23.08.14 National Club Relays, Nottingham, 3rd team
31.08.14 Skipton 2 Sprint Triathlon, Skipton, 1st woman
06.09.14 Sundowner Sprint Triathlon, Allerthorpe, 1st woman
First up was the National Club Relays. I was competing for
RedVenom.co.uk along with Doug Roberts, Phil Wolfe and Grace Hobbs. I'd never
done the club relays before so I didn't really know what to expect, but lots of
people had told me that it's a great event. They were right. It was absolute chaos
at the same time though with hundreds of people taking part, 5 different
transition locations, 4 people on each team, 3 disciplines each, 2 laps of the
bike course and 1 rubber band per team to act as the relay baton. But somehow, we
managed to get our rubber band from start to finish without any dramas and
finished 3rd in the open category,
beaten by 2 all male teams. I don't quite understand why as a mixed team we
were competing against all male teams, but others seemed to be confused as well,
so hopefully the rules will be ironed out for next year as I'd love to do it
again. Results here (SAT AM RESULTS)
The following weekend I drove over to Skipton for the second
Skipton Triathlon of 2014. I also competed at Skipton earlier in the year so I
had a target to aim for. In April I was 1st woman and 19th overall in a time of
1.08.19. This time I was 1st woman and 6th overall in a time of 1.09.11. I was
disappointed to be a bit slower than I was earlier in the year, but happy to be
first woman again and finish higher up the field against the men. The weather
was great on race day, I didn't feel great on the swim or run but I enjoyed the
hilly bike course and the friendly atmosphere at the event. Results here
At Skipton I won a free entry into another Freebird event so
I decided to enter the very next one which took place the following weekend at
Allerthorpe, the Sundowner Sprint Triathlon. This was again a course I had done
before. The last time I competed there though was back in 2011. I remember
overhearing someone commenting on my result "Look this girl must have got
a puncture, she had the fastest run and swim but was almost last on the
bike". Actually I didn't have any mechanical problems I just hadn't done much cycling. This time my cycling matched my running and swimming so a
bit of an improvement from three years ago!
The weather was a
complete contrast from the previous weekend, it was damp and drizzly all day but the atmosphere was just as good if not better. I
had a good swim and was sitting on the lead man's feet by the end of the first of two swim laps. A fast exit
from the water and smooth transition meant I went out on to bike course with a 35s
lead over the next person and it was quite a strange feeling for me to be leading
the whole race for the first 2/3 of the first bike lap. In total four men passed me on the bike course, so I came into T2 in 5th. I felt good on the
run and passed one man early on to move into 4th, I then set about chasing down
the man in 3rd but I ran out of road and finished 7 seconds behind him but 1st woman. Results here
My next triathlon and my final one for 2014 will be a
European Cup race in Madrid on the 21st September.