Posts Tagged ‘hyde park harriers’

As Hyde Park Harriers Triathlon continues to grow, we’ve been expanding our club kit.

I was a little worried about ordering because when I ordered my tri suit, it took months to turn up and I missed a lot of races. However, I did get a full apology, and ultimately the club decided to stay with our current provider. It’s a monopoly, so it was either take the chance or not be able to wear the club kit.

This time things have been better: it turned up just before Christmas meaning I had it in time for the Festive 50. And it looks pretty snazzy. Yeah, I’m old, “snazzy” was a word when I was a kid.

I haven’t worn the jersey on a ride yet as I also picked up a Gabba in the Black Friday sales (and Elina has now bought me a long-sleeved jersey for Christmas, too), but I have been wearing the arm warmers which seem to do a good job.

Roll on summer when the club rides start again.

Last week, Venla and I headed up to the Brownlee circuit to cheer everyone on who was competing in the second Hyde Park Harriers Brownlee duathlon: a 2km run, 10km bike and final 2km run. It was a tough event, but we kept pushing to the end and managed to eat six pieces of cake between the two of us.

So, here it was. My final race of the 2019 triathlon series. As a season finale, it made for an excellent choice: the mixed team relay contained 49 teams, 10 of which were from Hyde Park Harriers. With the Blue Lagoon being an intimate venue, it meant an afternoon of hanging out with the entire triathlon club. A perfect end of the year.

The weather could not dampen our spirits. But it tried as hard as it could. It rained the whole day, only easing off towards the end of the event. This made for a wet and cold wait until it was my turn to jump into the water. Luckily, my turn came just before I started getting too cold and once I was racing I felt fine.

Cat led our team off strongly. She was one of only two athletes to go without a wetsuit and one of the first out of the water. She handed over to Matt who continued to smash it for our team. Julie put in a speedy third leg and it was down to me to not lose too many places before crossing the line.

Photo by Atmospheric Images

The swim went well. I did mostly front crawl, with a quick breaststroke break in the middle. I was over my predicted time, but that was because I miscalculated as my pace was spot on.

The bike was a mixed bag. My power meter was not working so I spent the first 100 metres trying to restart my Garmin with no success. After that, I got my head down. Mostly on the aero bars. There was just a stretch of open fields after the crossroads where I occasionally had to come off them due to crosswinds. 29.1 kph is not that faster overall, but being within 3 kph of Curtis feels like a victory. The biggest challenge was keeping my heart rate down: it was 190 when I came off the bike, which is typically what I would run at.

Photo by Atmospheric Images

The run was a bit of an unknown. I do not usually run such short distances, so I figured I would be about six minutes. In the end, I was 6:20 which seems spot on given the conditions. The run route took in the trail route around the back of the lake, which produced ankle-deep puddles flanking muddy banks. My lovely white trainers will never be the same again. I also had to ease off a little on the finishing straight so we could line the team up for the finish.

We crossed the line hand-in-hand. Our time was 2:42:05, which was good enough for 23rd place overall. Thank you to Cat, Julie and Matt for racing with me and I am looking forward to more mixed team relays next year.

Last week, I attended the Hyde Park Harriers Triathlon club AGM. It was super dull, even for an AGM. But at least we got this nice group picture.

On Good Friday, I went cycling with Hyde Park Harriers triathlon club. Around twenty of us set off from the Three Horse Shoes in two groups: a “fast” group and a “social” group, with both being respectable rides that took in some hills.

I managed to hold the wheel of the fast group as we made our way to Bolton Abbey for some cake at the pavilion. We then took in Langbar, which was not as bad as I was expecting, before descending (and then climbing, because it’s Yorkshire) to Golden Arce park for ice cream and finally The Stables for a beverage of a refreshing nature.

In total, it amounted to 84km and just over 1,000 metres of climbing. A lovely way to start the Easter weekend.