Time to taper and think of my goal…

It’s the Monday before the Sunday of the race.

With only 6 days to go, all the training is done. The next few days are just for tapering down to the race. I’m pretty pleased with how the training has gone. I could have done a few more miles on the bike, especially whilst we were on holiday in France, but my swimming is pretty solid, and I’m very pleased how my running has come along.

I think I’m most happy that I’ve managed to stay injury free. At least I know I can compete.

Which means my thoughts are inevitably turning to how quickly I will go. I recently did my fastest time in the Hatfield Sprint in 1hr26′. This one is double the distance but that doesn’t necessarily mean just double the time. At least, I don’t think it does. After all, I’ve never done a triathlon this long before.

When I did the London Sprint Triathlon last year, I did it in 1hr32′. Some of the extra 6 minutes were down to the size of the Triathlon. When there are thousands of competitors, the transition areas have to be really big, and just getting through these can add time. The two transitions last year took me 8’01”, so if they are the same size this year, I’ve got a good idea how long they will take. Doubling the swim from last year will be take me 44 mins, doubling the bike leg wil take me 1hr18′ and doubling the run would take me 47 mins.

But its not as simple as that. Take the swim for example. I can do 1500m in the pool in under 35 mins, so 44 mins should be achieveable. However, my normal time for my 40k ride on a Saturday morning is 1hr20 something and thats without a swim beforehand. And my personal best for a 10k run is 50 mins, again without a swim and ride beforehand.

Taking all this into account, I’m hoping to do the following:

Swim – 40 mins
Bike – 1hr 20 mins
Run – 55 mins
Transitions – 8 mins

This is a total of 3hrs 3 mins, which raises the obvious target of trying to do it in less that 3 hours, which is what I’d like to do….