After a busy few months of Bikeability delivery and some very strange illness, it was nice to pin a number on and get the first triathlon of my 18th season of racing underway on Sunday morning.

A great sunny day, barely any wind and a civilised 12 o clock start broke me in gently, and after a conservative 6min 400m swim, it was off onto the bike for a 23km undulating ride. This is where the wheels fell off, or actually, the seatpost fell down! After spending the last 10km either standing up or hunched down in the kind of position usually associated with stunt riders and bmxs, I was effectively broken for the run, but managed a 20 minute effort over a fairly tough 5km loop.

So I had to settle for 2nd, hats off to the winner, he put 2 mins into me on the bike and another minute on the run so I reckon he would have edged me anyway, but it’s always nice to have a good clean fight and have no excuses come the end.

So as always, first race of the season is where we learn, set goals and move on, and now I have my sights set on Xterra Belgium in June, giving me 4 weeks to up the swim intensity, work on transition drills, get some hills in in the bike and some speed reps on the run…an exhaustive list, but it’s not a million miles away from where we need to be, so fingers crossed for a few good weeks of weather, work and family time and I should be ready.

Thanks must go to the ever excellent Independent Bike Company in Weston-super-Mare for getting my bike ready to roll (the seatpost issue wasn’t their fault, a dodgy part was to blame for that!) and to Tom at Huub for some smart new kit and Andy at Hutton Moor for his coaching and counsel as well as my running club buddies for their nagging and support through my illness…I promise to be back on it soon!

So, tonight was all about setting up the Mountainbike ready for some serious off-roading, she’s looking pretty…shame the same can’t be said about the rider!

 

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