It took an army of about 50 people to show us to our car parking space - at least we know where the £70 entry fee goes! Once parked up we had a quick look around, picked up our chips and found transition - WHICH IS HUGE!
Decided to get and rack the bikes, I of course didn't bother to put a number on my helmet so had to go back down to fetch it... Once racked up it was time to start getting nervous!
Time at this point started going pretty quick and before I knew it we were being herded to the race briefing, the chap doing it was a bit of a comedian which seemed to
help people calm down a bit :) Our wave was much smaller than the others with just 220 odd but was still pretty packed as we made our way to the swim start...
Swim
Thames water officially tastes terrible, the start of the swim was odd as I found myself swimming the wrong way while waiting for the hooter as I was being drawn into the pack,
once off though I had plenty of clear space around me (benefit of being slow) and started into a steady pace. It was then that something strange happened - I overtook someone!
Swim was generally pretty uneventful apart from getting tangled up with one of the buoy's and missing the step when trying to get out!
Estimated Time: >0:25:00
Actual Time: 0:26:10 - 155th Fastest in wave (1322nd overall)
155th in race
T1
Declined the help getting my wetsuit off and made my way to some very dangerous stairs, over took a few people walking - do they not know its a race? And once I had found
my bike - what is it with people standing in the way when there is a race on? Despite the problems I had a pretty speedy transition - very happy!
Estimated Time: >0:01:00
Actual Time: 0:02:34 - 8th Fastest in wave (23rd overall)
152nd in race
Bike
Lots of overtaking and drizzle! Couldn't get the HRM to tell me what was happening so did the whole ride on feel and as can be seen in the pictures I was pushing it! The disc on full chat
sounded awesome and it felt really good to be racing past lots of bikes. The course itself I thought was pretty ropey, the two bottom turn points were incredibly narrow and
I was lucky that I could boss a bit of space otherwise it may have got a bit hairy. Also there was a section that was more like a building site with rubble all over the place,
not what you need when trying to thread through slower riders. I saw SO much drafting going on and I can only imagine it was worse on sunday with the 400+ waves! I was
overtaken twice on the ride, both times by clearly faster riders (and both with aero helmets - obv where I am lacking). The bike was generally hiccup free as I sat up for most of
the big bends but on the last lap through one of the tighter sections I hit a massive drain cover and lost the front end by about 6-12 inches - that definiately woke me up! I came
round the final bend it come back into Excel but forgot about the last hill and had my feet out of the shoes which made the steep incline much harder than it had to be!
Estimated Time: >0:34:00
Actual Time Lap 1: 0:18:33 - 33rd Fastest in wave (76th overall)
139th in race
Actual Time Lap 2: 0:18:59 - 33rd Fastest in wave (74th overall)
115th in race
Overall Time: 0:37:31 - 35th Fastest in wave (79th overall)
T2
A reprise from the rain for a short while into T2 was very welcome and this time I managed to find my gear pretty quickly, while I was pulling on my shoes though I heard a couple of
bikes go clattering into the railings! Looked painful and I'm glad I didn't get stuck behind the mess!
Estimated Time: >0:01:00
Actual Time: 0:1:30 - 54th Fastest in wave (235th overall)
114th in race
Run
The run started with a twinge of cramp in my left calf that I was tempted to stretch out but fortunately never needed to, my HRM decided to fire itself into life so I could finally
tell how hard I was working! Was concerned about my right knee all the way round but it never developed into anything, seems all my stretching in the weeks leading up paid off.
I managed to settle into a pace that felt comfortable enough to sustain (but again from the pictures it can be seen its not THAT comfortable!) The little hills at the start of each lap
were a bit of a killer but by shortening my stride I got up without too much hassle. I passed a few people on the run (and was passed by some VERY fast runners) and was
generally pretty happy with how it all felt. A quick sprint to the line and it was all over :)
Estimated Time: >0:24:00
Actual Time Lap 1: 0:12:23 - 83rd Fastest in wave (455th overall)
107th in race
Actual Time Lap 2: 0:10:52 - 68th Fastest in wave (297th overall)
Total Time: 1:30:57
105th in wave
555th overall
In summary I was pleased with my performance, clearly my swimming needs lots of work over the winter but with some improvements my times should start to tumble... The London Triathlon is clearly very well organised but I can't help but think that £70 is a lot for a sprint race - I'm still very tempted to pay for an entry in 2009 though!
I thoroughly enjoyed the sprint distance though and think I will do a few next year as its (fun?) to go all out for an hour and a bit!
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