David Lloyd Lincoln Sprint Triathlon

This Sunday was the David Lloyd Sprint Triathlon in Lincoln. This is only 7 or 8 miles from home so I cycled down in my race kit with a set of trainers in the back pack. I arrived about an hour and forty before my start as I had to register by 9. It was perfect weather, sunshine, warm and very light wind. There was a big field for this race (in fact 425 finished), and I was in the 2nd to last wave to start. Due to the size of the field the swim waves were only 2 minutes apart and when I got in the water there was still 3 swimmers in my lane which I wasn't too pleased about. As you can imagine this lead to chaos on the swim and at 70 meters the inevitable happened and I had a head on collision with someone pushing off the wall not looking where they were going causing us both to stop in our tracks. I tried to stay calm, got to the wall and set off again and not 50 meters later I was tapping him on the feet to let him know I was there but he chose to be completely ignorant and continue without letting me by and I had little room to overtake him but eventually blasted past. My swim time was a lot slower than Cranwell on Wednesday and my time into transition was 6:28, I had a fast transition and set off on the bike passing the only person from my wave who had beat me out of the swim in the first kilometer and never really saw any of them again. The bike course was fast with the exception of the 12% climb at about 5k into the race, I passed a huge amount of people on the bike from earlier waves and kept setting myself little targets of who to catch and where I wanted to be past them by. As I got back to transition I had a smooth dismount (demonstrated in the great picture Anthea took) bike time 36:35, and a swift transition before setting off on the run. The run went well for me and I crossed the line in 1:02:18 with a run time of 18:21. I was 3rd overall and 1st in my age group, this was a close race and the winner only beat me by 7 seconds and 2nd was only 1 second ahead, they were both in the last wave and without blowing my own trumpet too much I am sure I would have beaten them if I was in the same wave and battling directly against them. This is becoming a habit getting a podium at sprint races, perhaps I should focus on sprint racing next season! I got a very nice glass trophy and a voucher for TFN Nottingham for my efforts. I cycled home with Anthea and we had a light lunch then went out together for a steady 30 mile bike in the afternoon. Things seem to be going well until today when my doctor called about my blood test from Friday. My white blood count was already a lot lower than it should be (despite the fact that it should be low due to my medication) 4 weeks ago but its gone lower again so things are not as they should be. I've been in a little discomfort since Tuesday last week but have been training and racing OK so not sure what's happening at the moment. I am in for a chat on Friday to see what they plan to do with me, she was calling my gastro specialist at Northallerton Hospital today to see what they think.

A win at the RAF Sprint Championships

Wednesday was the RAF Sprint Championships at RAF Cranwell. I arrived in good time so I could speak to Nick Davies as I needed to go in an early wave so I could be finished and get on my way to Stamford to pick Beth up as it was the last day of term. Nick put me in with the 8 minute swimmers with strict instructions to be considerate of the slower athletes in the water. There was lots of abuse being thrown at me by fellow competitors regarding the fact I was in wave 10 but a bit of friendly banter is part of the fun. I started my swim and was quite lucky really as I only got held up at about 200 meters for probably 5 seconds at most. I exited the water not knowing what time I'd done as I didn't start my watch but as it turns out I did the 2nd quickest swim of the day, a bit of a result for a "non swimmer". I had what turned out to be quite a slow transition all though it felt fast at the time and was out on the bike and on my way in very windy conditions, the new course is much better than the old one and quite a challenging route. After about 18 or so kilometers we picked up the old course and the road back in to camp was a strong tailwind and involved some high cadence in a 53x11 gear so I would think around the 40 mph mark. As I entered transition Pete Norris and Jase Walkley were spectating and told me I'd done an 8 min swim which gave me some concern so I bolted out onto the run and pushed very hard. I was passing people at an alarming rate but don't forget I was in the middle of the race and not with the fast boys. I continued to run hard and finished with the only run under 20 minutes to take the win. I then did my first ever T3 as I threw everything into a bag, chucked on shorts and t-shirt and ran to the car to set off for Stamford arriving with just 2 mins to spare. I didn't find out I'd won until about 4:15 when Mat and Pete text me to let me know. So that's it, RAF Sprint Champion for the 2nd year on the run, I guess I'll have to go for it again next year now!

Tomorrow (Sunday the 10th) I am racing again in the David Lloyd Lincoln Sprint Triathlon, fingers crossed for a good result then on Tuesday its back to the important business of longer stuff with a long bike/run brick planned, this will be the last big outing before Antwerp 70.3 on the 24th July.