RACE 44 - X T TRIATHLON - 24 September

It was great to be driving to the race from somewhere other than London  I'd been staying with mum and dad down in Somerton, so it was as quick to drive up the A303 to Camberley as it was to drive out from London. Fortunately I'd had the foresight to pack on my off-road tri-gear (well nearly all, I'd forgotten a towel. One day I'll turn up to a race with all my gear and won't know what to do with it). 


Early start but a beautiful journey. Low lying mist with just the tops of trees poking out and the watery sun just beginning to peer through as I drove eastwards. There was the beginnings of autumn colour in the roadside verges especially the Wayfaring tree (Viburnum lanata). Passing Stonehenge in the mist was very atmospheric and erm ....  'historic'. Yet again a journey through some beautiful English countryside unfortunately seen from dual carriageway - it is so tempting to get out of the car and just enjoy it! 

Arrived at the venue at about 8:am in good time to register and get ready. Then checked the actual start time of my particular race - oops! Had miss-read the race instructions and found that two duathlons and the British Triathlon Cross Championships (the Olympic distance race of the one I was doing) were occurring before mine. I didn't actually race until 11:30 so I could have had a bit more of a lie-in. Never mind, it did give me a chance for a second breakfast (bacon buttie with brown sauce) and a cuppa and to cheer on the other competitors. it also allowed me to see some of the professional athletes in action and try and pick up some tips.


Snapping away trying to get some action shots and atmospheric views of the course my  camera batteries run out. Couldn't swop to the spare as I'd forgotten to charge that one as well. Oh well, it wasn't a complete disaster as again with one of All About the Triathlons races, they were providing free downloads of the action.


The sun by now had come out and it was getting quite warm. By the time we started it was going to be 'a bit of a scorcher'. Watched the elites on the mountain bike course which this year came alongside the lake, right passed the transition and spectator viewing. Two things I noticed straight away was that this stretch was approached with some trepidation as it was  gravelly and potentially very wet (I didn't actually see anyone fall off into the lake but there were a few close calls and one or two of the competitors decided to get off and push) and secondly after the first lap most of the competitors were very muddy. Something to look forward to! 


One other observation was that although the duathletes were now finishing their races, it was noticeable how the triathlon supporters cheer and whoop while the duathlon supporters were largely mute.

There is a report of the British Triathlon Cross Championship race on the Triathlete-Europe website  (see http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/2011/09/26/xttriathlon-2011-british-triathlon-cross-championships/ ). I particularly like the introduction "The pristine calm waters of Hawley Lake and peaceful surrounding forest of Gibraltar Barracks was abruptly disturbed as 400 athletes descended on the Royal Engineers training land just outside London" and "This year’s XTTriathlon saw the emergence off road triathlon as the next pinnacle of triathlon racing testing stamina and agility on the uneven bike and run routes". 

The race website describes the course as "demanding" and boasting "an open water swim, a 12 km mountain bike loop and a 5km off road run loop. You'll be mountain biking and running across army training land; you'll be tested on tough woodland trails; and you'll race across open and single forest tracks." Which pretty much sums it up. 


The 750m swim was a mass start with all of us treading water and then swimming clockwise around two small wooded islands. One of the islands seemed to have an angler on it  who must have been fishing overnight. A quiet idyllic spot until the wet-suited hoards descended. Needless to say it was my normal approach to this part of the race - hang around at the back and try and keep pace with some of the slower swimmers. Although the weather was beautiful the water temperature was decidedly 'autumnal'. 

Got into a little bit of traffic around the turn buoys but other than that the swim went well. Half way through we were buzzed by a helicopter, but I couldn't tell whether it was military or not. As you can see from the photo I wasn't last out of the water but by the time I reached transition a lot of the bikes had gone.    


The 12km bike route had been significantly modified from previous years. It had been a short lap that you did a number of times but this did lead to congestion especially on the narrow up hill sections.  Now it was to be a single enlarged lap that meant less congestion but no way of getting to know it a bit and do faster subsequent laps. The organisers described it as offering a "balance of tough but achievable cycling tracks, overtaking opportunities and an enjoyable single track fast pace forest riding. It starts out on a tarmac road for about 1/2 km then settles into a mix of woodland trails, short sharp climbs (all cyclable) and open tracks. There's about 30% fast downhill single track that are easily navigable but equally dangerous if taken at speed. i.e. you can ride it with a Hybrid bike slowly or fast with a full-sus'." As my bike is a hard-tail mountain bike I thought I should be able to manage the 'fast' end of the scale. I'd also ear-wigged a couple of the riders who'd finished the race before us and they were saying similar although there was quite a lot of mud and a couple of lung-busting hills.

Off I set and managed to make up some ground lost in the swimming. The first hill was doable - I put the bike into my 'granny gear' and just kept the cadence high. One of the advantages I have in hill climbing on the bike is lack of weight. This is emphasised in Lance Armstrong's biography by John Wilcockson,  as too much upper body strength/weight can hamper the cyclist. However the converse is true in the swim as my lack of upper body strength/weight is one of the reasons why I'm such a poor swimmer. 


