J-Lo the Jaguar, Queen of the Jungle - Birmingham Triathlon 2018 Part 2

One thing I’ve learned when booking hotel rooms at race weekends is never, ever base your choice of hotel on reduced deals. I know, I’m the world’s best when it comes to stealing bargains from upmarket food halls but the room was so hot I was lucky not to suffocate and as such a nice tepid shower at 4:30am was just what the team manager (namely me) ordered. I set about eating the two pots of dairy-free porridge and a couple of potato cakes with the remaining Lotus Biscoff spread before contacting the night porter to get J-Lo out of the kitchen. She was loaded into the car and come 5:45am I was dropping the key in the box and heading back up the hill to Sutton Park. As one of the first arrivals I was able to park in the Miller and Carter restaurant parking lot and quickly made my way to race registration. However, I didn’t have one of my (admittedly not slim enough) race belts and, worse still, the stall wasn’t open yet. I was now in full panic mode thinking I would have to puncture my closing down sale bargain tri suit with eight pins but the stall opened at 6:45am, just in time for me to get the pins in and my race number on. Come 7am the sound system was belting out the UK Triathlon play list including the usual favourites and the Nantwich disaster from Demi Lovato (Heart Attack, at least we weren’t actually running at this point). As I looked at the pit boxes I couldn’t help but notice the lack of triathlon bikes, was this going to be a course for the roadies and those who like twisty, technical circuits? More than enough to make me somewhat apprehensive, indeed. At 7:15am we were called to the water’s edge for instructions such as counting 4, and indeed the race directors was particularly keen to point out how to count to 2 on the run course (even this would be a bit much for some people). We then made our way across to the start line in the water itself and at 7:32am, the starters’ horn sounded and the 2018 Birmingham Triathlon was underway!

NO GOING COLOURBLIND HERE, JUST BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

Two weeks ago in Leeds I commented on how silly it was to have buoys and a canoe the same colour as the swim caps. Well, our luck was in today, the canoe was replaced by a big boat following the back markers round and the buoys were red. However, the sun glare was very noticeable and I was mindful of the 1977 Manfred Mann song I alluded to in the paragraph title that would nonetheless sound great on the UKT sound system. I picked up placed during the course of the swim and was quite happy to get out of the water in a good position relative to the other midfielders. Only thing was, the run from the water to our bikes was much shorter than at Roundhay Park and I only thought about removing my arms when I’d reached my bike. As such T1 didn’t go at all according to plan and I only got on the bike after a right scramble to clip the Limar 007 helmet in and get my shoes tightened properly. Now I could begin four laps of Sutton Park.

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, WE BRING THE FUN AND GAMES

The first kilometre on the bike course was a grind uphill where I struggled to get past 17mph, and as such a couple of road bikers eager to get a fast start almost overtook me, but I got rid of them after the right-turn at the top end of the course and now we could proceed on the long, drawn-out descent into the jungle, as in the trees where you couldn’t really see the potholes because the sunlight never quite reaches the leafy canopies as you pass under them. Imagine resurrecting the Cones Hotline advert in the middle of a triathlon and you might just have an idea for 2019………..The chicane was a good fun place to make a pass, but it was only at the back end of the lap on the long straight towards the turning point that I really got the chance to pick off the fast swimmers and this pattern continued into laps 2 and 3, which were a gradual case of more of the same but trust your tyres to hold grip. Indeed, it was particularly satisfying to work my way up to the back of Planet X Man, struggle to get alongside him through the slow corners and then nail the pass on the long straight into the woods, and I got a bit of extra energy from the cheering crowds who were treating us like Tour de France royalty. Having sipped about 200ml of Arbonne’s Prepare and Endure I had a couple of extra mouthfuls on the climb as I began the last lap, where the traffic was sometimes as hectic as “I’m on the left, four-wide” but luckily other people seem to be able to hear me rather better than I can hear them when the wind is rushing through my ears. On the right-hander before the long straight I overtook a particularly purposeful kid on a Giant TCR Advanced who I’m sure is a star of the future if ever he gets round to buying a TT bike but the fans were more interested in doing the football clapping rhythm routine with their musical instruments of sorts which sounded like a cross between an airhorn and a vuvuzela. A right good laugh to listen to as I dismounted the bike and ran into the pitlane, only to be greeted with four people using neon yellow shoes and wetsuit arms! So naturally I had a hard time finding the blue kitbag I brought back from Leeds a fortnight ago but after changing shoes, sipping a bit more Arbonne and checking my watch, it was out onto the run course. And what a final stanza it would prove to be.

