My final triathlon of the Worfolk Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) 2026! I’ve done Sundowner several times before, including my first middle distance, but that was back in the Freebird days. The event is now organised by U Prevail and just as good.
There were four waves: fast mixed, fast women, slow mixed, slow women. I went in the third and found that I was pretty good in comparison to the others in my wave. I wasn’t first out of the water: there was a small pack and a few lone swimmers ahead, but I was ahead of most people and it felt great to have the confidence to go out and swim reasonably hard (for me). I came out around a minute faster than Bishopton.
The cycle also went well. I stayed down on my aero bars pretty much the entire time. Not quite as fast or as hard as at Brigg, but my back continued to work even after the race so I feel like the trade was worth it.
The run was a lot different from the old days: it took place entirely inside the grounds of Allerthorpe Lakeland Park and was mostly trail. One of the lovely things about having the middle and standard distance athletes on the course at the same time as I felt pro-level fast overtaking people who were doing four times the distance I was.
My total time was:
1:26:11
And here are my splits with a comparison to Bishopton:
| Stage | Sundowner | Bishopton |
|---|---|---|
| Swim | 17:11 | 18:13 |
| T1 | 3:07 | 4:33 |
| Cycle | 41:47 | 46:47 |
| T2 | 1:34 | 1:40 |
| Run | 22:31 | 23:42 |
I missed all of the official photos, unfortunately. In a very generous move, they gave out prizes to both the first and second place in each age category. Alas, I came third, but I wasn’t that close to moving up a space so oh well. It’s a lovely race for both beginners and seasoned veterans.
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Tags: triathlon
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2026 at 11:00 am and is filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.