Also Rob (see Race 6) has promised to compete again as he was less than amused that somehow I'd actually overtaken him last time! I've a feeling it will be back to normal on this race with Rob beating me much more emphatically this time.
From Wikipedia: "Dorney Lake is a purpose built rowing lake located near the village of Dorney, Buckinghamshire, and near the towns of Windsor and Eton. The lake is privately owned and financed by Eton College who have spent £17 million developing. Although it is primarily for use by the school, the facilities are made available to the rowing community as well as for canoeing, dragon boat and triathlons.
The lake will be used as the 2012 Olympic venue for rowing and canoe sprint (the whitewater events will take place at Lee Valley White Water Centre inHertfordshire), and as the 2012 Paralympic venue for rowing. This will involve enhancing the existing facilities to include 20,000 seats for the Olympics, most of which will be temporary. Construction began in October 2009 to enhancements at Dorney Lake, including a new cut-through between the competition lake and the return lane, a new bridge and an upgraded access road, funded by the ODA."
Technical Details
- For many years pre-construction, fertiliser use was restricted on the then fields to ensure high-quality water
- The main Lake is 2,200 metres long
- The requirement set by the Fédération des Sociétés d'Aviron (FISA), the international rowing authority, for world-class rowing courses is a minimum of 2,000 metres
- The Lake has eight lanes, each 13.5 metres wide
- It is a minimum of 3.5 metres deep
- This depth standard provides the body of water necessary for racing boats to perform at optimum effectiveness
- The parallel Return/Warm-Up Channel is up to 5 lanes wide and is 2.5 metres deep
- The astounding amounts of 4 million tonnes of gravel, 1,970,000 cubic metres of topsoil and subsoil and 585,000 cubic metres of basal clay were extracted during construction of the main Lake and Warm-Up Channel
- The project took over 10 years until completion in 2006
- To minimise disruption to the local community material extracted was removed on a special conveyor belt to a point two miles away for collection by lorry there.The Lake is fed from underground aquifers (streams) percolating through a natural gravel filter.
Changing from mostly woodland to cleared settlements and with 'hunter-gatherers' giving way to settled farming groups, this is a fascinating story, encompassing the New Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, the Roman and Saxon periods and beyond.
Finds included a series of bridges, a ladder up to a bridge, burial mounds, wooden structures, a Roman farmstead, human and animal skeletons, the oldest scythe found in Britain, other tools, potsherds (broken pots), leaves, seeds, insects and pollen.
Meanwhile a number of local schools have done substantial cross-curricular projects at Dorney Lake, helped initially by Key Stages 2 and 3 archaeology packs. There is a rich vein of landscape development, human and animal settlement, farming practices, decorative arts and overall social history to be tapped. There have also been micro-climate and other studies".
Quoted from the website http://www.dorneylake.co.uk/visiting3.html Even more information on - https://ubp.buckscc.gov.uk/SingleResult.aspx?uid='MBC23032'
Back to the race. The day dawned (yep - another early start) bright and sunny - in other words a beautiful spring day. Felt like the spring had finally sprung - the forsythia was a blaze of yellow, the daffodils were out and there was even some early blossom on the wild cherry trees. Which considering how the weather turned out in the afternoon for the Carling Cup Final (wet & windy) we were really fortunate. Planned my drive better this time (well I've had enough practice by now) so arrived in good time to get registered and set up in transition. Then disaster! There was no mobile catering van for this race so no pre-race cup of tea! Deciding not to turn round and head home - met up with Rob who'd also made it in good time to set up his mean machine.
During the race briefing rather novel obstacle was mentioned. In spite of best efforts, sheep had got onto the running course during the night and the road for running on was a "little slippery" in parts. Then decisions - what to wear? Would it warm up sufficiently to wear just a t-shirt (Robs approach with gloves) or should I wear my arm warmers again (forgotten who gave them to me for Christmas but they are really proving invaluable!) and my fingerless cycle gloves? Decided on that and my new bright red Adidas top.
Slight digression here. My default colour has tended to be be black as a) it doesn't show up the sweat / dirt in the gym so much and b) I didn't want to stand out too much. However following a mild complaint from Rob last time we raced that my "stealth clothing" meant he couldn't see me as a lot of the other competitors also wear black or a combination of black and white - although I'm not sure if it's for the same reason as me.
Slight digression no. 2 - Adidas tends to be my default apparel due to the simple fact is that there is a discount store near where Mum and Dad live in the Clark's Shopping Village in Street (which is the name of a town). Makes expensive technical gear affordable if they have them in stock. Interestingly, the last visit (after Race 8) they seemed to have a massive amount of blue kit with Chelsea logos on them - I wonder why they're being sold off cheap?So off we went. It was obvious from the outset that Rob was back to something more like himself - being I reckon about 500m ahead by the end of the first run. Onto the bikes and this time I didn't catch him and although I was keeping an eye out, didn't even see him! Subsequently found when comparing our splits (the breakdown of the time it takes on the first run, the time in transition changing from running gear into cycling gear - then reverse of this when you finish the cycle stage) he'd been faster on the bike stage than me by almost a minute.
However the cycling stage wasn't without incident. Firstly they had pruned all the shrubberies adjacent to the course and while the wind wasn't anything like as bad as last time there was a definite "with the wind" and "against the wind" sections of the laps. When I say pruned I'm being charitable - they'd basically chain-sawed them to a uniform height of about 2 foot. You'd think with all the money that Eton and the ODA have lavished on the place they'd at least undertake a half-decent management plan rather than the worst "municipal" hack-back approach? Anyway the upshot was that there was even less shelter from the wind than previously. Back to the incidents - firstly I had a real ding-dong battle with a guy called Simon (we introduced ourselves at the end of the race - you see - one advantage of a bright top is that you DO get noticed!) He was also a MSVET - and he sailed past me going with the wind, whereas I would catch and past him going into the wind (the advange of tri-bars on the bike). This happened for three or four of the laps with him eventually winning the battle and setting off on the second run about 50m ahead (and no I could catch him - he actually stretched his lead to about 150m by the end of the race). The second incident involved red-lace knickers! I'd better explain. I was overtaking one of the female competitors who was wearing lycra which to be honest was at the limit of its stretch. It meant that it was a little translucent which gave an indication of her 'under garments' the aforementioned ....... All I can say is that is my kind of sportswomen and no - unfortunately she didn't introduce herself at the end of the race!
The one advantages about early starts is the early finishes - so finished and packed up soon after 10:30 and home for mid-day!
RESULT: 39th out of 110 and finished in 1:20:14
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