Outlaw Half Holkham 2023 // British Middle Distance Champs Triathlon!

hello and welcome back to the channel um today's video is going to be Holcomb's race report so for those of you who don't know um basically my name's Lewis I'm a fairly new Triathlon steel this is my third ever half distance race uh this year all within about seven weeks of each other or something you can find the other videos on my channel I've done race reports and then see kind of how they went um I will be referring back to them in this to obviously compare results and see where I did where what I did wrong um definitely made mistakes in the first two so hoping to rectify them in this one so I'm going to jump straight into it before I ramble on for too long so I seem to have a habit of doing that so I'm going to start with the day before um racking the bike and stuff that all went pretty smoothly to be honest we I got up in the morning did like a half an hour run um but drove down to Holcomb it was only like two two and a half hours away from us got the bike racked um went and checked in at this little Airbnb this Airbnb was it was really warm Saturday and so this Airbnb was a bit like a um a greenhouse and it held heat so much it was on a stables as well so there's a lot of flies we took our dog which meant I didn't get the best of night's sleep to be honest and the dog was up a lot because he was uh he was very very hot and so he couldn't settle too well so I did get the best night sleep maybe got three or four hours of okay sleep so next day up at 3 30. one mistake I made in previous races I actually managed to get a good good breakfast in today one thing that was good about staying in the Airbnb is it meant it had a toaster so I had some bagels I had two Bagels just with some butter and yeah and then left that left Airbnb at four got to the race for I think about quarter to five checked tires got everything pumped up got all my bikes set up got a nutrition sword and all that lovely stuff so then on to the swim my plan for the swim so my last two races I've I don't know if it's nerves a bit of adrenaline a bit of both I don't know what it was but I my shoulder sort of blew up in the first three four hundred meters of swimming I don't know if I maybe went out too fast or I hadn't practiced enough in a wetsuit and a try suit so a couple of days before this race I actually did um a sea swim in my wetsuit and my tri-suit I think that helped a lot because as soon as I got in the Water Mine I weren't used to swimming or like my last swim weren't in a pool it was in a wetsuit and try suit so I knew exactly how it felt I knew exactly what to expect I did the first few hundred meters fairly like controlled I didn't want to I didn't want my shoulders to blow up like they did in the first two races so I went out a lot more controlled and I thought instead of thinking go fast I'm gonna think swim smooth and relaxed and you tend to swim faster that way anyway and that was exactly what happened so I started quite far back in the group as well so I was I don't know way far back uh like the fourth or fifth wave to go off so my thinking was that I'm probably gonna have to swim for a few people to find a set of feet that are good to swim on and that was basically the case so I got out straight away it was a time trial starts you went off every six seconds or something two of you went the guy that I went with um I think I just kind of swam past and then I founded guys that were next ahead of me swam on their feet for a little bit like I don't know 50 100 meters realized they were probably swimming a little bit too slowly so I went round um and I kind of kept doing that for the first sort of maybe 500 meters and then some guy came past me he was swimming he looked like he was swimming really fast um so I hopped onto his feet managed to stay on his feet for a couple of hundred meters and then I don't I uh I don't want to be horrible to the guy but I think his sighting wasn't great the way the swim works it was like you go around this Lake sort of this way and when you got to that sort of end boy he was sort of swimming right around the outside of the lake whereas you could obviously swim just boy to boy which would have been a lot shorter so I sort of decided I'm gonna swim boy to boy and and hop off his feet he still ended up swimming we ended up swimming basically around the same sort of pace because he was swimming faster but going longer and I was swimming shorter but going more direct if that makes sense ended up getting back onto his feet another boy and that this was kind of where I realized that I was swimming swimming really well um and sort of the switching point for me was in my first two races there was no chance if you asked me to speed up at all there was absolutely no chance I'd be able to do it my shoulders were that dead within like a few hundred meters this time because I was concentrating on my technique and swimming controlled and relaxed I didn't feel burnt out at all to the point where I had an extra gear to go into so I was able to this guy he was swimming well and he he lost me a little bit after that last boy where I said I sound more direct um but and I kind of I was in my own little world really I was quite enjoying it and there's a lot of weeds and stuff so I was concentrating on that and it was yeah so I ended up losing his feet a little bit and if you know most people well if you lose feet it can be quite hard to get back onto them because um just once that sort of elastic snaps the same on the bike and stuff we've drafted once that elastic snaps it's quite hard to get it back but I managed to so he swam off again and that was when I was like oh actually I could go and catch him up and I had the power and the you know the shoulders and whatever to be able to go and do it so that was a huge positive for me and I ended up coming out also just a no the timing strip on the exit of the swim was like halfway around transition so the official result says like 32 minutes but I stopped my watch I got out of the water which was some some like weird sandy stuff which was quite hard to walk through went up a little slope started running into transition just a little bit and stopped my watch there so the swim time the actual swim time and then the official time are quite different but my overall swim time was was 31 minutes and four seconds but and my last swim was 29 minutes but that swim was short this one was a little bit long and basically if you just go by Pace this is my fastest swim so like per 100 meters 100 yards this is my fastest swim yet and it felt the easiest swim so came out the water um and I felt really really good I was so happy with that swim because I felt felt like I