Graham was still on the road…
Seven days after the Dambuster Tri we have now travelled 5 & half hours to North Wales for the Llandudno sprint tri which was another qualifier for London.
We arrived Friday afternoon & went for a quick swim to see how warm/cold the sea was. It was not too bad once you got going. However, due to the tide times my race time was not due to start until 4pm, which is a first for me, so after breakfast I did a lap of the bike course, which was only 6 miles, around the Great Orme, which included 2 & a half miles of climbing. A good windy descent, with a little flat bit & then a mini climb back into to town which for the race, I would have to repeat. I then went back to the hotel for more food & drink. By the time my wave started it was very cloudy with rain on its way. Also, it was another very windy day.
We had a deep water start, which was approx 200mtrs from the beach. It was a rectangular course. I exited the swim then had a long run into transition to get the bike. I then had an even longer run to get to the mount line. Not good for my poor feet. Onto the bike, which I thoroughly enjoyed both of the laps even though at the top of the second lap climb it did hurt a lot. Into T2, which again was a very lengthy run into transition, for the one lap run along the promenade, then half way up Little Orme, which by now was seriously starting to hurt the legs. I was little bit disappointed on the homeward stretch because I could see what I thought were a couple of my age group competitors in front of me but with everything I did, I could not close them down. However, I still felt that I had a good run.
Overall time – 1:12:49
Swim – 13:39
T1 – 1:30
Bike – 36:21
T2 – 1:24
Run – 19:52
154th & 25th in my age group (still nowhere near good enough to qualify)
Now that this crazy month of June is over & I have had time to reflect on trying to qualify for the Worlds, I tried my utmost best but now realise that the standard is so high in my age group that I would have had to grow wings to qualify.