My first DNF

Well it had to happen one day.

And it turns out today was that day.

My first DNF.

Gutted doesn't come close to describing how upset and annoyed I am right now. But after some junk food (because I was in an incredibly bad mood) I do not plan on dwelling on what could have been.

I was feeling really strong going into the race.

Given I didn't think I'd be racing after track on Tuesday I was relieved to make the start line.

Yesterday was spent doing a mini aquathlon and some transition training and I learnt a lot.

I got up today feeling good and made my way to Epworth with my Mrs.

After I had registered and racked, it was time to cheer on some of the athletes who I have coached before making my way to the swim start.

Swim

The 400m swim took place in a 20m pool. I was flying in the swim. I overtook two people but unfortunately one of these swimmers didn't let me past as soon as I touched his feet to pass.

Swimmers were meant to stop at the end of the next length to let the faster swimmer pass. This annoyed me a lot and because of my annoyance I lost count of my lengths.

After what seemed like an age, I decided to stop for a few seconds to check I hadn't swum further than needed.  I hadn't I still 3 lengths to go.

I exited the pool and ran to transition.

T1

Now it was time to put yesterdays transition training to good use.

I was in and out of T1 and on my bike in 41 seconds. Thats a huge improvement on my last T1 time of 1:17 and a far cry from my first T1 time of 4:19.

Bike

Oh balls. In my haste of attaching my shoes to #Rinnie with elastic bands to save time I forgot to undo them.

So now instead of having to get my shoes on and fastened, I now had to unfasten them put them on and fasten them up again.

After I got my bike up to speed I set about completing the task at hand. After I had got my shoes on, which seemed to take forever. I was about to do my thing and throw down some power on the flats.

I was passed by some other athletes but was averaging around 20mph and was feeling good.

However after about 10km I started to feel a thump, thump, thump, thump from under my rear wheel.

OH CRAP!!!!!

I checked my wheel and realised it was flat.

After I had made my way to the next marshal who arranged for me to be collected my race was over.

Now I have a million questions running through my head on the whole clinchers vs tub thing.

I have completed all my triathlons to date on clinchers and never had a puncture until today when I switched to tubs.

But now what do I do?

So far there are three thoughts running through my head and I don't know which way to turn. Any thoughts or advice will be considered.

1. Switch back to my clinchers as I know that if I get a flat I can repair it.
2. Persevere with tubs but change to a harder wearing tyre. and ensure I carry repair fluid on my next races.
3. Sell both my tubs and clinchers and purchase some deeper section clinchers as I can repair those.

I can't really afford any disasters in my next triathlon as it is an ETU qualifier and I want to see how far off the pace I am. Today was meant to be a confidence booster ahead of this race. But it was not meant to be.

I have 6 weeks to decide how to proceed.

Thanks to all at Race Hard Events for coming to my rescue.

#onwardsandupwards

Thanks for reading,

Michael