Thorpe park sprint triathlon 2014
I wanted to have a real go at this one after last year’s 4th place overall. Thorpe Park sprint is always pretty fast, but the field is quite small, and it’s a fun race at the end of the season.
The swim start was very fast, and I missed the front pack. I ended up swimming on my own a little bit back, then leading the second pack. My arms were starting to tire half-way through, and that reflected in the time, about 30s down on last year’s. It was kind of a “normal” swim for me, but having made a bit of progress during the year, I had expected a little bit more.
In T1, I was a little slow to put on my race belt and glasses. So although I didn’t make the same mistakes as last year, I clearly lack some sprint training!
On the bike, the legs didn’t feel too happy. I was passing people constantly and at some point one guy shouted at me “THIRD!”, so I may have been in third at this point. Who knows. Trying to eat a gel ended up with half of it in my mouth, and the other half on the road as I dropped it. Effing stupid packaging that doesn’t let the bloomin' thing squirt out of the pouch!! Daft. Anyway. Legs weren’t happy, and watts were about 10W lower than last year… with 2 min down on last year’s time. No secret, really!! I even saw Ellen about half way on the bike, and she told me afterwards I looked like I wasn’t even trying compared to the others… The curse of being an LD athlete!
T2 was a bit messy in that I just couldn’t put my feet in my shoes quick enough (no socks this time), because they were so cold I couldn’t feel them. Again, lack of sprint training shows as preparation should help for those!
However, the run is where I wanted to nail it. I caught up the guy I thought was 2nd right at the exit of transition, and set off to try and get myself a 17:50-ish 5K. It felt alright, albeit hard, of course, but it ended up being a little short as well. I tried to push harder at the end, but there was no one to chase around the twisty course! But I got a 5K PB and a sprint tri PB for the efforts.
I was only 6th overall this year, but to my surprise: 1st in M30-40! No prize for that sadly, so I’ll have to wait before climbing on a podium!
1h06'16" (6th overall, 1st in M30-39)
