ITU World Triathlon - a novice having a go! Race report...

Race Report – ITU World Triathlon London – Open Sprint 30th May


Nervous starters!

This was my first, large triathlon and I couldn’t believe how big the event was, with over 1000 competitors in my race – Sprint (750m swim, 22k bike, 5k run). The site at Hyde Park was huge with a large spectator stand (to watch the pros the next day ) and an a Expo selling anything and everything triathlon related. I turned up at 2:30pm (my race wasn’t until 4pm, which isn’t great as for me as I like to get up early and go) but at least the sun was out and there were no rain clouds! I met Juliet, my friend who was competing too and we got to work attaching all our stickers and sorting all our gear. Being in the centre of London I cycled to the event (this was a good warm up, but meant I had limited equipment, all squashed in my back pack).


The spectator stand...

The transition area was well labelled and we set our bikes up, getting nervous as some very serious competitors had started appearing! We applied our body glide and struggled into our wetsuits. As we stood chatting and having a few pre race pics,  we suddenly realised our wave had lined up by the water. Charging over, trying to put on our swim caps and googles as we ran, we didn’t feel very prepared. Juliet also still had her flip flops on, and I don’t think she ever saw them again! We also noticed that we were possibly the only two woman in our wave…

Swimmers...

The marshals then told us to enter the uninviting Serpentine. It was a mere 15 degrees celsius and I heard a lot of gasping and moaning from the men as they entered, man up men! I was nervous by how far away the buoys were, this swim looked very daunting and dunking my head to acclimatise, the water was very murky. Vision; poor.  Holding onto the pontoon for over 5 minutes I started getting chilly, plus my arm was aching! The horn blew and we set off, having never done a mass start this scared me and I slowed to the back as the kicking and splashing was making me panic, I then settled into a rhythm; a mixture of breast stroke and front crawl, not the best but at least my head went underwater this time and by 400m in, I was pleased to maintain my front crawl (except when I got kicked!) The swim seemed to go on forever (which it did for me as my time was slow). The run from the swim to the bike was long about 800m, but this was all carpeted so nice on the feet! Juliet had a fantastic swim, she was off like a shot and one of the top competitors out the water.


T1 was a disaster! As I got to my bike, I dried my feet (I know not to do this now, just the thought of wet feet on the bike!) and started the run with my bike to mount. During this run,  a guy decided to throw his wet suit right in front of my bike. Comically, I then tripped over the wetsuit, fell over and wasted time re fixing my shoe to the bike. He got penalised by 2 minutes but this just slowed me down!

The bike course was fantastic, 3 laps, fairly flat and lots of tight technical corners and I grew more confident with each lap. With the closed roads I felt I was flying round and overtaking competitors as I went, finally all those hours sweating it out on the Watt Bike over the winter have started to pay off. I also caught Juliet in the fourth lap just at the end so that spurred me o

Happy Runner!

Bringing it home....

T2 was fairly smooth and the run was two laps around the Serpentine. My legs felt tired on the first lap and I thought I was running very slowly. Lap two - I picked up the pace and started overtaking, coming to the finish there was a great crowd. I’ve never had such an exciting finish with the spectator stand and the speaker calling my name saying I was in the top 10 woman and I sprinted to the end. Having received my results, I am so pleased 7th Lady of the day, 3rd in Age Group and the fasted lady runner of the day. My run was 19th overall (this includes all the men!) I just wanted to finish and am thrilled with these results and my 5k time. If I could just speed up my swim I wouldn’t have to spend the whole race chasing!

Recovery Drink...

I now think I have the triathlon bug and can’t wait for Blenheim next week. This was one of the best organised and most enjoyable races I’ve done and I recommend it to other novices for next year! I’d also like to thank Juliet for being such a great race buddy and Jo for his fantastic cheering on the side lines and photos.