The P2SL Project

As most people who know me know, I love my Cervélos! My trusty Soloist, aka the Stealth Bike, has racked up thousands of miles as my bombproof all-season road and racing bike since I bought it new in May 2008. And the P3C is one of the most aerodynamic TT frames ever made, a perennial favourite on the Ironman scene. Alas, once the P3C arrived last June, my P2SL -- the first Cervélo I owned -- was reduced to mere frame and forks and relegated to a bag under the spare bed, awaiting a possible future as a fixed-gear track bike. So despite owning three Cervélos, but only two were ever fully-built and rideable. Until recently.


2008 Cervélo Soloist Team, 48cm

Jim and I had signed up for a couple of hilly Surrey League road races at Easter, but a persistent squeaking sound finally attributed to worn-out bearings meant his Powertap wheel would be at the repair shop over race weekend. With a 700c Powertap wheel on my Soloist and a 650c Powertap wheel on my TT bike, we had two Powertap wheels we could race with -- true data geeks would rather not race than be without a Powertap! -- but only if I built up the P2SL frame into a road race bike. I'm proud (embarrassed?) to say we had nearly all the spare parts lying around the house to do that, with only a front derailleur needed.


2006 Cervélo P2SL, 48cm

So I set about it two days before the first race, spending some time first studying the Cervélo geometry pages, then lining up the Soloist against the P2SL to try and replicate the position as best as possible. The first test rides revealed the need for a longer stem (and more comfortable saddle) but in the end I'm so glad Jim's Powertap died when it did, because without that impetus I might never have thought to put drop bars on the P2SL and race it. Instead, I now have an amazing little road machine that tops even the Soloist in agility and quickness. And it's pretty damned aero to boot.

Various smaller women, including 4'11" American elite racer Kerry Litka, have extolled the virtues of 650c wheels on their bikes, and I would never disagree when it comes to TTing, where aerodynamics and a short headtube and low front end are of utmost importance. But I was a bit hesitant to dive headlong into racing a bike with uncommon-sized wheels in important road races. Even Cervélo Test Team pro rider Emma Pooley, who rode 650c in 2005 as an amateur, now rides 700c as a pro (albeit 650c on her TT bike).

Emma at the Bedford Stage Race 2005 on a tiny Principia, photo by Paul Brown

Emma at the British Championships 2009 on a Cervélo S3, photo via Cycling Weekly

In a world where everyone else is on 700cc, it's clearly a distinct disadvantage to be riding a odd-sized wheel, even for someone with a team car following the race! But so far I've found it's not too bad. Convincing reluctant neutral service car drivers to carry my wheels for me is a bit of effort, though fortunately I've not needed to use them. I either race for myself or as one of the top riders on my team, so the likelihood I'd need to give up a wheel to a teammate is slim -- and if I were to do a race in support of another rider, I'd be happy to ride 700c just in case. And on longer rides I stick with the slightly less aggressive and more comfortable Soloist, which means I can share spare tubes with my riding companions if need be.

Here's what my two bikes looked superimposed on each other. Notice the steeper seattube on the P2SL (it is a TT frame after all), horizontal toptube and slightly slacker fork angle. I've still got some spacers under the stem which I'm hoping to remove over time so I can get even more low on the front end (the Soloist would need an lower-stack headset to get any lower). Both bikes have compact cranks, but the P2SL has an 11-23 cassette while the Soloist has a 12-27 for getting up those steep hills I train on but never seem to see much in races.


48cm Soloist (grey) vs 48cm P2SL (black)

The biggest difference I've found is the quicker acceleration with the smaller wheels, particularly on hills. There's also no toe overlap like I have on the Soloist (an unfortunate side effect of proper geometry on a small frame with 700c wheels). I've since added 165mm cranks to the Soloist to try and improve both of those things, but I definitely notice a zippier and more frisky feel to the P2SL. At the same time, it seems to hit bumps harder and roll less happily over rough ground, which I attribute to the smaller wheel size (similarly to the way 29er mountain bikes are supposed to handle bumps more easily). Not sure if this is actually true or just my subjective feeling?

