OMG I’m 41! Does that signal the end of 40s 4 40?! Am I too old for any more of those shenanigans now?
I’ll post a conclusion to #40s440 separately, but for now want to express my gratitude for everyone’s support and contributions to my ‘Forties for 40’ concept – what a blast being 40 has been #40s440!
Some may recall that I was scheduled to climb Cartenz Pyramid (my 4th of the World’s 7 summits and one of the original Forties 4 40 challenges) on both my 40th and 41st Birthdays but due to the ongoing travel restrictions surrounding the COIVD 19 pandemic, I haven’t been able to travel and / or enter Indonesia.
I WILL climb Cartenz Pyramid but it will be the subject of a future post…
Not to be outdone, I signed up as an age group entry to the Olympic distance ITU World Triathlon Championship race in Abu Dhabi as an alternative challenge. The 2021 instalment was later in the year than usual and as luck would have it, on my actual Birthday!
I’ve done this race twice before, once in 2016 on the cornice (left picture below) and once in 2017 around the Grand Prix circuit (right picture below).
Thankfully the 2021 event is also around the Grand Prix circuit so I was thrilled to race around it again and try to beat my previous time.
Being that it was relatively flat and a smooth surface I changed my wheels, rear cassette and brake pads to suit.
The Elite races were on the Friday so I made a video summary of both the male and female print races after I finished my practice swim. I even got to meet some of my heroes mashallah š
Elite Women’s Race Report by Tri247:
Elite Men’s Race Report by Tri247:
I originally signed up to complete to the Olympic distance triathlon but two days before the race was due to take place this was cancelled due to the weather conditions being too hot.
Everyone who had entered the Olympic distance (1,500m swim; 40km bike; 10km run) was offered the opportunity to complete the Sprint (750m swim; 20km bike; 5km run) instead and I decided to race – after all, I had come this far!
Below you will find something of a ‘race report’.
My Results:
First and foremost, I need to state that i am really happy with my position of 78th overall out of 479 male finishers (top 16%) and 26th out of 182 in my 40-49 age group (top 14%).
Even better, if I add the females to it (a total if 103, 8 of which came before me) this equates to an overall place of 86 out of 582 and therefore in the top 15% overall – a great result for me!
However, three things are of note:
1). It seems like the distances of each discipline were out. My Garmin says that each discipline was further than the stated distances? I will go into detail in the sections below.
2). Joining the original sprint and Olympic races meant there were far too many bikes on the technically challenging 2 lap 10km course. Imagine if everyone is on the course and spread out evenly, that would equate to at least 22 people on bikes per kilometre – keeping yourself to yourself is a challenge in itself!
3). Not the best organisation. Left hand not talking to right hand type stuff on the part of the organisers and my luxury Hotel (the W on Yas Island) who despite trying very hard to impress, unfortunately couldn’t get basic bed and breakfast right!
On the basis that everyone has to do the same course, what counts is the order and time you go past the finish line, not the specific distances so I remain pleased with my result.
Swim:
Recognising that the swim was half what I thought I was going to swim, I didn’t hold back and made a point of maintaining good form. I therefore assumed and felt like I was swimming at less than 1:40 per 100 metres. The results say I was swimming at 1:59 per kilometre? This is because they if you divide the distance the swim should have been (750m) by my time you get a slower pace. My Garmin measured the swim at 877 metres – an extra 127 metres and taking an extra couple of minutes to swim it!
I doubt it was from me veering off path because there wasn’t much scope for getting it wrong!
More likely I would have been swimming at the 1:35 average moving page as per the below:
In any case, the water was like a bath, the temperature was lovely and whilst setting people off in age groups rather than abilities led to slow swimmers getting overtaken too often by faster ones coming up the rear, it remained a civilised affair.
T1:
Fine, no issues just got on with it.
Bike:
Massively technical two-lap 10 kilometre course and brilliant to cycle on the Grand Prix Circuit again. It is so smooth and the corners fantastic but I am always amazed just how undulating it is and to feel the different cambers all over it. It’s a pleasure to cycle fast on but don’t hit the tall curbs whatever you do!
I love the tight twists and turns and swerving around, it’s a real test of bike handling. The only thing that detracted from it was how many people were on the course. Often people, including me, would get in the way and trying not to draft became really difficult.
You can see from my heart rate that I was trying hard and stupidly, I did not register my entry into the second transition at the correct time so the figures are a little skewed because of this.
Nonetheless, my Garmin measured the distance at over a kilometre more than stated – there really wasn’t that much scope for additional distance so I suspect the course has not been measured quite correctly?
T2:
Couldn’t find my spot, no numbers, no markers, no signage or sections – ran past it and had to come back, left my Garmin running so didn’t record the time properly – doh!
Run:
Probably my best 5k run as part of a triathlon. I didn’t look at my watch once. After all the training I’ve done, I know how fast I am running by how I feel and I knew I was running well less than 5 minutes per kilometre, more like 4:30 and I resolved to simply run as fast as I could.
With this in mind, when I see the official results that say I ran 5k in 25:42 at a pace of 5:15 I can hardly believe it. I know how I was pushing. Taking a look at the Garmin post race, tells me I was running at an average of 4:41 and that I actually ran 5.39km so again, the distance seems out.
After a cycle like that, the run was an uneventful and simple but warm 2.5km out and back.
Conclusion:
I’m made up to have been running at an average of 4:41 on my 41st Birthday (lol) #40s441?!
Huge respect to the Elite athletes that presumably only raced in the afternoon so us plebs could watch them?! I aw a few collapse and they were sweating heavily working really hard so this gave me an insight as to what my race might be like – thankfully, I started just after 7am when the sun, heat and humidity were bearable!
Notwithstanding my disappointment, in retrospect I think cancelling the Olympic was a good call. There would have been a lot of medical calls had it continued. However, that many people doing a Sprint with a two-lap bike course was bordering on dangerous at times and this led to some bunching – the event just was not big enough to handle that many people all at once so I’m actually glad a lot Olympic hopefuls didn’t swap to the sprint as this provided some natural alleviation to the problem.
If it were not for the questionable accuracy regarding the distances, I think this would have been a PB for me as I feel stronger in all disciplines and the Garmin agrees!
Alas, my official Sprint PB still stands at 1:17:41 as per the below:
I’m interested to hear anyone else’s experience of this race and if their own tech recorded any similar anomalies regarding the distance.
I will post up and further relevant information and official photos as and when…
