INTRtri Autumn Aquathlon Race Report

I decided at the very last minute to do the INTRtri Autumn Aquathlon on Sunday. I had been suffering from a cold and chest infection for about 10 days so had previously talked myself out of it, but on the morning I awoke and was able to breathe through my nose for the first time in ages.

Happy Marshalls

Happy Marshalls

Anna was marshalling and if I wasn’t running then I was going to Marshall as well so we arrived bright and early and helped with setting up. Once I started seeing plenty of other people turn up some of them who looked petty fast I just wanted to compete as well, so at the last minute decided to give it a go and see how I went. If my chest hurt I could always take it easy.

As it was a local event organised by the club that I’m part of I knew quite a few people doing it so had a good natter with plenty of people whilst getting ready and it was all quite a nice social affair. As well as others from the INTRtri club, there were people from swimfit, Cerist Tri club, the cycling club and even the beekeeping association. One of Morgan’s teachers was there too as well as a few people from the university.

Anna had the responsibility of being the timekeeper at the finish line, so she was quite busy getting ready too, so I was soon on my own and getting ready to start. I was off 11th so it wasn’t long before it was my turn and off I went on the swim. It’s only a relatively short event, just a 400m swim and a 5 km run.

I’m not usually very fast swimming from cold but my swim went well and I looked at my watch as I climbed out of the pool and was pleased to see a time under 6 mins… 5:49 to be precise, which became 5:58 on the official time as that included getting out of the pool and out into the transition area.

Me chasing Andy

Me chasing Andy

On with my shoes and race number and I was off on the run. I forgot to do my laces up though so had to stop to tighten them after 100 yards or so. So, after that I was off again. I didn’t feel as though I could get my legs going as fast as I’d like but I was making good progress and overtook Andy early on. The run course was a little slippery but dead flat. It took in two Laps and was a little shorter than 5km. I felt a little better on the 2nd lap and before I knew it the finish line was in sight, along with Anna and her stopwatch and Morgan with a bar of chocolate and bottle of water which he was handing out to all competitors.

My run was actually pretty good, 17:18 on the official timing, giving my a total time of 23:16.

I quickly got changed and then joined Anna and Morgan on the finish line where I took some photos of some finishers crossing the line. There aren’t as many as there usually would be if I was photographing an event, but that’s  because I was competing as well.

Preparing results

Preparing results

The results were soon ready and lots of people had hung around to hear them. My time was good enough for 1st in the veterans so I got a winners t- shirt, and it was good enough for 2nd overall with which I was pleased with. The winner was Dylan Jones in a time of 22:09.

Quite a few other people that I know got prizes too. Andy (from the cycling club and swimfit) was 2nd veteran, Elwyn from the Tri club was 1st male super vet, Karen from swimfit and the Tri club was 1st female and Morgan’s teacher was 1st female super vet.

All in all it was a good day out and I’m glad I didn’t let the chest infection beat me. It was a good turnout for the first INTRtri event and it looked as though everyone enjoyed themselves.

3 Responses

  1. Avatar forComment Author Alan says:

    I’ve now uploaded the official results to the INTRtri website:
    http://www.intrtri.org.uk/cms/events/intrtri-autumn-aquathlon/

    And my photo gallery of the event is here:
    https://www.alananna.co.uk/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=25

    Are you in it?

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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