Some more pics of the P2SL alone and lined up against the Soloist:

Ironman Hawaii World Championships 2009 Race Report

Firstly, a few apologies for the extreme tardiness of this blog post. I've been meaning to write it for more than two months now and somehow just never got up the motivation or desire to get it done. Part of me was pretty disappointed with how my race went and was just happy to let it become a memory without much more fanfare; another part of me was looking for a long-needed break from all things triathlon-related: particularly training, analysis, race reports and retrospective navel-gazing at all the minutiae that did or didn't happen. I haven't even bothered to order any of my official race photos yet! (Rest assured a 10% e-mail rebate has kicked me into action, so I'll be replacing a few of the ones in this post with good quality digital copies in the new year.)

But people kept hounding, er, asking me when I was going to write a Kona race report. And I didn't feel I could go on blogging about the new things happening in my life until I put Kona to bed, so here it is finally. With this closure I will be getting back to more regular blog posting, for better or worse (though I admit the self-imposed hibernation has been nice!)

Without further adieu then... the Ironman World Championships 2009.

The Lead-up

The weather: sunny, humid and unbelievably hot. The wind: variable but not nearly as bad as it had been earlier in the week. The atmosphere around town: electric, overwhelming, and just the slightest bit cheesy... like this man-made event was the biggest thing people had ever experienced in their lives. Call me a cynic but as much as I was happy to be there, I just couldn't part with the sense that it was all a bit too surreal. But there I was, in the middle of it, finally experiencing the goal that had driven my training for nearly two years. It was on.

At the bike check-in, I was handed a free Cervelo t-shirt, "thanks for riding a Cervelo!" The industry and media folks lined up along the check-in chute noting down everything from bike brand and wheels to saddle and brake levers. The transition zone on the pier was nothing short of awe-inspiring; to think that 1800 people had, just as I, carefully micromanaged every last detail in the hope of setting themselves up for the race of their lives. The volunteers outnumbered the racers, some coming from further away than I had just to be a part of it all. And all of us were as ready as we'd ever be, or at least as ready as we could be. Can't really ask for much else.


Note-taking at bike check-in.


My bike is just one of many Cervelos (#1449).

The Swim

Not much of note here, except a few things:
-- all week long I'd been swimming along the official mile marker buoys with a Garmin 305 under my swimcap noting the distance and swimming 1:36/100m regularly. Race day I managed to swim nearly an extra 400m and not due to zig-zagging. The course was long! Didn't make my 1:09 feel any better, but at least it was the same for everyone.
-- my speed suit chafed the hell out of my neck and shoulders but easily bought me close to 5 minutes, well worth it!
-- I managed not to get sick on the salt water or swallow too much of it.
-- I picked a bad starting spot in the middle and got punched, kicked and swum over more than any other triathlon I've done in my life.
-- for the most part, I was pretty pleased with my swim and feeling fine for the start of the bike.


Age groupers lined up for the start.


And the cannon goes!


Pulling off the speed suit (note the calf guards!)

The Bike

It was a smoking hot day out there, 30+ degrees, and my frozen bottles on the bike were lukewarm in no time. I felt pretty good early on, surprised and pleased by how little drafting I saw, and just generally ready to take on the day. Little did I know just how hot the sun would be, how little food I would be able to get down, and how awful 5 hours and 50 minutes on my TT bike would feel. But it was much worse for the older folks and weaker cyclists; with no tailwind to aid the ride out to Hawi but a brutal headwind kicking up for the ride home, many bike splits were longer than anticipated and more than a few 70-something athletes missed the cut-off. Tough day out there for sure, and the heat didn't help.

As the hours wore on, I did my best to stay cool by dumping cold water over my body at every aid station. My white shirt helped, but my inner forearms were burnt to a crisp by the halfway mark. And I tried to take in the nutrition I had practised in training but just could not. In the end, I managed a few hundred calories in gels but that was about it. Nowhere near bonking, I was determined not to switch to Gatorade or Coke for fear of creating new stomach problems for the run. Instead, I just rode my race, kept my watts steady and did my best. 180km was a long way, but nothing I couldn't handle physically. Mentally, that last 20km was absolute agony, made better only by the people I overtook coming back to Kona, especially on the hills. I was far from the worst off out there! Thankfully my aero position and huge bike mileage in training kept me in the hunt for a top 10 AG finish, even with a time 15-20 min slower than I had hoped. With the marathon left to run, I was still in the race, or so I thought.


