Brecon triathlon went well for me yesterday. Anna and Morgan came with me, so after a fairly early start and porridge for breakfast I packed the car and we headed off for the two hour drive to Brecon.<\/p>\n
We got the just before 9am so saw the first of the swimmers start. I wasn’t supposed to start until around 11am so we had a wander around, I registered, set up my transition area and we watched a few people head out on the bike and then return. I then got changed and as the organisers were ahead of themselves they were letting people start earlier than their allotted time so I got ready to start my race.<\/p>\n
The pool was quiet and I didn’t get held up at all but I don’t think I was really quite ready for it. I didn’t do any sort of warm up and just wasn’t really concentrating. I even remember halfway through the swim thinking to myself that I wasn’t quite ready for that. Needless to say I had a pretty slow swim split\u00a0\u00a0at 7:05 on the official timing even though I’m capable of a sub 6 minute 400m swim fairly easily. 7:05? What was wrong with me I must have been asleep. T1 went well though and I was soon out on the bike.<\/p>\n
The weather was perfect, nowhere near as hot as it had been at home the day before but dry, sunny and with a light wind. I was soon up to speed and weaving my way along the narrow country lanes. I overtook quite a few people on the bike and felt comfortable on the aero bars. One guy did go past me, I kept him in sight for a while but couldn’t stay with him. The final drag along the dual carriageway, up hill into the wind was a bit of a struggle too but before I knew it I was back at the leisure centre and into T2. All was fine with this and I was off onto the run with a quick wave to Anna and Morgan who were watching from the sidelines.<\/p>\n
I went the wrong way coming off the playing fields on the run because the wind had blown the sign around, but I soon noticed the error of by ways, tuned back and went the right way. I then got a little bit lost again in the woods just after the ‘steps of doom’. A guy wearing a team GBR tri-suit corrected me here and then went on to overtake me (he actually went on to win the event as well). I followed him for a while, but he too went the wrong way a little later into the run and we ended up doing an extra little climb followed by a scramble down a steep hillside back onto the right track.<\/p>\n
I’m glad I’ve been doing some hilly runs lately rather than my usual flat runs around home as the run was hillier than I had expected. In fact, the so called ‘steps of doom’ were just like a shortened version of some of the coast path climbs so my runs along there came in handy.<\/p>\n
It was then back to the leisure centre to cross the finish line in an official time of 1:08:14. I was pleased with that.<\/p>\n
I had a chat with Scott who I met at Pwllheli triathlon, got changed, had a coffee with Anna and Morgan and then hung around for the presentations. I’m glad I did as I won a bottle of wine for being 3rd in my age category.<\/p>\n