Trentham Triathlon - July 2011
I headed off to Trentham with great enthusiasm. I have done this race quite a few times before and have always enjoyed it. Also, it's a good excuse for a pleasant family weekend away. We book early and get ourselves into the Premier Inn on the site, therefore allowing another fall out of the room and wander to the start. A nice unstressful way to begin a race day, no worrying about getting there - good plan. Because we were there for the weekend it also meant I was able to go and register on the Saturday afternoon, taking even more pressure off the Sunday morning. I was marked up and ready to go.
The one thing that doesn't seem to come together at Trentham is the swim. I'm not sure that I've ever felt that I had a good swim there and this time was no exception. It wasn't awful, but it certainly wasn't good. The swim is in the lake, which is quite shallow allowing for nigh on nil visibility in the water, unless you like looking at mud it doesn't do much for you. I was in the water and ready, and thankfully didn't get bashed or swum over, so that was a plus. My goggles decided to leak a little so I stopped to sort that out, then managed to swallow a mouthful of the muddy yuk and had to pause to cough and splutter and generally collect my self again, before trying to find a space to swim. There was rather more breaststroke involved up to the first buoy than I would have liked, due to spluttering and lack of space. At the moment I seem to be doing a good line in showing myself that I can come back from adversity in the swim, which is a good message for the big race. It's all about keeping calm, not getting flustered and getting into the swing as soon as I can. This time that really meant after the first buoy, I managed to find some space and got into more of a rhythm. I felt like I was actually swimming after that. All this and it is only a 500m swim!
After the swim there is an extremely long transition. So much so that there is a compulsory shoe transition area, you must put on shoes to run to the real transition area to fetch your bike. I opted to take my wetsuit off there and carry it as I ran, feeling it would slip off more easily if I got it off right away. I had a slightly unpleasant experience while changing into my shoes, I felt really dizzy. I know that can happen after swimming but it doesn't usually to me, and it's not as if I'd been in the water all that long. Mind you, I'm still not feeling quite at my best, so it could just be to do with that. I was still feeling a bit wobbly as I set out to run to transition, but it wore off as I ran. The swim times for Trentham always look really slow because of the length of the transition, but I was 2 minutes quicker overall than last year, clocking a time of 17:36. So that wasn't bad considering I didn't think it went that well. Daniel reckons I made up the time on the running section - he may well be right.
Then it was out onto the 20k bike course, which was different again to last year and didn't involve any traffic lights - definitely better. I felt pretty good and was able to get myself up the hills fine, I was passing people up the hills in fact. That was a nice feeling. I enjoyed the bike apart from the idiot in full aero set up (seriously? For a sprint?) who thought it was a good idea to cut me up at the turnaround - not at all necessary, I was thinking a few rude words at that point. Still, one idiot, things were generally good. My bike time came in at 48:25, not fast, but a good steady ride. I was happy with that - faster than last year, although you can't really compare because of the course changes.
And so out onto the run. Once again I was really pleased to find myself able to run. My theme for this year is finally being able to feel good running off the bike. It's never come together like this in any previous race season. I am really pleased, it makes for a much better end to the race. Having said that, I could still feel that I wasn't feeling at my best. I packed that to the back of my mind and got on with it. Mind you, it helps that the surroundings for the run are so pleasant. In the second lap I found myself running side by side with another lady, what happened from there embodies a lot of what is great about the camaraderie of triathlon. We decided to run together and to keep each other going. That's what we did. It was great, our legs and breathing were in synch for most of the second lap and it pushed us both on. I pulled ahead towards the finish then waited for her to cross the line. There we were, complete strangers, hugging and congratulating each other at the finish line and sharing in a moment of achievement. Fabulous end to the race. My run time was 30:11, 3 and a half minutes quicker than last year on the same course!
My overall time for the race was 1:36:12, 8 and a half minutes faster than last year, although whether you can really compare is another matter as the bike course was different. However, what really did tell me there had been improvement was my place in the rankings. Last year I was 28th out of 39 female sprint competitors. This year I was 12th out of 36 female sprinters. That suggests a genuine move forwards, I was suitably pleased with that. And then seriously glad of a shower - all that lake mud needed to be washed off!
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