Looking happy early on the bike through town.


Looking less happy out in the lava fields later on.


Now just willing it to be over...


...which it finally was, nearly 6 hours after it began.

The Run

As I've done in every single triathlon race in my life -- and knowing the transition from bike hand-off to run bag on the pier was long -- I left my shoes on the bike and dismounted barefoot. And this is where it all went wrong for me. Somewhere along the pier I stepped off the green astroturf and onto something red hot. I ran with the ball of my right foot burning with pain to the tents, where I sat down and tried to take stock of the situation. Ice? Blister pad? Just grit my teeth and bear it?

In the end I chose the latter, knowing I had to get out and start running or my race would slip away quickly. So ran I did, stiffly at first but loosening up, hoping the heat would let me keep moving if I could only get enough ice to cool myself down. But within a mile my foot was in agony and I started to worry that if I ignored it now, I'd be even worse off later if the blister split open. 26 miles is a long way to run, but walking it was unbearable even to think about. Looking back, this is where the chinks in the armour started and where my mental defenses started to fall down, with reasons to walk becoming excuses not to run. Stop at an aid station and see what they could do for me? Sure! Wait while they radioed another aid station to see if anyone had blister pads? Hey, why not! Over an hour to complete the first 6 miles? Ah well, my heart wasn't in it anyway.

And that was pretty much it. I spent the first half of the marathon just wallowing in my own misery, walking a lot, running when I felt guilty for walking, then walking again when my foot hurt too much to run. Most of the 17 women in my age group who'd been ahead of me blew up on the run, one by one, as I found out later. If I could have only kept moving enough to run a conservative 5:30/km pace, I'd have finished an hour earlier and in the top 10. But mostly it dawned on me that I'd pretty much used up my quota of HTFU for the year at Lake Placid. As much as I wanted to get to Kona, I'd sort of not counted on the mental effort required to do well once I got there. And without that to drive me, I was pretty much lost. Finishing the race was never in question, but racing it was long gone.

Around the halfway mark, I met up with someone in a similar situation and we started to run/walk together. We cheered others on, joked about how the handcyclists were killing us, and shared the contents of our special needs bags. Tried to convince ourselves that it wasn't so bad to be walking the marathon at Kona -- heck, tons of people would give their right arm to be in our position, right? Then with 10km to go, we did the math and realised that if we could run the last 10km in less than an hour, we'd go under 12 hours total. And finally, with a goal in mind and a reason to pursue it, I was back on track. We ran more, walked less, focussed on the task at hand and brought it home in style. My last 10km were the fastest I'd run in the whole race. My last mile was run in 6 minutes and 37 seconds. It was dark when I crossed the finish line, but I crossed it finally feeling like I deserved the finish and the medal and all the accolades that came with it. Sure, the race had taken some chunks out of me, but I'd still beaten it. And even though a few days earlier I'd been thinking that this was my first and last Kona, I suddenly decided that I'd be back sometime for a rematch, just to see if I couldn't do it better next time.


Fresh into the run, still thinking I could make something of it.


Not long afterward, realising it just wasn't going to happen.


The Finish.


Somehow it doesn't look so fearsome the morning after.


The final numbers.

The Aftermath

Since that day, I've had a lot to think about. 2009's been a great year, I've achieved above and beyond what I ever thought I could. And every time I reached a goal, I just came up with a bigger one and got busy making that happen too. My yearly totals speak for how much I've improved, and what I've done to get where I wanted to go: over 12,000km on the bike and 1500km running, nearly 600 hours of training. Ironman has been pretty special to me, but 2009 marks the year that I retire from it -- for a while at least -- to focus on other things. Sure I'll be back in Kona someday, but only when the desire to win my age group is as strong or stronger than any desire I ever had to get there in the first place. In the meantime, the hunger can grow a little at a time until it's so great that I'll be looking to call myself an Ironman again. How about 2019?

