Got a last minute entry to this event to be 4th man in a team of three girls - Becky, Sarah and Anna. Quite an early start in Nottingham so went up the night before in the car. Lots of Evolution Tri club people were competing, and had decided to make a camping weekend of it, so I took my tent.
The weather on Friday night turned very wet, but I stayed dry under canvas. Saturday morning was nicer and Sarah And I went over to the registration to pick up our numbers and t-shirts early. We met the rest of our team at the start line.
I've never done an event like this so wondered what to expect. All team members swim first, then we all bike, and finally all run. This means no worries about transitions - except handing over the 'baton' to the next person. It also means that you can put a little more effort in as you get a rest between disciplines. Would this translate into faster times? Unfortunately, for various reasons, this doesn't seem to have been the case.
Becky was off first on the swim - then Anna - then Sarah was off and it was time for me to go to transition to wait for her. Had to run to the lake and start swimming from a cold start - no chance to get acclimatised to the water. got kicked in the face right at the start and lost my right goggle so had to stop and put it back on. Not used to much argy bargy and there was quite a lot here. Also lots of weeds near the surface. I felt though that I was doing OK - not too tired, swimming as well as training. So I was pretty disappointed to see my time was over 11 minutes for the 400M. Maybe I lost more time than I thought with the goggle episode. Later in the evening I found that I had a bit of a black eye from it too.
After a leisurely change I had nearly one and a half hours to wait for my bike leg. The weather was still holding out and little bit of sunshine even peeked through.
Bike was three laps of the 5km lake. I started really well, but know that it was wind assisted. Just like Dorney, this rowing lake is exposed, and coming up the back strait the headwind took my speed right down to 30km/h. I tried to keep the average up, but I'm still not good in the wind so finished with a lower average speed than my 10 mile time trials. I did 24:15 with an average speed of 35km/h (course slightly short?) Not bad, but hoped to get 36km/h average.
Another long break before the run. This was my worry. My calf hasn't really recovered. I've rested from running for about three weeks, and did a short trial during the week to see if I could run at all. I survived it then - but went very slowly. Decided to 'go for it' as much as possible - but did feel less strong than a few weeks ago due to the inactivity. My leg did hold out, but the course was pretty empty by this time, so I was running on my own a lot with no one to get pace inspiration from. There were no markers to tell me how I was progressing, and as the rain started on the return from the single lap around the lake, it was very late in the day before I realised I wouldn't make my 20 minute target. But I did manage a final sprint to come in under 21 minutes at 20:51.
As a fun event this is a winner. I'm glad my team weren't competing for prizes as I was a bit slower than I hoped on every section - I should have been faster swimming, biking and running having had a good rest between them. Due to timing chip problems we don't have any official times for the team - except that we finished in 4 hours 14 minutes and 3 seconds. Well done everyone in Team Evolite (Number 16) and EvoTri club for what was a really fun day.
results currently stored here.
(Photo (c) Alan Davies)
