Vitruvian Is Resurrected

I entered the Vitruvian for 2 reasons – to meet up with Mark Bedford who ive not seen since the recent madness ensued and is a founder member of SEC, and to support a great event that has risen under new ownership.

I couldn’t persuade my lad to race 3 weeks on the bounce, and my wife decided that a spa weekend with the girls was a better offer than a night in our caravan by Rutland Water……so off I went alone!

Registration was on Friday evening (thank god for retirement!) so I dropped the van in the camping area about 100m from transition and went to get my numbers etc. Friday evening was a very relaxed affair, after racking the bike and sorting my kit, it was just down to pre-race nutrition (supplemented by Mark’s wife’s avocado brownies) and an early night. Due in the water at 6:45, I planned to get up at 5:30 for breakfast and unnecessary faffing. I failed to realise 2 things though….firstly it was pitch black at that time (no torch or headtorch) and secondly, the quiet Friday night campsite turned into the general parking area from 04:30 on Saturday – lots of cars, car doors and marshal’s directing traffic put paid to my expected “lie in”!

Hey, ho off to transition – bike is still there, tyres still inflated, gears still work, brakes still work – surprise, surprise! Nutrition added (the usual – tailwind 8 scoops for a 2.5 hour ride plus a clif bar). It was warm – 18/19 degrees, so no need for extra clothing in T1 or T2.

I wanted to test my swim form, and had decided that this was the ideal time to seed myself right at the front of my wave (my wave contain 50-75 year olds, so no young kids to get angry with me). I set up on the left hand buoy, on the front line and went for it from the gun. To my surprise, one guy left me for dead, but that was it….I was second to the first buoy – excellent. About half way round the first loop, another guy came alongside me, and I let him have a meter on me and sat on his hip for the rest of the first lap as we made our way through the tail end of the previous wave. Aussie exit and first loop done in 16 mins – same protocol for lap 2 and exited in 33 mins. I think I could have probably gone harder, but saw no point, as I knew I was a close 3rd in my AG, and the leader was a mile away, so chose to save some energy and stay on decent feet.

In and out of T1 and managed to avoid a guy that crashed into the barriers trying to do a flying mount (not the best look!).

The Vitruvian bike course is a rolling 42km loop with 400m of elevation on each lap. Mark knows it well, and local knowledge described the first and last 7 or 8km as undulating and head wind, the main climbs were 7-16km into the lap – 3 decent inclines (the Rutland Ripple), and then a pleasant tailwind, downhill / flat section in the middle. So it worked out – and I set about hunting down the leader of our AG (after taking 2nd place in T1). I was feeling good, power was on plan (climbing around FTP, getting aero on the descents and flats) aiming to average 250W again for the full ride. I made my way passed those in earlier waves and for once nobody came passed me (joy of letting all the kids go first!!). At 55km I took the lead and carried on with the plan. 82km (84 advertised) completed in 2:25 at 249W with 800m – box ticked.

Flying dismount again and into T2. Just about to run off, and my bike Garmin (despite the ride being stopped and saved) decided that the way I put it onto the racking shared enough similarities with a crash to start the “incident” alarm. 2 choices – run off and leave it…..triggering an automatic emergency call to my wife (bad idea) or stand for 10 seconds with my finger pressed on the cancel button – 10 seconds lost! I genuinely thought I had disabled it last year, but it probably got reinstated in one of the updates!!

Starting the run, I was unsure how much time I had on the 2nd place athlete, so decided to go harder than usual for the first 5km (the Vit is a 5km out and back done twice, so you get opportunities at the turnarounds to see where people are). The now customary practice of alternating gels and salt tablets ensured and coming back after the first turnaround, I saw I had about 4 mins lead – nice but not enough to ease up yet, so I set about maintaining the pace up to the half way point. The run is quite exposed to the wind, which was a challenge on a couple of sections, but I pushed on! Saw Mark on the course, quick high 5 and words of encouragement, and at the start of the second lap, the distance to 2nd place had increased to 6 mins….nice. I did actually try to drop the pace, but seemed to be in a groove of around 4:50 kms and it felt OK, so went with it. I made the conscious decision to walk longer at the 2 feed stations on the last loop to get water, gels and salt tablets in – it felt quite humid and my trisuit had the tell-tale salt lines across it.

Turning onto the final 5km and I had a 7 minute gap, so knew so long as I didn’t crash completely chances were I was going to take the AG win. Crossed the line with a 1:39 run, a total time of 4:44 and an 8 minute gap to second.

Cracking event, will be better next year when the new owners have had chance to prepare properly, but well worth £140 of anyone’s cash!