As usual, I was up at silly o’clock (5:15 if you must know) and after a hearty breakfast of cereal and a cuppa, packed my bag – several times! – and put the bike on the back of the car.  I seem to be leaving the packing until quite late – a bad habit I really should get out of.

Having pre-registered on the Saturday and checked out the change to the finishing funnel, I didn’t have to rush quite so much in the morning.  Even so, I was on the road by 6:15 and arrived at the venue some 20 minutes later.  Even then, the place was filling up and the volunteers hard at work registering late arrivals.

One of the nice things about transition is that the racks are numbered, so no wandering around trying to gauge the best place to rack – it’s already decided for you.  As I was setting up my gear, the chaps a couple of numbers either side asked whether I’d been here before as they thought they’d been racked alongside me the previous year.  I did recognise on of them and will keep an eye open next year – I’m pretty sure I’ll give it another go!

This year, because of the numbers and the fact that there were some elites racing, we all had to be out of transition by the time the first wave went off at 8am, which made for a frantic few minutes, especially as some folk were still coming in with their bikes.  And I thought my planning was bad….

Having watched the first couple of waves go off, it was my turn to enter the water.  I soon warmed up the wetsuit and, on the sound of the gun/horn/whatever, headed off for my usual gentle paddle around the lake.  I was three minutes quicker than last year, helped no doubt by an increase in the amount of front crawl I attempted, and was even a minute quicker than the Army Tri back in May.

Got back to T1 and, though struggling a little in releasing the wetsuit, headed out on to the bike leg.  Three minutes slower that the army event (to be fair, a slightly different course), but ten minutes quicker compared with last year; I need to work a little more in gear changes to really get the best out of the bike - and a little extra effort wouldn’t go amiss either!

By the time I started the run, the legs were heavy and so I was 3 minutes down on May but four minutes fast than last year.  Not brilliant to be honest but an improvement like-for-like has to be good, and running is something I’ll be addressing with my new PT during the close season (if such a thing exists for us multi-sport athletes).

Finally, the all-important results.  Swim completed in 20:49, 2:12 in T1, the bike took 37:27 and, with 1:18 in T2, did the run in 27:58 for a total of 1 hour 29 minutes 43 seconds.  Placed 424/485 so, yet again, not last.  Another event PB, works for me!!

Thanks, as usual, to all at TriFerris Promotions (http://www.triferris.com/) for putting the event on.

 

Last updated: 21/11/2009 12:27:16