Ponteland is quite local to my family home so decided to do this so my Mam could come see me race a short course – bit more interesting to watch than her getting drowned in Bolton for god knows how many hours last year at IMUK. Unfortunately – she did get soaked again as it was torrential rain until the run – again, rain seems to follow me on races! The race is for a local charity for a guy called Simon Bates who was training to do an IM but died before he did his first triathlon. The really touching thing is, all his family and friends were racing, his mum and dad even did a relay with his sister, his mum looked so determined in the swim bless her everyone was cheering for her to keep going. It was very emotional even for people like me that never knew Simon.
Really mixed turn out – i counted around 20 MTBS being racked and then about 40-50 bling bling TT bikes, then a mix of everything in between.
The pool swim had 6 people to a lane and it seems many people didn’t estimate their swim times very well as when i was swimming there a guy who was so fast he lapped me twice, and a guy who i lapped twice who was doing breast stroke – and then other speeds in between! The bike course was on open roads with several cross roads and T-junctions so a couple of times had to come to a full stop. The run, was 90% on grass (verges on side of main road) and due to the torrential rain all night and morning this was just a mud bath for me and the later runners who didn’t set of until around 11am – trust me to try my Zoots out on this day…..
Best of all though – it was a fun race, the muddy conditions made the run fun and i actually really enjoyed the bike even though it was raining – maybe because i knew it was only 20km…
Results;
1:12 – PB by 4 mins.
Position overall 43 of 266
Position female 5 of 99
Position 35-39 female 2 of 18
swim8:34 Pos. 18
t1 Transition 1(Time: 1:09) – Pos. 12
bike Bike(Time: 39:18) – Pos. 7
t2 Transition 2(Time: 1:02) – Pos. 44
run Run(Time: 22:44) – Pos. 6