WHO NEEDS FIVE ADDITIONAL MINUTES WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO 12 SECONDS?

The race briefing man described the run course as the best one on the UKT calendar, and he was certainly right; up hills, down hills, tarmac, gravel, grass and even a bit of sand. I think a Parkrun here would be really entertaining if only to see people bring their racing flats and then try to keep their footing on the loose surface, but my Asics DS Racers proved to be a great choice over the usual Saucony Type A’s because not only did they cushion my increasingly tight left leg, they provided invaluable grip on the off-road and off-camber corners. On the first lap I didn’t see too many people but as I approached the stadium section the crowd noise really pushed me on to a faster second tour. By this time I was aware that there were some fast runners ahead which meant positions were very much up for grabs and with a pass on Rosso Corsa Tri Suit Man, I was up to 5^th, though I didn’t know it at the time. As I entered the beach section for the second time I was at the back of a train of five people, three on their first lap, one speedster fighting his way through on his second. I wondered if he might be in my age group (he obviously didn’t think the same as I loomed large at the turnaround point) but I then thought; no regrets, I’m going for this and damn my stiff calf. So I pulled alongside and went for it, conscious that he was now opening up his sprint as well. Then the crowd started going bonkers much like they did in Sochi the previous night and I thought “here comes a 95^th minute winner”. Well, it was more like the 75^th minute of a 75-minute triathlon but the bloke I overtook didn’t come back and even the commentators were enjoying themselves as I homed in on the finish line. One more mad dash down the home straight later and I was into the finishing funnel having crossed the line in a time of 1:14:46. It was time to get my finisher’s medal, have some of the provided energy drink (which compared to N-Fuse or Arbonne was in a different league, and not in a good way either) and return to the timing screens with matey-boy who I’d just passed for position in the dying seconds. It was here that I got a huge surprise; I’d finished fourth and in just my third open water triathlon I’d won the M30-34 division by over seven minutes to pull off the most unlikely win with my German Focus bike, barely 12 hours after the drama in Russia!

I was simply buzzing on the way back to the pitlane to get my bike and not just because the Guns n’ Roses classic Sweet Child O’Mine was blazing out of the loudspeakers, rather because I never thought I could pull off a division title so early in my development at longer distance races (well I know it’s only a sprint, but 750m in the water is near-marathon territory for some of us). I waited for St Helens Tri teammate Paddy Lee to finish from the second wave, but he almost didn’t make it home at all because the cows from the previous day stole the Reject of the Race award by walking across the course to the river during the race! Some runners had to dodge them by running completely off the course and I do hope no division title were settled in such a farcical fashion, but for my part I was off to get changed, drink the Arbonne recovery solution with magnesium plus vitamin B12, and get the Limar 007 plus Arbonne bottle ready for the prize giving, where the winner was deservedly lauded for completing the course in under 1 hour 8 minutes and the aforementioned star on the TCR ran away with the junior title at the age of 15! He’s a future overall champion for sure. Paddy timed the photos to perfection allowing me to concentrate on balancing the bottle on the helmet, and from there we walked back to our cars to reflect on an amazing day’s racing. He went to Wolverhampton while I made my way to the Sutton Park pub to devour a double vegan burger with sweet potato fries and a pint of Carling (part of the burger and beer deal for £8) before the match kicked off, as a packed pub watched England sweep to victory, though apparently they simply need to draw with Belgium and not get any yellow cards on Thursday to win the group. Anyone want to place £5 on a few players getting sent off then? Thought so. Come 3pm the match was over so it was time to drive home but what an epic 2018 this is turning out to be, now onto the bike time trial season!

Now for the race results, powered by my new favourite fuel, the Arbonne Phytosport Range:

Distance: 750m/20k/5k

Time: 1:14:46

Final Position: 4^th overall and M30-34 division champion

Cows: at least 10

Potholes: far too many

TT Bikes Overtaken: 0 because there weren’t any others

Baby-Faced Assassins: 2, one on a Giant TCR, one on a TT bike

Post Race Nutrition: 10/10 (Phytosport recovery solution at the race then double vegan burger and beer at the Sutton Park Pub)

REJECT OF THE RACE: Cows

(For pure comedy value, though imagine if they’d joined us in the lake)

Time to watch the French Grand Prix. Well done to everyone who took part today, and for those looking to enjoy the UK Triathlon experience, York on 15 July looks like the perfect warm up for the World Cup Final!