The moment she's been working so hard for - Claire compete's in her very first triathlon. We hope you are as excited as we were to find out how it went...
4th May 2015 – My first triathlon event had finally arrived and with it, surprisingly warm sunshine given the rest of the Bank Holiday weather had been typically poor. Perhaps this was a sign? Then the next surprise was my parents arriving just after breakfast. They had driven the day before from Essex to a family party in Suffolk and then straight on to Yorkshire! They stayed in a B&B just metres from our house secretly to be able to support me. I think their effort far surpassed anything I was about to do but it was the best surprise and quite overwhelmed me. What a way to start the day and hopefully things would continue to go my way.
Having had a porridge and banana breakfast and later an energy bar, I loaded up my car and set off. At registration, my race number was 197 which unbelievably was the same as my son’s had been the week before – yet another omen!
The swim was in the local pool followed by a short run along the road to a car park for transition, then a 14km bike circuit and a 7km run along road and riverbank.
Things didn’t go according to plan during the event starting with the swim. The pool was split into 6 lanes with 4 people in each lane being set off at 5 second intervals. It was in timed waves and the pool was cleared before each wave was set off. I knew I was going first in my lane and that if anyone tapped my foot, I had to wait at the end of the length to let them pass. So not wanting to lose precious time, I decided to put in 2 quick lengths to build a gap between me and the next competitor. And there was my first mistake.
I just didn’t find my breathing rhythm at all after that. So all my hard work teaching myself front crawl for this very moment ended in disappointment as I took the decision at the half distance point to revert to breaststroke for alternate lengths to enable me to catch my breath. I still completed the swim in the time I aimed for so it was probably the right thing but just not what I wanted to do.
Outside the pool, I put on my running trainers and set off along the road to transition. The red towel I’d put out on the floor where I’d racked my bike to enable me to spot it easily had been scuffed up by the time I first entered transition. There were so many bikes squeezed together, it took me a while to find my place. My next mistake was that having lost time already, I didn’t re-lay my towel and on returning my bike to transition, I couldn’t find my place again so had to rack it elsewhere. It was a good thing I was wearing running trainers for the bike and run.
I can at least say the run went the best I could have hoped for. My knee did give me some issues after a mile and a half causing me to stop a couple of times but after giving it a very stern talking to, I set off walking quickly to start with and then gingerly jogging. I focussed on trying to relax my muscles and not give in to the pain and it wasn’t long before I was back to running. My mum had walked about half a mile along the riverbank from the finishing line to cheer me on but was looking out for someone walking as I’d thought I would be struggling with my knee by then.
It was great to surprise her when I called out as I ran past her and on to my next cheering committee. My son and neighbour were further on and a very welcome sight as I turned towards the town and the final few hundred metres. All the spectators were clapping as I ran which gave me a great boost and then the finishing line and the rest of my family came into view. This was the moment I’d fixated about since starting my training in December and it was such a surreal feeling to finally be at this point in time. During the cold months, it was the support from so many people saying they were proud of me that kept me going and to reach the finishing line running, not hobbling was amazing.
I had a target time of 1hr 30m in my mind if my knee behaved, so to finish in 1hr 22m was the final surprise of the day. I had got no idea as I competed how I was doing as I’d forgotten to start my watch (another mistake) but that meant I kept pushing right to the line so perhaps not a bad race tactic after all!
It was as hard as I had thought it would be and particularly the run but I was conscious throughout that I must also enjoy the experience which I did. So on to the Brownlee Tri in September and the challenge of an open water swim but perhaps I’ll fit in another event before then. And there’s the excitement of the World Triathlon Series coming to Leeds next year. Shall I set my sights on that too?!
Claire's next blog post will be on Wednesday 8 July. Read her previous post here.
