Pendle Tri

Pendle triathlon on Sunday was my first UK triathlon of 2013. The weather forecast was terrible, 7°C, heavy rain and strong winds. Luckily this turned out to be inaccurate and it was really more like light rain and moderate winds. Even so, I laid out my bike jersey and gloves in transition- after Skipton, Wetherby and London triathlons last year I didn’t want to do another triathlon where I couldn’t feel my hands and feet.

The swim was a 750m pool swim, a bit unusual as normally sprint distance tri pool swims are only 400m but it suited me, as normally in an age group triathlon the swim ends up being my strongest discipline. There was a bit of a run up to transition, round the building, up a hill and round another building and my transition took a bit longer than normal as I put on my helmet, bike jersey, race belt and gloves!

Onto the bike and I was so glad to have my extra layers on, especially for the down-hills. The bike course was good, two laps of a hilly loop with marshals all the way around. I’m always reassured to see marshals in a non-drafting race as it makes it much fairer for everyone, discouraging some people from drafting. It was also reassuring to know I was going the right way.

The run course was also nice and very well marshalled. It was more like a cross country race than a normal triathlon run though as we ran through fields, over stiles, up hills, along farm tracks and along a canal towpath. The last kilometre felt much longer than a kilometre, so I was happy to see the finish line and collect my finisher’s Mars bar!

After a warm down jog, shower and change the presentations took place. I was 1^st woman and 5^th overall in 1.13.50, a time I was quite pleased with given the nature of the course. I was disappointed however that the men and women were given different prizes. Only the 1^st woman won a prize while the top 3 men got prizes and only the 1^st man and 1^st local man won large shields.

Overall this was a great triathlon though, very well organised with interesting bike and run courses, especially if you like the hills!

Results here