Tris and tribulations: Ellie.....t

I recall that before skedaddling off on honeymoon, I promised to blog about my first open water tri experience in the Cotswolds. It's hard to write about an event after a month has elapsed as most of the emotions experienced have dissipated somewhat. Then again, maybe that's no bad thing as at least it should make for a shorter read than my usual tomes as I struggle to remember all the minutiae details. Phew, I hear you gasp!

Due to the early morning nature of these events, this one, held at the Cotswold Water Park near Cirencester, warranted an overnight stay beforehand. Matt was otherwise occupied with football – it's ok, I knew and accepted that my triathloning could never compete with Exeter City FC when I married him! - and so my other supporter in chief, good old Mum, stepped into the breach. As my parents' car is a massive Peugeot estate, we opted to hustle Canondale and the rest of my kit into the back of that and we headed off up the M5.

I registered on the Saturday and the organisers were running a free one hour seminar to help participants familiarise themselves with the swim route, the transition area and run course, in addition to providing tips on a speedy transition.... hmm, in retrospect I should have paid more attention to this latter part.

We spent the night at the delightful 'Travelodge M4 East, Delamere'. The least said about that the better, aside from to mention that if you ever stay here, make sure you double check that the receptionist has successfully inputted your car registration number into the computer when you check in, otherwise you could be in for a nasty surprise in the post a week later in the form of a £60 parking fine. (It's ok, we appealed, they admitted the error and the fine was then waived).

After not the best night's sleep, the alarm sounded at 5am and I was up and launching myself at the kettle to start getting the caffeine into my sleep-deprived system. The drive to the water park was 40 miles and into the most amazing sunrise ever. There was a low, eerie mist hanging over the fields, a rich, fiery orange ball rising behind, and it all felt almost perfect.... I say almost; the temperature on the car thermometer read 3 degrees! In 2 hours time I would be immersing myself in a freezing cold lake, exiting it soaking wet and then cycling at 20mph into an icy wind resistance. I don't do cold. Dilemma: to spend longer faffing in T1 and put a base layer on after the swim, or to suck it up and accept the cold and work through it? My sensible head said the former, my racing head said the latter. My racing head won.

This was my first time starting on an "elite" start. I know – hilarious right?! It's taken me 5 years of trying to make an elite start as a runner and, whether due to injury or ineptitude, I've never quite managed it, but after my first tri season, having merely done a grand total of 3 of the things before this one, here I was, having somehow fumbled my way in through the back door! (I was in fact given the option to start as elite due to placing 2nd at the Oxley tri, which is an official BTF event and I think the organisers were keen to encourage new "talent"). So off I went to the far end of transition to rack at number 8. Numbers 1-5 were elite men and 6 – 10 elite women. As it was, some of the women originally entered as elites opted to change to age group athletes at registration as this was the South West regional sprint championships and you had to be entered as an amateur age-grouper in order to be eligible for prizes in that. This left a small but select elite field and lots of room on the racks for bikes and kit, which was good. It also meant I got a good chance to geg at the kit of my fellow elite competitors, which was bad. Put it this way, I was sure as hell the only lady on the elite start riding without cleats on the bike!

The ground was icy cold underfoot.

First shock was upon removing my shoes to get changed into my wetsuit: the ground was freezing (not just metaphorically, but literally frozen solid). My trainers were now in transition and my flip-flops had been left in the car, parked a good 15 minute walk away. Doh. I decided to stand in the water until the start time as it was warmer than the dry land! Even so, a water temperature of 15 degrees was not exactly what I'd call tropical and I so I opted for a good warm up to allow the shock of the cold water on my face to subside before the gun went off.

Mum - supporter extraordinaire and chief wetsuit zipper-upper.

Warmer to await the start in the water than out! (I'm the one waving btw).

