The best inspiration is not to outdo others, but to outdo ourselves

My Mum had been telling me for a couple of years now that this race existed, right on their doorstep, and I'd been thinking I'd like to give it a go.  It turns out that I did so just in time as this year saw the last running of the Balerno Ladies Triathlon.  I have to say it's a shame too, the race was great - small but perfectly formed as they say.  The race was set up for a maximum of 64 ladies to take part, 62 doing so on the day.  I really enjoyed the race, was very impressed with the organisation that would put some bigger events to shame and would have been keen to tackle it again another time.  Lovely, mild and quite sunny October weather helped the day along too, making for a more pleasant experience for both triathletes and spectators than last weekend.  It was a relief all round!

This was an afternoon race, with registration open from about eleven in the morning.  It was great it being so handy, we wandered out of Mum and Dad's, meandered around the farmers' market and then toddled off to registration.  The personalised balloons for the kids were a nice touch, both of my two got balloons with messages to match their supporters' sweatshirts.  I was registered and written on quickly and able to return to the house, get my stuff ready and eat some lunch without any hassle at all - great!  It being so close by also meant that I could go down for the briefing and to sort myself out in transition and my support crew only had to turn up in time for the race start - a lot less waiting about for them.

The 400m swim was in the local high school pool and was organised into 4 heats, based on predicted swim times.  The slowest swimmers went off in the first wave and so on, I was in the third heat - possibly wrongly again, I seem to have been wrong on my swim times all year.  Mind you, I'm not going to complain as the only reason for that is that I seem to have got faster, something I'm decidedly pleased about.  Each heat comprised 16 ladies, separated into 4 lanes and starting in a specific order within that lane at 5 second intervals - I was third off in my lane.  Once again it was stated that you should wait at the end of the lane if another swimmer tagged your feet, much to my amazement people actually did it!  This made getting past the other swimmers much easier and I passed all 3 others in my lane and was the first out of the pool in my heat.  I was well pleased with my swim time, especially when I realised that it was another PB for the distance.  I completed my 20 lengths in 7:15 and was placed 14th out of 62 for the swim.

Then it was along the corridor and across the car park, around the one way transition area to find my bike and related kit.  I was one of the few to run outside in my bare feet and lived to regret having done so as I brought my heel down on a rather large stone and have bruised my heel - it hurts.  Mind you, apart from being aware of it when I did it, it didn't interfere with my race.  I had a reasonable transition and then set off up the hill on my bike.  The bike course was only 6 miles, but you'd be making a mistake if you thought that would make it easy.  It was a very hilly course and also a seriously windy one.  There was an awful lot of climbing straight out of transition, then a long drag along the Rigg road which is also up but not quite so steeply, but it was so, so windy up there.  I didn't tackle the downhill as fast as I might have either due to the wet leaves, mud and stones on the road - I preferred a bit of caution and staying on my bike.  A few people passed me, making the cycle look so much easier than I was doing and I was eventually placed 27th out of 62 for the cycle section.  I completed the 6 mile route in 29:46.

My second transition saw me head off, uphill again, for the 5K run section of the race.  The route was okay, although I will admit to walking up the steps near the beginning - my legs just weren't too keen on the idea at all.  My run wasn't fast, I found it really quite hard.  I was giving myself a talking to most of the way around to keep myself going.  I was trying the positive mantra thing to stop myself thinking about being tired and not feeling much like running.  The route was a loop and quite pleasant to run along, I ran it all apart from the steps section, just not very quickly.  My time for the run was 31:35.  That isn't great for me, never mind anybody else, and placed me 52nd out of the 62!  Thankfully it wasn't capable of totally undoing how I'd done in the other two parts and I was placed 30th overall with a complete race time of 1:08:36.  I was pleased with that, I'd hoped to get under 1:10 and I did so.  I enjoyed the race and was very glad to have taken part.