Of pointy hats and small cogs

After a summer of trying out a few informal "club 10" time trials, I finally managed to complete something bigger on Monday: an open 50 mile TT on one of the fastest courses in the country. Over 100 riders took part, with the winner riding finishing in 1:40:50 (that's nearly 30mph!). I managed a respectable 2:05:43, which is 23.86mph or 38.4km/h, but still finished more than eight minutes behind the women's winner and only 6th out of the women's field. Still, I was satisfied with my performance as I managed to pace it fairly evenly (more about that below), with 1:02:57 for the first 25 miles and 24:42 for the last 10 miles. I'm hoping these numbers bode well for my open 10 mile TT in two weeks and 25 mile TT at the end of September. Not only are these TTs good training for Kona, but they'll give me good baseline times to improve next year, not to mention a shot at some trophies at the Kingston Wheelers awards dinner at the end of the year!

The data and discussion of my ride are below, but before I get into that, I thought I'd provide a newbie's point of view of time trialling in the UK. According to Wikipedia, it's quite an old sport, first beginning in 1895 and historically being held on the fastest roads available. Supposedly, races were held illicitly for many years as the highway code didn't allow any racing at all. Now it's a sport with a devoted following of early-risers (TTs often start at 6am) who squeeze every conceivable ounce of speed and aerodynamic advantage out of their equipment possible; I thought triathletes were bad, but TTers put them to shame! When I arrived at HQ, I was shocked at the number of bling frames, frighteningly low handlebars, disc wheels, aero helmets, tiny gear cogs and skinsuits all in one place. In fact, I felt rather out of place in my regular bike jersey and shorts (albeit the tightest-fitting I own), triathlon shoes, and a mere 60mm deep rear wheel with *gasp!* my everyday cassette on it. At least I had picked up an aero helmet at the last minute, so from far away I didn't look too out of place. But it's funny how a sport as old school and grassroots as time trialling -- where sleeveless shirts are not permitted but helmets are optional -- has at the same time the most flashy equipment and slick-looking riders. I didn't see anything like BBAR champ Nik Bowdler's bike (pictured below), but there were certainly a lot of huge chainrings and tiny cogs around!


That's a 73 tooth chainring on the front!

My start time was 7:43am, but given the convoluted course instructions I figured I'd better get there early to drive it and make sure I knew where all the turns were. I needn't have worried, as the organisers had signed everything very well and placed marshals at every junction. Not a fun job to stand on the side of a divided highway and point an endless stream of cyclists in the right direction for hours on end -- at least in a road race you get to watch the attacks and breaks! -- but the volunteers were great, even cheering me on each time I passed their grim position. The weather turned out better than expected, as the chilly wind from the previous few days had died down considerably, leaving only a misty drizzly and warm morning. Later on the mist lifted and the roads dried up, and nearly all the top times were owned by vets, who started long after 8am and enjoyed extremely fast course conditions compared to the early starters.

I didn't really have a goal time in mind, but figured somewhere around 2 hours 5 minutes would be a good time for me in my first go at the 50 mile distance. After Googling around to try and figure out a good wattage number to aim for, I finally decided on ~215 watts, or ~95% of my test FTP on the TT bike: much harder than the 80-85% I'd target for a 56-mile half-Ironman bike leg, but not as all-out as a Richmond Park three-lap challenge. In fact, I had read that a good perceived effort for a 50 mile TT was more or less that of an Olympic triathlon (which lasts roughly the same amount of time), so I kept that in mind while I was out there.

According to Joe Friel, the third quarter of a TT is always the hardest, even if you hold back in the first half. Paced properly, the last quarter can be quite strong; paced badly, I would imagine it to be a complete sufferfest. Below is my power graph for the entire event, divided roughly into four quarters (and slightly smoothed for ease of viewing). Even though my VI is 1.01 -- nearly perfect for a more or less flat time trial -- it's apparent I didn't pace anywhere near perfectly.

Heart rate is red, power is yellow, elevation is orange.

First quarter:

Duration:   30:59
Work:       392 kJ
TSS:        42.6 (intensity factor 0.908)
Norm Power: 213
VI:         1.01
Pw:HR:       5.18%
Pa:HR:       -4.93%

I managed to go out a bit hard for the first 15 minutes or so. In fact, after the first five minutes when I realised that I forgot to switch my cassette from the hilly IMLP 12-25 to a more appropriate 11-23 for a flat time trial, I decided I'd better try and compensate the loss of speed and power on the downhills by going a tiny bit harder on the uphills (bad idea, next time just make sure to start with the proper cassette!)

