After my race at Cambridge the previous week, I believed in my own mind that that was the end of the triathlon season for me however, Coach 2 had other ideas.  You won’t believe this, but it is true, she had entered me into this race, & put me through 2hrs of pain, just so that she could collect a bag full of conkers to keep the spiders out of the house!!!!  The things we do for love!!!

 

As for the race itself, once I had taken it in that I had to do another race, I was still fairly upbeat from last week’s race so on the whole, I was looking forward to it apart from the very strong wind.  As people may know, Dorney is quite open so I knew that the bike & run would be a bit of a test.

 

My wave wasn’t in until 9am, so not too early a start.  The drive up there was uneventful so transition & warm up was done in plenty of time.

 

I entered the lake to find it was slightly chilly.  I got myself onto the front line of my wave & off we went.  It looked like I was near the front but found myself in a group of four by the end of lap 1.  During the second lap, I moved to the front to try & get away from them but didn’t manage it as they overtook me on the final straight & as they were going at quite a good pace, I just sat on the back of them to the exit.

 

Into T1 where I had a bit of a helmet issue with the strap, which was too tight around my chin.  I believe that it had been knocked off my bike, but I got round that issue & left T1 rather swiftly to make up lost time. 

 

Out on the bike to do 8 laps of Dorney Lake, with the return leg towards transition being the hardest part of the course due to the strong headwind.  As there was a wave in front of me, by the time everyone was on the bike course it had gotten a little bit crowded, but that gave me plenty of people to overtake.  However, Lap 6 was a bad lap as I started to feel a bit “rubbish” but I pulled my sorry arse back into gear & got on with the job in hand.

 

Into T2.  No problems this time with transition so headed out onto the run, which was a two lap out & back course.  As with the bike route, there was plenty of people out on the run course, but not so much overtaking here.  Lap 1 was completed without any problems but with out & backs, you can judge who is coming up behind you & I saw one guy who was closing rather quickly.  I really tried hard to hold him off but during the last K he overtook me.  I was a little bit disappointed over that, but overall, for a race I didn’t know I was going to do, I was very pleased.

 

Total time – 2:13:18

 

Swim – 23:29

T1 – 1:22

Bike – 1:07:28

T2 – 0:48

Run – 40:11

 

8th overall & 2nd in my age group.

 

PS:  this should now be the end of my season unless Coach 2 comes up with any other races she wants me to do.