Llandudno Sea Triathlon

The Llandudno Sea Triathlon is a Middle Distance event aka a 70.3 aka a Half Ironman, it is also my first competitive swim in the sea, gulp, and it’s raining. Things do not start promisingly with a ten minute long swim out to the off shore start. I wasn’t expecting that sort of exhausting warm up and I’m not sure why it was necessary. Surely a beach start would have been far more exciting and in eye shot of the crowd.

The swim itself, all 1.9km of it, was actually quite fun, a bit like being on a rollercoaster. One minute I was surfing a wave, the next minute I was in mid air until I slapped back down into the water. It was tough swimming against the current but after the turn it's... wheeeeee... great fun swimming with the current. Then we have to go around again.

At some point I lose the five people I’ve been swimming with and end up on my own. As the swim takes me a very tardy 59 minutes, I assume they found a short cut.

Then on to the 87km bike and a very deadly exit from transition, where we are asked to turn right for a lap of the Great Orme (big Welsh hill thing) crossing the path of faster triathletes coming off the Orme and now heading off in the other direction.

Then when I’ve been round the Orme, I’m faced with the same hazard again because the Sprint race has now started and they are emerging from transition just as I try to pass. At least by now it’s stopped raining but the roads are still quite damp.

The rest of the bike course is hilly, very hilly, making the Orme look like a mere undulation. However I make good time and pass loads of people who are clearly finding it tougher than I am.

A marshal briefly throws a spanner in the works at the feed station when he chucks a bottle of sports drink at me. They’d been no information in advance on how the feed station would work, unlike at other races, and I have nowhere to put this extra bottle. I pull over, top up my own bottle from it and then chuck the extra one at the next marshal. Sorted.

Finally after what seems like an age, and is actually three hours and forty-nine minutes, I pull back into transition and go out on the 20km run. This too is hilly and takes us over the Little Orme (smaller Welsh hill thing) down to Penrhyn Bay.

We do two laps of this with a turnaround point on the promenade. Sadly the turnaround comes very early on the promenade and short of a full lap where there is no crowd, no L and no dogs because they were expecting this barely marked point to be somewhere more logical. It makes a lonely run, even lonelier.

I complete the run in 1:47 giving me a total time of 6:22 which doesn’t sound that great but it was a tough course. Sadly, hardly anyone notices when I cross the finish. There was no announcement of your name as you crossed the line like at other races and there wasn’t even a timing clock.

It would also have been nice to know that there would be only water available on the run. e.g there were no gels, no sports drink and no food items, any of which would have been nice. Still it was a decent event, although there’s plenty of scope for improvement.

The Hairy Helmet

The Hairy Helmet, for the uninitiated, is a four person relay with everyone doing just two (and a bit) miles. For my team of girls (and me), which includes L, that’s not a given as all have recently been injured or are still nursing injuries. The team is rather tastefully named after this blog ‘Team Fit For Nothing’ and we are entered in the Supervets aged 200+ category. Which will probably turn out to be the fastest category.

Everything starts from Darley Abbey Cricket Club and I walk there from work, which is a good warm up while L drives over with the dogs. Being first to arrive I collect our timing baton, race numbers, beer tokens and, oddly, a bag of Portlebay Popcorn.

I am offered the choice of running first or last. Obviously that’s a no brainer, I’ll go first. L decides to anchor us home and mop up the glory.

So off I head out around the cricket pitch boundary and onto the park itself. After a quick 180 degree turn we’re heading steeply uphill towards the main park gates. Then after the park gates we’re descending back downhill and towards the rowing club end of the park. Another U-turn there, then it’s along the river and back towards the cricket club where I hand over to our next team member.

My time is a not too shifty 13:23, I didn’t think I had that in me any more. The rest of the team aren’t quite as nippy but we come an impressive 7^th in the Supervets category. Oh, it’s out of seven but not to worry.

The beer tokens are for the Derventio Brewery who have a beer tent but they are only valid on their bottles. They also have three draught beers but these sell out very quickly. I don’t know if this is spectators supping it as they watch or runners supping it before they go out. Having ran first, only one beer is left available even then.

By the time L has ran, none is left and we adjourn to the Furnace. It's always good to have a back up plan.

Columbia Threadneedle ITU World Triathlon Leeds

It’s race day and I am in the wave rather too officially titled the British Standard Distance Triathlon Championships (Male 50-54). Is that what I signed up for? Sounds very serious and it all kicks off at 7.30am.

The day does not initially start off well with us again unable to access the main car park from the north of the city. Sadly nobody we asked on Saturday or on the Sunday knew how to access it, so we ended up parking in the street again. This isn't really a problem but some advice as to whether this was the best thing to do would have been nice. Luckily everything else goes quite well today.

The swim is ok, it's not too fearsome, either course wise or people wise, and even the swans kept out of my way. In fact, it was so shallow in places I could have walked it.

One thing they haven’t changed from last year is the long runs in and out of transition but at least we don’t have to carry a bag this time.

The bike route is a bit of a pain, very twisty with not much chance to get your head down other than to attempt to plough through the wind which seems to be head on pretty much all the time. The only time it seems to drop is on the uphill sections, meaning are were no easy bits. Mind you, you don’t really want your head up as the suburbs of Leeds are not particularly pretty.

The bike route takes us back to Roundhay this time, meaning one transition not two, and then it’s a 7km run into Leeds following by a 3km loop around the city centre. I can only guess that they have lengthened the time gap between our races and the elite races this year because there was a lot less support in the city centre.

I was slightly slower on both the swim and the bike this year but overall I was two minutes up on last year due to actually having two working legs for the run this time. However, I have no idea how this year's long runs in and out of transition compared to last year's long runs in and out of transition. My T1 last year was an eye-watering 11:23, this year a spritely 8:34.

Last year it was noted that there weren’t many freebies available but this time it’s much better even if the Yorkshire tea stall did seem to peak too soon and run out. We even got a race t-shirt this time and the shuttle bus back to Roundhay from the city centre works like clockwork.

So a very good effort from the organisers to repair the damage to triathlon's reputation that was inflicted by last year’s debacle. However this race can now be very much consigned as done and dusted as far as I’m concerned. New challenges now await.