Second quarter:

Duration:   32:02
Work:       400 kJ
TSS:        42.9 (intensity factor 0.897)
Norm Power: 211
VI:         1.01
Pw:HR:       4.71%
Pa:HR:       -1.44%

I was expecting a headwind at any moment once I turned south again, 20 miles into the event, but it never seemed to come. In fact, the section between 20 and 25 miles felt the best of the whole day. Riding past the turn-off for the finish line, I started the second lap feeling pretty good.

Third quarter:

Duration:   31:48
Work:       387 kJ
TSS:        40.9 (intensity factor 0.878)
Norm Power: 206
VI:         1.02
Pw:HR:       4.46%
Pa:HR:       -18.3%

Somewhere between 30 and 40 miles, I started to suffer, as my legs were really starting to hurt and I wondered how I could possibly do another 30 minutes at my current pace. It felt like my watts were really dropping (though it probably just seemed that way as I glanced at my powermeter probably at moments where I knew I was slacking off). I also started to lose focus a bit. Spending 90 minutes by myself, riding at the same pace, in the same position, on a boring straight highway with traffic roaring by was taking its toll mentally. In reality, I was only down a handful of watts, but at the time it felt like I was pedalling in molasses.

Fourth quarter:

Duration:   30:56
Work:       397 kJ
TSS:        43.4 (intensity factor 0.918)
Norm Power: 216
VI:         1.01
Pw:HR:       -2.9%
Pa:HR:       -5.96%

Thankfully in TTs the last 10 miles are counted down one by one; whether that's for added pacing assistance or just to motivate the riders to finish, I was overjoyed to see those markers. The final 5 miles seemed to go by more quickly than expected, so I guess I had more left in the tank than I thought. The final mile was downhill and with one eye on the clock, I was pretty sure I'd break 2:06 and I did. You're supposed to yell out your number to the timing official but I really had nothing left as I passed him. No doubt about it, I left nothing on the course and in fact had to pull over to eat something before I started the 15-minute easy ride back up the hill to HQ. A rider who finished just after me rode by and I couldn't even bring myself to make conversation, let alone join him. I was simply too spent.

Overall, I managed 1:02:57 for the first half and 1:02:46 for the second half, with 212 NP for each. Next time I'll make more an effort to hold back a little bit at the start, and be more mentally prepared for the draggy third quarter so my watts don't drop so much. Between that and some very needed aero improvements (as can be seen from the photo below!) I should be able to get a lot closer to 2 hours for 50 miles on a good day.

Copyright Charles Whitton Photography

The speedy P3C and the Hed wheels that were worth the wait

The weather's gone from beautiful and sunny and almost but not quite too hot the past couple of weeks to cool and rainy today, more typical English summer weather I suppose? Given a hard couple of training weeks including a 165km ride on Saturday, I've felt a bit blah the past couple of days. So I figured I'd blog about my new (used) TT bike to help pick up my spirits. It's a 2006 Cervélo P3C with a Powertap Pro+ in Hed Jet C2 60mm rims. In short, more carbon fibre than I've ever seen in my life, and easily the most bling bike I've ever owned.

It's funny to reflect on how my bikes have evolved since I did my first Try-a-Tri on my old mountain bike back on Labour Day weekend, 2003. After that race, I was well and truly bitten by the tri bug, so I set about finding a "real" road bike and ended up with a circa 1988 12-speed Italian roadbike knock-off that I picked up for $100 at a secondhand sports store. I replaced the drops with tribars and managed to rig up the downtube shifters to the aerobars, though I couldn't get up any hill over 5% without standing due to its 53/39 Biopace rings and 11-24 cogset. Still, it did the trick for the next two summers and even saw me through my first half-Ironman. Alas, it's been sitting in my parents' shed ever since I left Canada and though I've been resisting for a while, I've finally given in to their wishes to just get rid of it. My sister will probably sell it at a garage sale for $50...