hadn't burned any matches but I'd swam fast controlled um and yeah not usually like too much energy and then into transition um in my last race my shoulders are so blown up but I couldn't actually reach behind and grab my wetsuit to undo it this time completely opposite shoulders are fine uh wetsuit came off really well helmet everything on that was absolutely fine something still that I'm yet to do is have my shoes actually clipped into my pedals and then run with a bike still need to practice that a little bit more I think before I feel confident enough doing a race but overall I think I had an okay transition much like the swim this is where I saw some big improvements to my last two races so my last two races I've been too hesitant to go with uh to go past people it's something it's really it sounds really silly if I'm completely honest it's that they look fast so they look like they're going to be really good cyclists and they are really good cyclists and there's a few of them together and a few of them look like they're really fast so my initial four is they're going to be quicker than me um just hang on to the back of them or work with them and sort of try and stick to their pace and in the last two races I think that cost me a lot because I don't think I was nearly as fast as I should have been on the bike so basically I wanted to avoid that situation as much as possible and I wanted to I wanted to prove to myself that I can Pace my own bike and I can ride the the what's that I want to ride at and I don't have to judge my race as much off what other people are doing obviously it's completely different in professional races or if you're at the front end of a race I wasn't like I said I started way far back so and within like five miles maybe a lot of us got caught up behind a horse box thing um for quite a while for a good few minutes which was really frustrating because it was going really slowly and so quite there's a big group of us that sort of all came together again they all look like Fast guys and it was that moment they overtook the horse box and I got stuck behind it a little bit longer than them so then I came around and I got back onto them guys and it was sort of that moment that I made the decision they were going fast and they looked fast but I thought I'm I'm not gonna do what I did last time because it would have been at that point I've probably gone okay let's stick with these guys and see how they ride I thought no I'm because my Watts were down on what I wanted to wanted to ride out I thought I'm just going to go straight past them I'm gonna completely ignore them I'm not gonna see what they're doing I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do anything back I'm not gonna look behind me I'm just gonna ride up my watch go round and exactly I did that exactly that and before I know it within five minutes they were nowhere to be seen so so that kind of made me instantly realize that I don't need to stick with people I don't need to ride with others I don't need to find a little group to ride with I don't need to do any of that I can just ride up whatever I did and basically that was the story for the the rest of the ride really was I stuck to it was quite undulating course so average power was a little bit down on what I what I thought it would have been I felt like most of it I was pushing around 260 Watts my average power ended up being like two three five with a 250 normalized but it would like to say it was quite undulating there was a lot of descents and a lot and like that horse box example I was I was not pedaling for a few minutes really um so that probably brought it down and I came out with a bike time of 220 which again felt a completely solo ride like I had no help road with no one the whole time I was literally by myself for the whole thing I'm pretty happy with that it's not I think if I were in a group or at the front of the race where the faster guys were I could have that maybe would have been a couple of minutes quicker but to have a solo effort like that and feel strong and it was more more I'm not that I mean the time's good the pace was the best place I've ever had in the out of all three races and like I said it's probably the hardest course out of the three races it's 23.8 miles an hour um so yeah I think I wrote it really well for where I was um and it was more not the time or the pace or anything like that it was more proven to myself that that I don't have to stick with people and I can do the race that I want to race so that that was my my biggest positive out of this whole day was was that I think then coming towards the end of the bike something that again was a little bit annoying like the horse book situation but honestly I don't I don't really care too much um is you on Holcomb the last maybe even mile is all is all like downhill um coming back into transition it's a really skinny path as well because there's Runners coming up the other side of it so so you if you get stuck behind someone there you can't overtake see I got stuck behind some one that was going not when I go slowly at all like we could have gone a lot faster but it didn't make any difference really but the only thing was I couldn't see in front of me because there's a person there where transition was so or basically I didn't know when to take my shoes my feet out of my shoes and put them on top ready for transition so I was hoping the person in front of me might do it and then as soon as they do it I will do it they never ended up doing it so so I didn't end up doing it either um it came up on me quite quick for transition so but it doesn't again isn't you know maybe what 20 seconds 15 seconds if that um it might have saved so yeah run into transition again had a pretty decent transition that was when I put socks on so my last two races I put socks on before the bike this time I rode sockless proper triathlete um and yeah it was all fine so then socks on shoes on grabbed my big gel and got out onto the run I think where that last um sort of mile of the bike ride is all downhill you're not peddling at all that gave my legs a chance to recover a little bit so as soon as I got out onto the run my legs felt really good I felt really really strong but I had been warned um but about by a guy named Gavin um he was a really nice guy by the way I sat and chatted him we've raced a few times before yeah so he sort of mentioned that he's done the course before and that um his three lap cores in the first mile of each of them laps it's like a long incline so I was had that in the back of my mind I don't want to go out too fast but my legs felt so good and so I went out sort of conservatively um based on how my legs felt and I did my first mile