Race Report: The London Triathlon

Back in August you may remember me telling you all about the London Triathlon that I was due to participate in. Wetsuit, bike and trainers at the ready I headed off to London to take part in the event for the second time (I previously took part in 2013), only this year my cardio-loving mum was joining me! Aged 50, she is super fit and healthy, running at least 3 times a week and swimming at weekends, I knew it was going to be stiff competition, although I hoped her reluctance to do weights would give me bit of an edge, we're both mega competitive so this turned into a real Mother vs Daughter event!

Arrival

On arrival you que up to collect your timing chip and make your way to the competitor zone to rack up your bike and lay everything out ready for transition. With time to kill me and mum then headed over to the expo to do a spot of last minute shopping picking up tri-suits for only £30 a piece! Such a bargain! If you don’t get stressed like my mum (she drove me crazy with her clock watching!!) I’d honestly recommend waiting till race day to buy your all your triathlon gear as the offers they have on at The London Tri Expo area are INCREDIBLE!

Amusing sign I spotted next to where we were swimming...

Starting & The Swim (400m)

Zipping up in our wetsuits we made our way over to the starters pen, where we were given a morale boosting pep talk and everyone gave eachother big good luck hugs.. which if you’re new to Tri’s can really help ease your nerves.. then we made our way down to the river side and jumped on in!

Now the swim, I hadn’t properly trained for, having been a competitive swimmer growing up I made the mistake (again!) of thinking all would be ok on the day... it wasn’t! It started off badly when there was no warning as to the start of the race, a claxon went off and that was it.. no ready set or on your marks... just the claxon. I started out alongside my mum (who had trained lots for the swim) and was leading the pack for the first 100m or so before it started to hurt, my breath got short and I resorted to breastoking the rest of the way. Im managed a final crawl sprint at the very end overtaking around 5/6 people, which at least improved my positioning for a little while!

Time 14min 5sec

T1

Climbing out of the water my legs felt like jelly, but I powered on running through T1 whipping off my wetsuit and on my way to find my bike... ha.. fail No2... I hadn’t realised there were two lanes for my category and lost my bike adding unnecessary extra time! On entering T1 i saw my mum run out with her bike, this should have been my opportunity to catch her as bike is my strongest area and her weakest.. but the loss of my bike put me way behind!

Time 6mins 16sec

My beast of a Mountain Bike

Bike 10k

Being a tight arse and having no use for a road bike other than triathlons (I only cycle on dirt tracks in my area) I was one of very few people who turned up on a mountain bike, instantly making the challenge 10x harder on the legs. Nevertheless, I powered on knowing mum would be struggling in this section and could only be minutes ahead. The Bike course is surprisingly hilly and quick, I gave it my all but sadly didn’t catch mum even though she was about 5mins slower in this section when comparing times.. thanks to getting lost in transition!

Time 30mins 42sec

T2

This went much smoother bar having to move some idiots bike out the way where they had just thrown their bike on the rack, obscuring my area (its a very small area you each have so being considerate of other competitors is a must!).

Time 3mins 15sec

Run 2.5K

Finally the run.. this part is painful, legs absolutely nailed from the speedy mountain bike work the previous 30mins, my legs weren’t having any of it and I ended up walking for the first 20metres.. eventually gaining the mental spirit to troop on and remembering it wasn’t that long ago I completed a marathon, I powered on through, saw mum go past me where the run overlaps and thought fuck it lets do this and finished with an almighty sprint which a stranger later congratulated me on!

Time 19mins 46sec

Time overall: 1hr 14min

Apologies for the chipped nail varnish!

So lesson learnt- TRAIN FOR THE SWIM!!

Although mum beat me with a time of 1hr 7mins I am incredibly proud of her as she placed 187^th out of 376 and 5^th in her category! The London Tri is great fun, I'd totally recommend it to any newbie triathletes, as there's a lot of charity involvement so isn't taken too seriously- particularly if doing the super-sprint distance. I’m definitely signing up again... but maybe next time I’ll be investing in a road bike!

Have you ever completed a Triathlon? What other ones should I enter.. really want to get into the Tri-zone for 2015!

Kirsty x

P.S. So sorry there aren't more/better photos, it was just me and my mum and we were both in it so I'm afraid my photo captions are somewhat restricted :-(