The trusty old 1980s "Finelli"


When I moved to Holland in 2005, I bought another old steel roadbike, this time a Batavus, as my daily getabout, stuck some flat bars on it and used that for the first few months of bike training until I found a secondhand 2002 Giant OCR for €400. With clip-on aerobars and a nice female-friendly saddle, I rode that Giant into the ground for the next 10,000+km, including a trip to Lanzarote where it got lost on the way for three days, all kinds of races from sprints to 3/4-Ironmans, and even a city criterium on the cobbled streets of Utrecht. It was finally replaced by my Cervélo Soloist Team a year ago, and after riding that for a few months I realised that the OCR is actually just a bit on the big side for me. So with the addition of the Fuji track bike cum fixie last Christmas into the overcrowded bike room, I knew it was time for the OCR to go. With sadness I sold it for £180, trashed Rolf wheels and all, where it was parted out by an enthusiastic Bike Radar bike flipper -- hopefully the frame has gone to a good home!

2002 Giant OCR


Once I knew I'd want to tackle an Ironman -- and coincidentally decided that I was finally a "good enough" cyclist to get a nice new bike -- I figured I'd better get a proper TT bike. The mid-priced and solidly engineered Cervélo P2SL fit me like a glove, so I picked up a new old stock in beautiful anodised black when home on vacation in the late summer of 2007. The difference in speed was immediately noticeable, as it had 650c wheels which allowed me to get quite a bit lower and more aerodynamic. It got me through a number of races including Ironman Germany and with some secondhand Hed Deep wheels it was going to be my IM Lake Placid bike this year.

2006 Cervélo P2SL with Hed Deep wheels


Which brings us to the P3C. Jim found the right-sized frame for a great price on ebay, and once we won the auction and picked up the bike, I set about transferring over all my bits from the P2SL. After that, it was just a matter of waiting for my Hed wheels to be built with the Powertap Pro+ for the bike to be race ready. And frustrating as that wait was, it was well worth it as this is by far the fastest bike I've ever ridden! After three weeks of tweaking the bars and stem and saddle, all the while hoping my legs would remember what it was like to ride in that low TT position enough to regain their power, last weekend it all finally came together.

2006 Cervélo P3C


Hed Jet C2 60 rim with Powertap Pro+ hub

With a 30km run in my legs from the day before, I set off on what I thought would be a ~150km/5-hour ride on a more or less flat course, the goal being to cycle at Ironman watts with a few harder intervals thrown in. The wind was pretty strong but to my surprise it never felt like a headwind unless I was literally riding straight into it; at every other angle, I felt like the wheels were being pushed along like a sail. I kept looking down and seeing speeds between 34-38km/h while barely hitting 150 watts, something that would be unheard of on my regular road bike. When I caned it along at 200 watts for 30 minutes into that direct headwind, I managed to hold 36km/h! Later with the tailwind it was an effortless 45km/h as I overtook cars in the towns I passed through. Finally home 5 hours and 23 minutes later, to my amazement I had ridden 165km in 5 hours flat of riding time.


All that shiny gridded carbon

No doubt that Ironman Lake Placid is hilly but that one long ride has done more to boost my confidence for the race than any ride has in months. I've started to taper this week, easing back on the high volume though keeping up the intensity, and my last big race rehearsal ride this weekend on reasonably fresh legs should yield similar if not better results. I've got half a mind to find a last minute 100 mile time trial if only they'd let me have a late entry...


A few more shots of the P3C and my setup:


Profile Design bars, nearly infinitely adjustable


Nice narrow profile for the wind

Stein Long Distance Triathlon Race Report

We just got back from our whirlwind Benelux trip, which started with a ferry over to France then a drive to Luxembourg where we stayed three nights at a great little holiday apartment just outside Vianden. On Saturday we headed north to south Limburg in the Netherlands for my long distance triathlon race in Stein on Sunday. Despite weather that always seemed to be threatening rain, we had two 100km cycling days in Luxembourg: home of colourful and immaculate little houses and farms, great climbs and descents, and quiet well-paved roads. The weekend included an obligatory trip to Albert Heijn, and we got to see some of my Hellas Triathlon friends who were racing in Stein as well. The only downside was the 22-hour day we had getting back to the UK yesterday after the race was over, though it was much worse for Jim (who did all the driving) than for me (who raced, then got to sleep on the ferry).


colourful houses in Bettel, Luxembourg


Hills and valleys of lush farmland as far as the eye can see


The Stein long distance race is billed as being in the "Dutch Mountains" which is kind of cute -- it'd be like saying a race in the North Downs is in the Surrey Mountains! With a cheap entry fee of €85 and huge prize money open to everyone (not just pros), it's surprising that this race isn't more popular especially amongst British women who I think would be very competitive here. I've done it three times now (twice as a solo racer, once in a relay) and would recommend it to anyone who wants a low-key, well-organised and spectator-friendly race not too far from home in a very hospitable part of the Netherlands (Stein is just north of Maastricht right in the middle of Amstel Gold country). The race weekend also has a bunch of kids' races on Friday evening and both a sprint and a draft-legal Olympic distance Saturday afternoon. The long distance race is all day Sunday.


