Tri something different

Due to a number reasons, including Matt's imminent fatherhood and Jamie's injury plus my lack of big distance endurance training and fear of injury ahead of Berlin, I took the decision to replace the Lakeland 50 mile race with my first triathlon, the Leeds Xpress Triathlon.

It was a sprint triathlon which consisted of a 400 metre swim, 22.6km bike and 5.4km run at Leeds Grammar School. The swim took place in the pool and due to me still not being able to front crawl, I put my swim down as 12 minutes so was in one of the first waves to start (which would turn out to be a blessing when the weather turned and it chucked it down just after I finished) but despite swimming breastroke, I got out of the pool in 9 minutes and after a slight delay getting dried off and cycling gear on and got on the bike.

The bike was an out and back on Harrogate road and despite struggling on a couple of hills, I got off the bike in a time of 48 minutes, stuck on my shoes and set off on two laps of the school grounds.

 

Again it was quite hilly and off road, not what you need when your legs don't feel like your own, but I managed to get round in just over 19 minutes, making my total time 1 hr 19 mins and 33 secs, 48th overall and not bad for a first tri!