My 18th and final triathlon of the year was a family affair with my dad and my sister racing, as well as friends Tim and Sophie. Plus with Elina, Venla and my mum forming the cheering squad it was very social day.
If you are thinking that a triathlon in October sounds like a chilly affair, you would be correct. I had my leggings, Merino base layer, hoodie and coat on and I was still freezing. Still, there was some silver lining: it was dry which was a big improvement on the heavy rain when we went to cheer my dad on in 2019.
Registration was 6-7 am which meant getting up at 5 and driving over in the dark. I had to wait until the sun came up to get the stickers on my bike as I couldn’t see the edges of the sticker sheet. This meant standing around for three hours waiting for my 9:10 start time. Thankfully, the butty van eventually turned up at around 8 am.
The swim
400-metre pool swim. I was in lane one which allowed us a little more space for overtaking. I had to sprint past two athletes on my second length and then got tagged by an athlete halfway through who I then ended up sitting on the feet of for the rest of the swim. Not sure if it was poor pacing on his part of the benefit of drafting but either way I was on the poolside in 8:36 by my watch.
After clocking up an eye-watering 18:51 T1 at Dalesman, this was a faff-free affair and I was out of there in 54 seconds.
The bike
The bike course was pan flat. There was some wind. I didn’t mind the headwind so much, it was the crosswind that made me a little nervous on the aero bars as I had to lean the bike a little in the wind. My speed was not quite what I wanted, I think because I had to stop at multiple junctions to wait for cars, as well as having to stop for cars overtaking parked cars and slower cyclists.
When I left T1, I left my gloves and arm warmers as I felt warm enough. I felt fine throughout the bike but when I arrived in T2, getting my socks and shoes on proved difficult due to numb hands.
The run
Once I was onto the run, I felt great. It was a straightforward out and back route and I went through the first two kilometres in 4:02. I thought about trying to push on for a 5k PB but correctly guessed that the course might come up short. A lost a couple of seconds in the third kilometre working out which way to go but then held the pace for the rest of the run.
The result
I finished in:
1:04:23
Here are my splits:
| Disipline | Time |
|---|---|
| Swim | 9:04 |
| T1 | 0:54 |
| Bike | 34:14 |
| T2 | 1:20 |
| Run | 18:53 |
The bike course measured around 18 k so I averaged 31.5 kph. The run came in at 4.68 km which translates to a 4:02 pace. The race winner was about 10 minutes ahead of me, taking 2 minutes in the swim, 6 minutes on the bike and 2 minutes in the run. Very happy with that.
For a brief period, I was 2nd on the leaderboard.
It’s done in swim-speed order so the faster athletes tend to go later. But even after everyone had finished, I was still 28 out of 148. That means nothing in my age group though as 6 of the top 7, including the race winner, were also in the male 35-39 group 😂.
Everyone else smashed it, too. My dad may well have run a 5k PB if it was full distance and Katie was running great, too. I went past her on the way out but she was still right behind me when I reached the turnaround: not bad for her first-ever sprint triathlon!
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Tags: triathlon
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 5th, 2021 at 11:00 am and is filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.