After an hour's delay to the start due to thick fog, #TeamTCUK athlete Mike Senior took this ever popular race by the horns and definitely didn't hang around on either the swim, bike or run leg!

Pre-race

Pretty good preparation for the race. I was training for 2 “A” races this year; London Marathon and IM Staffs 70.3. Structured training started towards the end of September. I had various running niggles from early December, which meant I had to have a few weeks off here and there to recover but I realised the beauty of triathlon training is that you have to be seriously injured to not be able to do at least one of the sports.

By the time London came around I felt I had built a really good aerobic engine, but I was still carrying an injury on my right knee and given the heat on the day I had to scale back my target. I finished in 3:06. After a couple of weeks of no running and physio treatment my injury started to eventually sort itself out. My swim and bike prep was going to plan and my right leg eventually started to feel like my own again. I arrived at IM Staffs 70.3 in the best shape I have ever been.

The flexibility of the training plan was great when taking into account life’s other commitments and injuries. I felt great leading up to Staffs to the extent I found it difficult to hold back when tapering during the last two weeks.

Swim

Time: 32:30

The start was delayed by an hour after thick fog fell on Chasewater. There were lots of rumours going around about the swim being cancelled or shortened to a 750m sprint. Thankfully the fog lifted and the full distance was kept.

The start was a rolling start, self-seeded according to your expected finish time. The only issue here was you started the swim dry so had no chance to get yourself used to the water temperature. I knew this in advance though, so practiced this a couple of times in open-water training sessions. The swim itself went according to plan. I followed what James advised, tried to get my HR up a little before the start, didn’t go off too quickly and found a natural rhythm. I was hoping to latch on to someone’s heels that were a bit quicker to drag me round in close to 30 minutes but it never happened.

In hindsight I should have taken on some extra fuel during the postponement of the start as breakfast ended up being about three hours prior to the start, which is probably too long before refuelling.

T1

Time: 3:25

Quick T1! I didn’t want to hang around so only had my helmet, sunglasses and race belt in the transition bag. Shoes were already clipped on the bike as I don’t like running in bike shoes. Only issue I had was that I tied the top of the transition bag a little tight with a knot, which made getting the helmet out difficult.

Bike

Time: 2:35

OK, I don’t have a power meter on my bike so I use HR as a measure of effort. It was a little high initially after the swim and transition but eventually settled down and I was happy to keep it towards the top of Z3 and bottom of Z4. My natural style appears to be towards higher cadence rather than pushing a big gear, which I think helped on the hills as I just concentrated on spinning and keeping my HR under control as much as possible. I don’t remember getting overtaken on any hills, apart from Lucy Charles who came flying past on Cannock Chase! I think spinning up the hills meant I had loads of power left at the top to then push a big gear on the flats/downhill. I remember overtaking lots of people immediately after the hills.

The course was generally really good. The first part is quite technical so being a local really helped knowing where I could push and where the pot holes etc. were. There were a couple of sharp corners after descents which were a little sketchy… I almost took out a timing guy on one corner!

I didn’t plan to use any of the fuel stops. My fuel on the bike consisted of a large homemade slab of rice cake, cut into small chunks that I consumed over the first 90 minutes, followed by three SIS gels mixed with water in my down tube aero bottle for the last hour. I had a 600ml electrolyte bottle on my aero bars and a second one in a bottle holder behind my seat. By the time I got to T2, everything was close to empty.

T2

Time: 2:07

Again, I didn’t hang around. Only had trainers (elastic laces), socks, cap and a couple of electrolyte gels in the bag. I thought about a quick toilet stop but I was motivated to push on as I thought my overall time was going OK. I should have immediately taken on a gel, as I paid for under fuelling about 20-30 minutes later.

Run

Time: 1:34

The run didn’t go according to plan. I was hoping for a 1:25 ish. It started OK, I was running sub 4-minute kms, with my HR comfortably in Z3. However, my HR fell off a cliff about half-way through the run; I simply didn’t take on enough fuel during the bike and I think the delayed start of the race eventually caught up with me. I ended up walking through a couple of aid stations taking on as much sugary crap as I could without stopping. I eventually found my legs again and finished the last couple of kms quite strongly. The course was three laps of the town centre, which was quite technical but mainly fast and flat.

The support in the main part of the town was great; the support outside of this was a little sparse.

Post race

I immediately recovered by moving house the day after. Let’s just say, I don’t want to do that again! Before the race I already decided to take the summer off structured training, mainly to earn some brownie points at home and give myself a mental break but also to be a little more social when riding my bike. I’m still ticking over though trying to fit in a 2km swim each week and a run here and there. I’ve actually just done a park run for the first time in ages, smashed my PB by 15 seconds in warm conditions to 17:40, and won the race!

What’s next? I’m not going to make any definite plans until September, but 2019 is probably going to be all about long distance, perhaps IM Bolton.

Race review

A few tips for IM Staffs:

• If you can fit it in, practice the bike course at least twice
• T1 and T2 are in different locations. If you’re short on time prior to the race (I was), try and register on Friday in Stafford and also check in your run bag at the same time. Check in your bike first thing on Saturday, which then leaves you free to do a little practice swim and be all sorted before lunch.
• Try to plan to not leave a car at Chasewater on the day as there isn’t an organised bus back there after the race. I live relatively local and just arranged a taxi for the morning of the race, with family to meet me at the end in Stafford. If staying in a hotel I’d be tempted to do something similar unless you have family coming to the race start.