which was like the one pretty much straight up here was a 644 minute per mile so not not crazy fast but pretty decent for the for the climb and then after that it's like a bit more like undulating and then a little bit of a really slow descent back down to the start of the lap so sort of sped up down to a 6 27 minute per mile for the uh first like by the end of the first lap and then sort of repeated that process again so back up here will go a little bit steady then speed up again and for the first like eight miles or first two laps eight nine miles my legs felt I actually felt really good I was averaging a really solid Pace I think it was around the 6 30 minute per mile which would have been the same sort of speed that I did at Nottingham but again I could be Nottingham's a lot easier course than this so I was feeling really strong and then and then basically the last Hill or last lap my legs just went I went down to a 707 minute per mile which was obviously a lot slower it's like what over 20 seconds slower than my first time up the hill and yeah it was a really hot day I don't think I'd rank enough something that I should mention is on the bike I the last two races I've had two and a half liters of fluid on the bike with a lot of carbs I think I thought previously that that was too much fluid because basically I needed I've gone to the toilet for a week in both them races like two or three times and they were like long long weeks so my theory was that I probably drank too much so this time I reduced it down by a liter so I had a liter and a half of fluids on the bike I think for this day that wasn't enough I still had 300 grams of carbs which it weren't until after this race that I realized I think that's way too much for me for two hours and 20 minutes 300 grams of carbs bear in mind I don't I'm not the best at training with like load of carbs and stuff so my stomach's not that used to it I really struggled to then get fluid and nutrition on the run so I had that big gel with me I probably only had half of it which again is is not enough fluid would give me cramps and make me feel a little bit bloated if I had them like in the age stations so so I kind of avoided them a little bit and I think I paid the price for it here when it was back up that hill I you know when you go like you lose all the fluid in your body and you're rather than sweating you're just dry so you just feel all the dry salt all over you and you don't feel wet anymore um from sweater or anything I I got to I hit that and I kind of knew that that's probably a little bit of dehydration starting to kick in um which isn't good and then if I'm completely honest the last like three and a bit miles was a real battle um after that Hill I Just my legs had nothing I felt energy-less um like I said I couldn't cool myself down I was overheating and I managed to just about hold in so the 10th mile was a 707 the 11th mile was a 703 which is that sort of undulating bit and then as that steady decline sort of kicked in it was a 651 then a 641 and then the last little bit which is like pretty much dead flat or if not still a little bit of a decline the the Run was a little bit long it was I don't know about 400 meters long or something and that last little bit average the 643 minute per mile which you know is pretty slow you should be able to hopefully pick it up a little bit towards the end but I couldn't I had nothing I was literally hanging on for dear life but that gave me a half marathon time of 128 something so it's not not a bad time it is the slowest out of the races that I've done but I think it is definitely the hardest course that I've done and my average pace was like a 641 minute per mile so it's not not too far off what I did um in the last couple of races but overall effort was definitely a lot higher that was always did not have another few meters in honestly I reckon if they asked me to run another 100 meters by the end of that I couldn't have done it so so yeah and that gave me an overall time of uh 425 like 13 or 14 I think it was that was probably the best executed race and how I felt in terms of the race overall swim was really good bike was was really good and Ron was okay I would say what would I change in the future I would definitely I need to sort that the hydration and nutrition plan out I think that could be better to help me towards the end of that run I think I need to position myself better among people because at the end of the day as much as it is meant to be like an individual Triumph trial drafting does play a factor it plays a factor in the swim if you can swim with faster guys you go faster it plays a factor on the bike if you're with faster guys and you've got faster guys up the road um you go faster it is just how it is so I think if I position myself better that's some free speed definitely I think um I'm happy basically um happy with how the day went also it's lovely to meet some of you guys out there there's a guy named Lewis um he came up to me uh towards the end of the Run was running behind me this was at the point that I was dying so I probably sounded rude and horrible which if I did I'm sorry um but I could get string any words together um but he said can I be in your YouTube video if I run behind you which I thought was quite funny so yeah it's lovely to me hear me had a chat after and stuff so he was a really nice guy obviously met Triathlon Dan he was there so yeah chatted to him for a bit which was lovely yeah a few people so it's really nice to speak to some people whilst I was there and yeah I think that would probably do it if you raced at Holcomb let me know how you got on and how you found it uh in the comments below I like hearing about how people got them in their races and their positives and negatives and how they found the course and stuff like that so I'd love to hear if you did it and yeah if you've got any questions about anything um that I might have mentioned then let me know and I can answer them in the questions in the questions in the comments below and I will see you next time for some more Triathlon related content

Channel: Lewis Fordham

Views: 1,445

Keywords: half ironman training, triathlon training day, triathlon training, ironman triathlon, half ironman, 70.3 ironman, 70.3 triathlon, outlaw triathlon, outlaw nottingham, full day of training, triathlon, ironman 70.3 training, training for an ironman, triathlon training for beginners, triathlon vlog, lewis fordham, triathlete training, triathlon swim training, triathlon training plan, first triathlon, outlaw half holkham, outlaw half holkham 2023, outlaw half, outlaw holkham

Id: V4C46qavQIA

Length: 19min 3sec (1143 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 13 2023