So uphill and along the flat sections I was holding my own or better, in the downhill technical sections I managed to get the alignment wrong twice - kind of fell off, and was overtaken. I must admit I would have loved a second lap just to nail those sections!


On reaching the transition and managing not to fall off into the lake (though I did have a bit of a wobble trying to show off in front of the crowds), I was pleased to see that fewer bikes were racked this time so I had managed to move up a fair bit in the standings. 

The  5km Run route was described as being "predominately a woodland trail run with some inclines. It's soft under foot all the way with some sandy areas, loose gravel and about 1/2km gravel track. The woodland canopy will offer some shade. A water station is pitched at around 2.5km marker." What they didn't mention were the very steep scrambles in one or two sections, the deep mud, or the sound of continuous gunshots from a pistol shooting range that we would run alongside.

Feeling surprising good at the start of the run, well I guess it's all relative, I actually started overtaking one or two others! It was a lovely course, again different from last year but through some beautiful bits of woodland and heathland. Although I was beaten in a sprint finish I was pleased with the time (sub - 23mins) as it was a tricky and muddy run.


At the finish we had Goodness Shakes and a banana - no medal or t-shirt. But having free downloads more than compensate as does being able to get an immediate download of your result. 


RESULT: 28th (2nd MSuperVet) out of 122 in a time of 1:18:27 

Now for a series of random snippets of history and interesting (well I think so!) facts about the area which as per usual are mainly from Wikipedia. So in no particular order:

• Before the 19th century, this area was referred to as Bagshot Heath, which was known as a haunt of highwaymen such as William Davies - known as the Golden Farmer - and Claude Duval. The land remained largely undeveloped due to a sandy topsoil making it unsuitable for farming. In A tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, written between 1724 and 1726, Daniel Defoe described the area as barren and sterile; "a mark of the just resentment shew’d by Heaven upon the Englishmen’s pride... horrid and frightful to look on, not only good for little, but good for nothing".
• The Southern Scott Scramble, the first known motorcycle scrambling event, took place on Camberley Heath on 29 March 1924. The event, won by A.B. Sparks, attracted a crowd in the thousands and is considered to be the first instance of what later developed in the sport of motocross. 
• During the Second World War, the Old Dean common was used as an instruction camp of the Free French Forces. 
• In 2009 the households of nearby Camberley were named by Experian as having the highest CO2 footprint in the UK, estimated at 28.05 tonnes per household per year (compared to 18.36 tonnes for the lowest, South Shields).
• The site is located in the beautiful Blackwater Valley which is 23 mile long. This valley is known among anglers to be one of the best coarse fishing regions in England (which would explain the loan angler on an island in Hawley Lake) , with the river and gravel pit lakes being well stocked with many native species including brown trout. 
• Hawley woods provide beautiful pine woodland to walk or ride in (or undertake an off-road triathlon).There is a nearby equestrian centre and water sports on Hawley lake.
• The Kremer prize was conceived in the Cambridge Hotel in Camberley in 1959 after the industrialist Henry Kramer toured a Microcell factory. The Kremer prizes are a series of monetary awards that are given to pioneers of human-powered flight. 
  
  
  The first Kremer prize of £50,000 was won on August 23, 1977 by Dr. Paul MacCready when his Gossamer Condor, piloted by Bryan Allen, was the first human-powered aircraft to fly a figure eight around two markers one half mile apart, starting and ending the course at least 10 feet (3.0 m) above the ground.
  
  
  The second Kremer prize of £100,000 was won on June 12, 1979, again by Paul MacCready, when Bryan Allen flew MacCready's Gossamer Albatross from England to France.
  
  
  A Kremer prize of £20,000 for speed was won in 1983 by a design team of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for flying their MIT Monarch B craft on a triangular 1.5 km (0.93 mi) course in under three minutes (for an average speed of 32 km/h (20 mph)).
  
  
  There are currently three Kremer Prizes that have not yet been awarded, for a total of £150,000.
  - 26 mile Marathon course in under an hour (£50,000),
  - Sporting aircraft challenge stressing maneuverability (£100,000),
  - Local challenge that is limited to youth groups (under 18 years) in the UK.
  
  

Finally, a bit of history about the prime use of the site - for military training. Again the full information can be found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_School_of_Military_Engineering but some detail that caught my eye:

Minley Manor is a Grade 2 listed country manor house, built in the French style by Henry Clutton in the 1860s with further additions in the 1880s. The Manor is situated 2 miles north of junction 4A of the M3 between Farnborough and Yateley in Hampshire and is situated in 38 hectares of grounds. The house was the birthplace of the British diplomat Sir Reginald Hoare, and passed to the War Department in the 1930s, initially for the Senior Wing of the nearby Staff College, Camberley and has been used for the last 20 years or so as the Officers' Mess of No 3 Royal School of Military Engineering at Gibraltar Barracks, which are located on the opposite side of the A327 Minley Road. 

One of the main features is a 600 metre Wellingtonia tree avenue, which was shown off to good effect in the 1969 movie Mosquito Squadron, where the manor house played the part of a French château used as a prisoner of war camp and factory for the V-1 flying bomb. The Manor was also used as a location in the 2007 Victorian fantasy movie Stardust, starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer.