This was my second triathlon, this was a sprint triathlon over a distance of 750m swim, 20K bike and 5k run. The official distance of the run is 5.3 K. 

Emberton County Park is a lovely park, which is very nicely maintained and is set in a beautiful area with nice race conditions. The run was inside the park and the swim was in the lake. The bike track is outside the park, which takes you through the country villages of Olney, Weston Underwood and Newport Pagnell. 

The forecasted rain and winds stayed initially away but came to haunt us during the race, read further.

Big Cow Events organized this event and I cannot fault them at anything, online registration went smoothly, registration on side no problem. Safety check of the helmet was quick and smooth and the transition area was laid out very well. There was a pre race briefing which was very clear and very informative. Thanks for the hat and the free redbull. 

Official Splits

The bike and run times were not recorded and as such I have taken the time of my bike in combination with the swim time to work out my run time. 

Swim 750m - 00:18:34

T1: 00:1:55

Bike 20 Km - 00:38:34

Run 5.3 km - 00:29:50

Overall time:  1:28:53

Overall position: 163 / 221

Category Position: 74 / 95 

Pre Race

The tri suit that I had ordered from IronmanActiveWear.com did arrive but the bike shorts were missing and the tri top was missing. This is now more than 4 weeks after the initial order and unless you have plenty of time and patience don't order from this shop. 

On Friday, two days before the race I had a practice run, I had set out this run not too last for longer than 30 minutes as I didn't want my leg to start playing up the day before this race. During this run I decided to take a track that I done a year ago but not recently and not realizing the actual length of the complete track. Half way through I noticed that I would exceed the 30-minute time I had given myself. The total run was 38 minutes for 6.24k and at the end of the run I could clearly feel my leg playing up which wasn't a good sign. 

On Friday night our son slept with us for a few hours and I woke up on Saturday with painful muscles in my back.  

On Saturday I had a relaxing time, played some badminton with Dylan (our son) and in the afternoon went with him for a swim in Bracknell Coral Reef. In the evening I had 2 yoga sessions with the intention to stretch my back muscles and to stretch my leg muscles. 

On Saturday night I had fully packed my bag and went carefully through my "what to take with me" list and had a few hours of relaxing time with my wife. We went to bed at 11:30pm. 

On Sunday we woke up at 4am, we had planned to leave the house at 5am as we had a 90 minute drive. On Sunday morning I had a normal bowl of corn flakes for my breakfast and decided to have a bar in the car to fill up on additional carbohydrates. 

We arrived at 6:25am which was earlier than expected. The registration and bike helmet safety check was completed very quickly. I decided to rack the bike in the transition area and come back out. We explored the swim area and witnessed the Big Cow 1/2 Ironman swim start. In meantime it had started to rain. At 7:20am I went back to the transition area to get ready. I had plastic bags with me to protect my shoes from the rain in case it kept on raining, but the sun came through and decided to setup my transition as per normal, this turned out to be a mistake. After double checking my transition area I walked with my wife to the swim start and pulled up my wetsuit completely. 

The Swim

At 7:55am we all got into the water a few minutes before the start of the race. The water was pleasantly warm and very comfortable. I had a few swim strokes in the water before floating with my head down in the water and blowing bubbles, blowing bubbles seems to relax me. We started off and made good progress, I found my pace immedetialy and I must have been with the first 30 people for at least the first 300 meter. 

It went all horribly wrong at the second turning where I missed the buoy for about 15 meters and since then I was out of the race track. I wasn't sighting enough and got more and more out of track and had to cover more distance then we supposed to be doing. At some moment I was breathing and saw a rescue boat a few meters from me, then the alarm bell went off and made almost a 90 degree turn. 

My time was only 34 seconds above my expectations for the swim, if I practice a bit on the sighting I might be able to pull it off a bit quicker. 

When coming out of the water the rain had started again. I struggled with pulling the strap of my wetsuit and lost a few seconds before I could undo my wetsuit. Coming into the transition area I noticed that my socks were soaking wet and my biking shoes too. I struggled with getting those on. 

The Bike

The bike started off rather well, as in the Nokia Windsor triathlon my legs felt initially tired but after riding a mile at a speed of about 18 miles I was able to push hard without feeling any pain or tiredness. I was enjoying this ride even with the wind and the rain as the main obstacles to fight. Due to the wet conditions it required full concentration at all times.

The bike course was reasonably flat with a few small hills in the beginning. At around 15km a steep hill whereby my speed was reduced to 9 mph. Obviously what goes up has to to come down and this was followed by a long ride downwards where I achieved a nice maximum speed of 38mph (61km/h). 

The downside was that I didn't explore the area beforehand, when I saw many people gathered I was sure this meant the end of the bike ride but two bikes in front of me went straight ahead and passed the entrance so I started doubting, just at the very end I had to break very hard so not to miss the turning. I came off the bike rather late, before transition, and this might have meant that the timing registration didn't record my time at all. 

During the bike race I was able to overtake plenty of people without being overtaken by others, which is such a great feeling. According to my bike speedometer I finished in 38:34 which is an average speed of 31km/h (19.26 mph). 

The run

When I arrived at my transition spot I noticed that my running shoes where absolutely soaked with water from the rain. I had to empty the water first before putting them on! 

I got on the way for the run and noticed immediately that my legs were tired and I was running out of steam. I kept on seeing people taking me over which is in contradiction with the bike ride earlier. Did I blow myself up during the bike ride? 

I kept on thinking by myself how can they push so hard and why I cannot push a harder. At some point, for a split second, I thought about stopping and walking, glad I didn't! 

The run course was made of 2 laps of 2.5k inside the park, during the second lap I was able to push a bit harder but I knew my left leg was in a bad condition, after the finish this became immediately apparent. My knee was in pain and so was my groin again. 

The run is my weakest area but what do I expect since I started running 6 weeks ago I only ran in training a total of 50k and always at a slow pace, just to save my leg.  

Summary

Overall I'm pretty pleased with my result, however I'm wondering how I would ever shave off 25 minutes from my time to beat the winner! I will need to practice a lot more and this will demand a lot of determination but I'm glad I finished and didn't end up last just 3 years after quitting smoking.

The next planned triathlon is the Bananaman on the 20th of July in Dorney/Eton, I better make sure that my leg is cured again and get some more practicing in! 

PS: Thanks to my lovely wife for supporting me and to take those shots.