20km or so were flat and on a nice surface so I could just roll into transition 2.

T2

Coming into transition I heard shouts of “you’re leading” which came as surprising news to me since a marshal had said I was 6 minutes back whilst on the bike and I never caught anyone up.

A big change for me this time round was that I opted to change my race belt for one with two small 300ml bottles. I often completed my long runs with this race belt and thanks to precision hydration I knew I was a heavy sweater so had to keep topped up on electrolytes and fluids. I’m glad I made this decision and I’d recommend it to anyone - to convince you further both myself and the runner up carried water bottles with us on the run.

Run

Onto the run and this was probably my most confident discipline going into the race. I’m not really quick over 5km but from my training I was able to easily knock out sub 4min/km for 25km after a big ride, so my target was around 3 hours for the marathon.

Like everyone does, I set off far too quickly but soon eased into it. I kept saying to myself that it was better to win than bust a gut trying to get a sub 3 hour marathon which could then turn disastrously and I’d end up second or worse. After all it’s a race, and I was leading so I just needed to hold my position.

Due to the nature of the course you’re able to see where other people are. I saw Richard looking very strong and even closing the gap which I was told was around 10 minutes at the end of lap one. This worried me slightly as a 10 minute lead can easily vanish if you end up cramping.

The marathon is a huge mental game and whilst I was dying inside I had to look strong to put pressure on people who wanted to catch me. I ended up blocking out everything except for a few brief words to my amazing support crew (my mum, Ann, and sister, Rachel) - massive thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you! The support on the course was unbelievable and it really does pick you up when you’re feeling low, so thank you for all those that cheered and sorry if it looked like I was ignoring you, I was just in a zone to get to the finish.

Onto lap 4 and I saw Matt Alderson running very quickly and moving up to second. I guessed he was about 8 minutes back but at his speed that could easily shrink. Somehow I managed to pull through even with a slight twinge of muscle cramping in my hamstring with just over a kilometre to go.

But oh my god! That finishing chute is just unreal. With 500m to go I almost started tearing up being flooded by emotion that I’d achieved what I’d set out to do and all the hard work had paid off. Everything just came out and to hear “Your Lakesman winner - Danny Bluff” was incredible. I won this race back in 2018 so it’s amazing to take the title back!

I’ll be back again next year, albeit doing the Lakesman Half and then supporting everyone doing the full distance, I already can’t wait!

Splits

Swim = 56:50

Bike = 4:48:31

Run = 3:03:30

Total = 8:53:50