The very first Ashbourne Sprint Triathlon was on Sunday 11th May.
Standard 400 meter indoor swim, 15km bike & 5km run (400mtr tunnel & Trail)
It was a cold, wet & rainy day, turned up late and the racks weren’t numbered for your bike, so my bike was racked furthest from the Bike start but closet to the run start! Continue reading
After 16 weeks of training effort, eventually race weekend arrives, excitement builds, perhaps a few nerves as its been such a focus and the before you know it it’s all over. However, on this particular occasion it did not rush by. The weekend or the race. Especially the race.
Wimbleball is a 3 hour drive from my house, but add in the top speed of my VW camper and its 4.5hrs. And it’s knackering to drive the van, so I set off on Friday morning to the campsite. My biggest concern was how would my electrical items hold up without a charging point (no electrical hook ups in the van) Kindle, iPad, iPod, portable speakers, phone. The list was extensive. So much so I adopted a rotation policy to avoid draining all batteries. This was probably my most successful achievement all weekend – returning with some power.
After 12 weeks of training, thousands spent on getting to the beautiful zell am see, buying new bikes and kit and endless hours wasted planning, the day finally dawned. And it looked like rain. Typical.
During the night, I had fitful sleep, (expected) analysing all possible “could go wrong moments”. That and listening to “biblical” rain falling outside. Still, positive thinking, at least the predicted storm would be over before we got racing.
So, after a nice easy start and a leisurely breakfast (and a massive tension relieving shite) we headed off down to the start. A twenty minute walk in flip flops is in no preparation manual, but it certainly was a bonus as we arrived at a rather wet football field and paddled about. No obvious signs of tampering with my bags or bike (middle of the night stress thought) and I went into the changing tent of transition 1 to don my wetsuit. Continue reading
Standing in the water with the sun rising in a clear sky the nerves of the day and night before had gone and I felt surprisingly calm waiting for the six o’clock start.
The swim was an out and back down each side of the rowing course at Holme Pierpoint – with my appalling sense of direction while swimming this suited me, just keep between the concrete wall and the lane buoys for about 2km to the big orange turn then the same on the way back. The start was a little congested but I settled down and looking for space when possible made a good time – swimming nice long strokes and trying to breathe easy. Out of the water in 1hr21 I felt really good going into transition. Continue reading