Waiting for the swim start


Running out of the water to my bike

The swim is 3km in the port of Stein (water was 20 degrees and calm, though a bit "industrial"), two loops with a quick exit/entry between. The day was unusually cold and rainy early on, making it a bit hard on the spectators, though Jim toughed it out despite having no rainjacket or umbrella handy. I got out of the water in 48 minutes, knocking a couple of minutes off my previous best time for that course. I can probably chalk it up to being very comfortable in the water and getting on some good feet, I think. Transition was slow as I pulled on a bike jersey over my trisuit for extra warmth.


Absolutely pouring rain!


Nonetheless, I was pretty happy with my new P3C

The bike is four laps of a twisty 27km mostly flat course with the three Surrey-like hills, one made of big cobblestones. The northern Dutchies with their 11-23 cassettes were weaving all over the road trying to get up the 14%er by the last lap, which made for an interesting sight. It took me about a lap and a half to get comfortable on the bike, as my legs were feeling the kms we'd ridden in Luxembourg. My plan was to ride at Ironman pace anyway so that I could put in a strong run and treat the whole race as a training ride, so I was okay with that. The rain started to pelt down hard by the second lap and I saw more than a few folks by the side of the road struggling with flat tires. Two of the female pros dropped out due to the cold and two guys managed to crash their bikes on the tricky descents leading to the climbs. I was able to pick up the pace in the third and fourth laps as the sun finally came out and I warmed up a bit. With a time of 3:35 I came in to T2 about 100th place of 200 competitors but with lots of energy in reserve.


By the time the run started, the roads had dried up and the sun was coming out


Very light-footed on the run, which was a nice feeling

The run is also four laps with two steepish hills winding through the town of Stein, each 7.5km lap finishing in front of the grandstand in the middle of town with the announcer calling out names. The entire town gets into the race, what with people sitting in their front garden cheering everyone on, and little kids collecting and distributing sponges and water. My target for the whole race was sub-7-hours (having done 7:30 in 2007) but my running was even better than expected, and with a 2:19 for 30km I ended up with a 6:46:47 final time. Good enough for 7th place woman and 48th place overall, overtaking many guys who had blown by me on the bike then blown up on the run, as usual. Three of my Hellas buddies put in a solid performance to take first prize in the mixed relay race, with another three Hellassers forming a second team who just beat me by 17 seconds. Three other teammates who were racing solo finished strong as well.


I had hoped to go sub-7 hours so this was a great time

The prizes (€2700 for the winner down to €550 for 5th place in the women's race and €200 for 7th place in the men's, plus €100 for each age group winner) attracted quite a few pros this year. The men's winner was Fraser Cartmell of Scotland, the women's was Natallia Barkun of Belarus who also picked up another €500 for breaking the course record. I was disappointed to see my time 11 minutes out of the money, considering the same time woud have earned me 3rd place two years ago, but happy with my performance seeing as I didn't taper for it and used it as a race rehearsal of sorts for IMLP. There's talk of Stein trying to get a 70.3 franchise which in some respects would be great but in other ways would ruin this quaint small-town race, not least by tripling the entry fee I'm sure.

I've now got five weeks til IMLP and it's a great relief to know that my swimming and running are where they need to be. The P3C performed really well too, though I'd still like to get a bit lower in front (adjustable stem maybe?) and tweak my position to get more comfortable in the neck and shoulders. And I can clearly see my goal for these last few weeks of hard training: to squeeze every last watt out of my FTP so I can push that tiny bit harder on the bike and still put in a solid run. Tomorrow I finally get to pick up my Powertap 650 wheel so with a few Club 10 TTs and some time spent riding hard laps of the park I can ride myself into good form, I'm sure (I hope!)