My first competitive Triathlon – The Eton Super Sprint Triathlon.
I stayed the night in a hotel the night before the event – I did this because I knew that as I was competing alone – if the alarm rang at home in my own bed, with a 90 minute drive in front of me I might well not have gone to the event!
I checked out at midday and drove the 6 miles to Dorney Lake. It was blowing an absolute gale. I parked the car and walked the 1km to the registration area to pick up my number, timing chip and ‘get myself in the mood!
I was wave 13, so not due to set off until 3.30pm – which gave me the chance to have a look around and watch some of the other waves go off. To say I was nervous is an understatement – I was petrified. I was pretty much unable to swim 16 or so weeks ago and I was soon to find myself in Dorney Lake with 50 or so other 35-39 year old men. What would happen if it all went wrong? I had only done the 400metres race distance in the pool (where it is serenely calm and I was in a lane by myself!) Could I drown, would everyone laugh at me if I had to descent to breast stroke or even backstroke!
I watched waves 10 and 11 go off – and it was with some relief that I noticed that in each wave 6 or 7 people struggled with the swim and did indeed revert to breast stroke to get around na d one or two did do backstroke. There were even a couple that had to lay on their back a signal for the canoe’s to come and give them a helping hand….I was pleased. Not that these poor souls needed help, but that the help would be there should I need it!!!!
All too quickly the call for ‘Males 35 – 39 – Wave 13 – to the swim start please’ came. I left my bike racked with my belongings covered in plastic bags (it was raining ans well as blowing a gale) and beleiguredly trudged to the waters edge. I looked upon the face of another guy – who looked at me in a way that said ‘I’m shitting myself here, how about you?’ I gave him a look that said ‘I know ust how you feel.
Then we evtered the water. I knoew now that I should have spent some time in the open water with my wetsuit, I felt uncomfortable, restricted, tight chested and cold – as the race briefing began (with us all in the water) I realised that the cold had meant that I could feel my wedding ring itching to jump off my finger and find its way to the bottom of the lake – I signalled a marshall and asked her to keep it safe (which she kindly did) – I thought of say to her ‘If I don’t make it out of here alive, please tell my wife I love her’, but thought that might be a little melodramatic!
Then we were off….I swam for about 50 meters with a crowd of people in front, to the side and behind…then I swallowed some water, totally forgot how to breate, panicked and decided to let everone pass and swim my own pace and race. Dark thoughts clouded my judgement, I would swim only 25-50 metres and then default to breast stroke. The stupid thing is that breast stroke is harder to do than crawl in a wet suite in open water, but my mental state said ‘breast stroke will stop you drowning!’ – I didn’t care what people thought, there were 5 or 6 other guys in the near vicinity finding it equally difficult, so I certainly wasn’t alone – I’m sure we’d have all consoled one another had we been able to speak and float at the same time….I resolved to do whatever I needed to do to get to the finish line, doggy paddle if I had to. After 9 minutes and 22 seconds I entered the bike transition. I was light heated and really disoriented – I was belching, because of the water swallowed and my poor breathing, I didn’t much feel like getting on the bike and into the wind.
Still, I am no quitter so I got on the bike and started off on the 4 laps of the course. The bike leg was two polar opposites – direct headwind for half of it and full tail wind for the other half. The feeling of dread as you turned into the headwind for 2.5k verses the elation of being swept along by the tailwind for the other 2.5k was really quite odd. I finished the cycle in 39minutes and 13 seconds. This was slower than my last spin around Dorney, but the circuit was different and the weather conditions were much worse, so I wasn’t disappointed. Indeed, I passed several people on the bike that were much quicker in the water. So onto the run..
Once again I got cramp in my right calf – and rued the fact that I hadn’t located salt enriched drinks to refuel on the bike. A quick stretch and I was running it off again – I had, what I felt was a good run and and crossed the line with a finish time of 1 hour 17 minutes and 23 seconds, coming 297 out of 669 competitors….to say I was pleased would be wrong.. I was ecstatic – If I could get my transitions quicker, improve my swim technique and build stronger legs I could knock 10 minutes off that time! And I came in the top half of the field – brilliant!
At the end of the race as I was collecting my bike out of the transition area I came across the chap that had done up the back of my wetsuit. ‘How did you get on?’ he asked. As I spoke the words, I surprised myself with them ‘I loved it’ I told him……and I had. Despite the poor swim, crappy weather and my poor transitions, I absolutely loved it. I was now bitten by the triathlon bug – and although only May, I know already that I needed to think about how to improve for next years competition season.
Next on the agenda is the St. Neots Sprint Triathlon, in 4 weeks and The Tatton Park Olympic Triathlon in September, as well as the Jersey Marathon in October – better crack on with that training….thankfully I am off to Turkey for a 2 week holiday – where I intend to put in some serious time in the pool.
