It’s all over (for now at least…)
So, Sunday was the big day! Training had seemed to be dragging on forever, but sorting out the kit ready to put into the transition areas and giving the bikes a once over the day before, it seemed that it had flown by!
If you are thinking about doing a Triathlon (then it means I must try harder to put you off) then you need to know that it does involve quite a lot of faff. In fact doing the event was the easy bit! We had to make sure that we had the correct equipment in the correct transition areas (T1 was from the swim onto the bike, T2 was from the bike onto the run) so that I wouldn’t have to do the bike stage in a swimming hat and goggles and the run with a bike helmet on.
As Caroline my girlfriend was also doing the event, this meant we had a packed car boot for the journey down!
We arrived nice and early and it was a bit of a hike from the car to the registration tent where we had to sign up, get marked up on the left arm and right leg with our race numbers, pick up a nasty flavoured energy drink and drop our T1 bags off.
It was then a hike back to the car to pick up the bikes and go back to the race start, where we had to wait until twenty minutes before our start time when we could rack our bikes and drop our kit off in T2.
It was then a quick walk to the pool where we lined up in number order to receive our safety briefing and to start the event (we would be set off in twenty second intervals in the pool)
The pool itself was the part I wasn’t looking forward to and true to form the pool was really choppy with lots of wanna be egos giving it the large. Fortunately for me there was the odd breast stroker going up and down the pool, so I took solace from that!
5,4,3,2… the lady at the side of the pool counted me down, which was a bowel loosening experience (maybe I could have had a clear pool that way…) …1, GO! And off I went in a flurry of feet, arms and bubbles and was promptly overtaken by, well, everyone it seemed!
After swallowing copius amounts of water and having the odd cough, I sprinted manfully from the pool and donned my cycle kit and helmet (well, people were watching after all) I ran out of T1 and hopped on the bike with the encouragement of the lap guy who shouted at me to “get on with it” or something like that.
The bike stage went really well (obviously) and I overtook lots of people and even the odd car!
I then honed into T2 and picked up my running shoes and cap and sprinted manfully again onto the running course, where I had to stop for a wee behind a tree halfway round the second lap ‘doing a Radcliffe’ apparently.
The event went really well and I finished in 167th out of 273, with a time of 1h 36mins, which was only 6mins off my predicted time. I’m gutted that Simon got a flat on the bike stage because I know it would have been a photo finish otherwise. Caroline did really well finishing in 81st position out of 136 women.
I’d do another one for sure (in fact Simon and I are looking at one in Oxford early August) but I’m really looking forward to the holiday in Italy where I can do nothing for a week first!