Sherborne Half IM, 2004. 

Phil Ibbs reflects on a long day down in Dorset.

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After "The Longest Day"  I followed everyone's' advice very closely, by having an extremely structured period of doing nothing. I did a few rides, swims etc but most of my effort was put into sitting on my sofa watching lots of daytime TV (teacher with lots of free time at the mo). My recovery went a bit too well, I have managed to put on about 1-2kg.

So with lots of focus, tapering and preparation Jen and I headed on down to sunny!! Dorset to do battle with the half.

I registered with only one problem, every competitor had an ID card with their picture on it, which was all good except mine made me look like a grotesque genetic experiment turned criminal, always good to walk round with that around you neck.

Racked the bike with its shiny nearly new disk (thanks to Jason and Carl) and looking I must say rather pukka.

Race Morning: Got up nice and early had a cuppa and headed down to the lake, pumped up my tires, went to the loo to get down to racing weight ahem! and squeezed into my considerably more snug wetsuit. At this point "energiser Carl" jumps into me and we have a mad couple of minutes laughing about how its only a half etc. Then Carl helped Spencer Smith get to the start (ask him) and we entered the murky brown lake.

I was in the 7am start and did entertain thoughts of getting up near the pros even if it was for just one second but then common sense prevailed when I realised that would entail 800 age groupers swimming over me. I started near to the side towards the back.
The swim was .......... interesting, it was too murky to even be able to tell if you were drafting and I got my goggles kicked into my eye so my eyeball was slowly been sucked out of its socket during the swim, always a nice feeling, I kept imagining getting out, pulling off my goggles and my eye popping out, still it took my mind off the swim. I finished got hauled out of the at water and ran towards transition.

A point to note: If you are going to have a tent for male changing where athletes are allowed to get fully changed then it would probably be a good idea not to staff it with either women or children, something HIMUK would do well to note. After several apologies and explanations about the water being unseasonably cold I was ready to attack the bike.

Out onto the "undulating" course, it was a little windy on the bike but I have to admit really good fun, there were lots of sections where I could just stay in the tri bars and I got myself up to a good speed, according to the course profile most of the climbing was in the second half of the loop but I thought the worst hill was on the first out part of the loop, really steep, the point at which I realised that if I went into my 23cog the derailleur rubbed against the disk, being northern and refusing to damage something I have just brought I clicked it down into the 21 and refused to use the 23 through the bike leg. So a 56mile undulating course on a 12-21, cunning I thought! I did a great impression of Jan Ullrich staying in my seat and just grinding up the climbs.

The descent was fantastic, I recorded on my bike computer 83.7kph for the descent, anyone higher offers than that!!

I did 2:59:36 for the bike and I was stoked to go under 3hrs really didn't think I would do that. But then came the problem part the half marathon. It all started so well, I got changed into my run kit (with the now traumatised helpers running away from me) and started running, then I felt the dreaded twinge of cramp in my legs. Yes my old friend was back. Soon
after starting the run I was sat on the side of the path trying to get my leg to bend. I massaged it a
bit and was able to start shuffling again. Then I discovered that the course profile told a big fat
stinking lie. Instead on the one climb advertised you actually ran up one side of the valley down and back
up the other side, two whopping hills with cramp in the legs nice!
For those who did the slightly short run last year I can assure you it was easily made up for this year. I got onto my water and coke routine quickly and settled down to a fairly steady pace, the cramps did settle a bit but I could never really stretch it out. I managed a 2:20 half.

So overall a 6:13effort. I will do sub six in my next half I promise ( I may even train for it!).

Phil Ibbs