Elites started in the very first wave at 8am. The water was stunning; crystal clear so you could see right down to the bottom. Some bits were shallow, some deep, but it was flat as a pancake on the surface and the perfect conditions to swim in. My swim is still comparatively my weakest of the three phases. It's rapidly improving, but I am no speed merchant. My strength lies in my stamina, being able to pick a decent pace and keep churning it out, rather than in going out all guns blazing for a short time. Next year I aim to move up the distances to Olympic and Half Ironman, which I feel will suit me better, but, for now, I covered the 750m in a sedate 15:25. Considering I managed 17:57 for a 1km sea swim in the choppy, murky waters of the English Channel only one week before, this was disappointing. I can only think it was due to the coldness of the water temp here that affected my sports asthma. Excuses aside, the first elite female was a whole third quicker in just over 10 minutes! Pff.

Swim start. I'm the one in the black wetsuit and green cap... ;-)

A particularly steep and slippery exit from the water.

The fun starts: trying to shed my wetsuit on route to T1 didn't happen.

T1: a bloody fiasco! My hands were so cold from the water that they couldn't function. I got the right leg of my wetsuit off easily enough, but my left – which had the added challenge of getting over the lumpy timing chip – was a disaster. I nearly fell over twice, I pounded a load of grit and dirt into the suit... I swore a lot. It was generally embarrassing. Other athletes were coming in and out and I was still there, in the elite section to add to the humiliation, squirming about like some inebriated lizard trying to shed its skin. It felt like an eternity – I was almost contemplating having a picnic – but in reality, all of this took just under two minutes. Nevertheless, I still gave away over a minute to the other elite females, who either didn't suffer from the cold as much as I did, or else were better rehearsed in the art of deshedding.

Finally free from the wetsuit and off to start the 20km bike.

The bike was brilliant. Loved it! A mostly flat course on very quiet, straight, wide and pothole-free roads, that enabled me to get onto the tri bars, get my head down and work like stink. I didn't see another competitor riding in their running trainers, but I overtook a load and wasn't getting overtaken myself, so I figured I wasn't doing too badly. At the Oxley I averaged 18.5mph on a hilly course and managed to better that here by averaging 20mph and coming in at 35 minutes.

A great bike course, not too technical, could get your head down and work work work!

T2 was a much slicker affair, but then it should be, given that I only needed to dump a bike and helmet and not change shoes, and I was off on the scenic two laps of the lake run course. Familiar territory now, just 5k to run. My feet felt numb from the cold when I started running; a weird sensation to be hitting the ground and yet feeling a total disconnect from it. I soon established a rhythm and started to pick off lots of runners in front of me. My run time of 19:14 was the second fastest by a female for the day, so chuffed with that.

Just completing lap one of the 5km run around the lake.

However, the deficit created by my poor swim and T1 was too great to make up, and I remained in 3rd place in the elite female category and 14th female overall, once the age groupers were thrown into the mix, with an overall finish time of 1:12:38. Not bad for my first attempt at an open water tri. Practice at getting out of the wetsuit will buy me a minute, which would have moved me up into the top ten, and finding 3 minutes on the swim would have given me second overall. That's not including what I think can come on the bike once I actually take the plunge and sort these ruddy cleats out! The winning female was in a league of her own – she was over 8 minutes clear of the second lady and placed 10th overall, out of 468 competitors. Her time of 1:00:04 is on the cusp of being “elite elite”, i.e., Non Stanford, Vicky Holland, Jodie Stimpson kind of elite, not the “Ellie Dominey, punching above her weight” kind! ;-)

The finish funnel - had just worked like stink to overtake the GB age group athlete behind me on the run!

It was a great weekend and I definitely chose a good event for my first open water experience. The organisation was so slick, the whole thing was wrapped up and packed away by 11am! 468 cometitors in a multi-wave start all completed by mid morning, that's impressive. As a bonus, for placing 3rd “elite”, I won a trophy, 4 new sets of Specialized performance tyres, and a cheque for £100. Had some of the age groupers braved the elite start, that money could have been theirs, but they didn't, I did, and it paid nicely for the Travelodge thank you! ...Mind you, I might have also offset some of it against a new toy (see below). Well, if I am going to be taking this triathlon lark a little more seriously next year, I need the appropriate kit to do myself justice, right?! ;-)