I decided to have a quick blast before heading off to France for a two week high altitude training camp session !!!  Sounds good but the reason we were going was for 2 weeks in the sun, watch the TDF, do some of the big climbs & do the Alpe D’Huez triathlon.

However,back to Dorney where it was quite a nice day.  The sun was out, but not too warm, with a bit of wind thrown in for good measure &, as usual, this was a 2 lap swim, 8 lap back bike & a 2 lap run course – all off road.

For the standard distance event there were 2 waves & as I’m an old fart now, I was in the 2nd wave.  The swim went well & there were no untoward problems.  I exited the swim where in my wave Coach 2 shouted out that I was 6th.

I headed out of T1 onto the bike course but had a slight technical issue with the left foot.  The elastic band had broken before I had reached the mount line so I lost a few vital seconds there.

The 8 lap bike course was anti-clockwise around the lake (on the far side of the lake this time, behind the Olympic rings).

I always had people to chase on this one & I didn’t get overtaken until lap 6 where I managed to hold on to him for the last 2 laps.  My splits for the bike were 8:28, 7:54, 8:00, 7:57, 7:59, 7:58, 7:55 & 8:05.  Thank you to Coach 2 for clocking these times for me.

Into T2 & out onto the run.  Again, nothing really to report as I seemed to feel quite good with my running, but it was still not that quick.

My splits for this race are:

Swim – 23:49

T1 – 0:49

Bike – 1:04:12

T2 – 0:48

Run – 43:08

Total time – 2:12:48

To my surprise, I came 10th overall (out of 203 competitors) but most pleasing – I won the Super Vet age group.  Another trophy to add to ever growing collection (ha, ha)