There were two reasons for going back to this event.
The first was I wanted to get the second half of the medal after I did the duathlon in October 2018 & the second was to take Coach 2 around the house & grounds because the weather was really crappy last time we were there. Also, two weeks before the event I received an email from the organisers saying that the race had been selected to host the South West Regional Sprint Championships.
Sunday was 10% cooler than it had been on the Saturday & I wasn’t in the lake until 1:30pm, so we had a leisurely start to the day & arrived in plenty of time so myself & Coach 2 had a pre-warm-up stroll around the grounds.
Transition was set up in plenty of time & then we walked down to the lake for a 750mtr one lap swim.
I had no major issues with the swim this time & I felt good. The only slight issue I had was at the start when I was heading towards the first buoy, some guy decided to swim over my head towards the bank & knocked one side of my goggles making them loose. I had to have a quick stop to readjust them & then headed off again.
Out of the swim for a 400mtr run up a grassy hill to transition. I decided to take my wetsuit off at the bottom of the hill & carried it up.
Into T1 & then headed off onto the seven lap, 21K bike ride.
As this was a closed road there were no cars to contend with as it was around the estate. One good thing about this was that unlike last year, there were no speed bumps to contend with either. I did have to be a little bit cautious when overtaking other cyclists as this event was open to all abilities.
Seven laps done & into T2. I made a slight mistake though. I overshot my racking spot which wasted a few seconds because it was quite windy & my bright green run shoe laces had now been covered up by my neighbour’s towel which had blown over my shoes. So I made a quick about turn, shoes on & headed of onto the two lap 5K run. A quick description of the run course – down hill from transition, passed the waterfall, through a tunnel, round the Doric Temple, then onto a nasty double roller-coaster & then a final nasty climb up to the finish.
As I left transition, Coach 2 said to me was what I thought was 35secs to someone who I wanted to beat (what she actually said was 3+ minutes!!!). When I left transition I overtook one guy who I knew I’d raced at Moyles Court triathlon but I never saw him again so was pleased with that. I worked hard throughout the run as I wanted to stay ahead of the guy I wanted to beat. Also, it was helpful to have competitors from previous waves to keep catching & trying to overtake.
Two laps done – that did hurt.
My splits are as follows:
Swim – 12:57; T1 – 3:51; Bike – 37:53; T2 – 1:00; Run – 20:18; Overall time – 1:15:58
Overall position – 10th out of 193 .
Also I was 1st in my age group & 1st in the South West Regional Sprint Championships
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