Brize Norton Sprint Tri

Today was the first of 2, possibly 3, sprint tris that I will be doing this year. As I've mentioned previously, I haven't swam this year so the first discipline was going to be tough. I was looking forward to the bike leg although as I'm still only in my first phase of base training I wasn't expecting fireworks. I was not looking forward to the run at all.

So how did it go? I was completely calm beforehand as there was no pressure on me to perform at this event. I had put an estimated swim time down of 8 minutes so was in Wave 13 (of 24); into the water with 30 seconds to go and then the hooter to start our wave. Setting off I had no idea what to expect, but was very pleasantly surprised as my stroke seemed to be pretty much as I remembered it (not that it was ever anything special, of course). The first 4 lengths seemed to fly by and I was feeling really good. However (you just knew there was going to be one, didn't you?), my lack of swim training came back to haunt me. After 200m my arms were becoming heavy and after 300m my arms felt very heavy and it was a real effort to keep any sort of form. It was soon at an end, though, in approx 7:30 which I was absolutely delighted with.

They say that transition is the 4th discipline, and as you can imagine, I haven't practised these either, which was clearly evident as I struggled to get my top on and then made a hash of getting on my bike, much to the amusement of Neill G and the crowd.

Onto the bike and I tried to push right from the start, although my legs seemed a little reluctant for the first 10 minutes or so. They say you should never try anything new in a race, so my new, untested position and my new, untested deep rimmed front wheel were getting acquainted in a most unorthodox manner. It was a little windy but the deep rim didn't cause me any particular handling issues. I caught a couple of athletes from the previous wave but was keeping an eye out for Jackie Wren, who had also started in the wave ahead of me. With a mile or so to go I saw Jackie ahead, battling with another cyclist. I caught them at the last right turn towards BZN and passed Jackie just after the speed hump into camp.

A credible attempt at a running dismount into T2 and I managed a reasonable bike to run transition and was out onto my least favourite part of the race. Jackie overtook me as we left camp and I offered some words of "encouragement". She quickly opened a gap of 50m or so but either I speeded up or Jackie slowed down as it settled at about that distance. I had planned to just jog round the run course but after Jackie overtook me something in my head switched to "competitive" mode and I made a determined effort to keep her in sight. There were several occasions when I really wanted to stop; this was hurting. The small hill by the roundabout was a killer; I dug in and made an effort but it really hurt and I tried to recover at the top without losing too much speed. I really wanted to stop. Heading back towards camp and I thought I was catching Jackie - not by much and not by enough to catch her before the finish line. But it was hurting. Across the line and I was absolutely spent. I got myself a drink and sat down while my body tried to recover. I think I finished in about 1 hour and 2 minutes; a couple of minutes down on last year but I was not really surprised by that.

It was a good day; the weather had been threatening but other than a bit of wind the rain held off and there was even a bit of sunshine. The organisation seemed to be slick and managed to cope with some 40 athletes turning up unannounced on the day. It almost went pear-shaped when there was a technical glitch that prevented the start lists being produced, but this was overcome. It was great to see some of the best athletes in RAF Tri turning up for a try-a tri event; Mike Westwell (who I believe won the event in an amazing time of 53-something - I'm afraid I couldn't stay for the pize giving so can't confirm this), Mat Stephenson Brad Goggin and a number of up-and-coming athletes of all ages. 96 people turned up to race - fantastic!

And no race report would be compete without mentioning Reg, who managed to "forget" his helmet. When questioned, it turned out that he had brought his aero helmet but didn't want to bring it to transition until he had checked whether anyone else had brought one, in case he looked like a ****! I believe Reg had a good race - his Spesh Tarmac is just awesome and I really can't believe what he paid for it. Some guys have ALL the luck!

I'm very tired now. Time for bed. Recover well folks!