North Norfolk Triathlon
Absolutely loved this event. Great location, decent course followed by a tough run.
I managed to get a place on this one thanks to some cancellations and i'll be definitely up to do this one again next year.
So after a poor nights sleep thanks to Sophie who decided to wake at 3am and stay awake until 6 when I had to get up she then fell asleep. After a breakfast of porridge and blueberries and raspberries it was into the car and off to Wells. I arrived there at 7am where parking for the race was set up at Wells Town FC, right next to the harbour.
Registration was quick and efficient, the staff were really friendly and your registrations bag contains your race numbers, t shirt a few energy gels and a banana.
The hide tide was approaching so it was time to get the bike ready in transition. I had my usual panic fearing I had forgotten something but this wasn't the case. The race brief was held in transition and contained the usual info, then it was off to the harbour pontoon and the race start.
The swim seemed to be close to the high tide mark. The first half of the swim was about 12 mins and the second half was about 16 mins so I kept nice even pace and apart from one swimmer who was way faster than me but constantly zig zagging in front of me he ended up as the same pace as me and kept clattering into me every couple of minutes but not just bumping into me he was t boning me every time. Clearly he'd not grasped the concept of sighting ! I've never seen the high tide at wells before either so was interesting see how much the water level increases.
Overall i'm pleased with the swim and don't think there is much i could have improved on apart from more training. At the end of the swim my transition was good although did feel a little wobbly as i had water in my ears from the swim. This soon wore off and it was a smooth mount up and off on the bike. I did forget to click my watch for the end of transition until a half mile down the road.
The bike route was mainly small back roads, firstly to Binham and right past the priory ruins there, this first section had a nice tail wind and flew by but the second half was a stiff headwind and i was so thankful for the trip bars.
The course overall wasn't too tricky but was made worse by the wind. Coming back into the transition was fun dodging the traffic as there were a few cars not realising the front harbour road was closed so it was a case of weaving around the cars.
T2 i'd decided to go with socks this time due to the length of the run and issues I've had in the past and the socks had been pre filled with talc. I did put a dab of vaseline on two of my toes which always blister. Overall the extra time spent doing the foot preparation definitely saved me time on the run.
The run was straight down the embankment to the end car park and then left through the car park and follow the woodland path to holkham. I made really good pace and was gradually picking off runners and maintain consistent form and pace. At holkham its a right turn and onto the beach for the run back to wells. The first two thirds of run back is on firm sand and was easy going. There is about 1km of soft sand running before joining back onto the embankment to the finish. The sand running was hard but not as bad as I was expecting and made a nice change. The run back along the embankment was nice and easy running and i was very pleased with the 51 min run which considering my lack of training is a win.
On crossing the line my chip tag was whipped off and the medal was hung round my neck and a bottle of water handed to me all very efficient and friendly. What was a little surprising was how much the tide had gone out since the start.
Overall this was great fun and i'm really pleased with my overall time considering the complete lack of training recently. Autumn Waveney sprint try next week.
I managed to get a place on this one thanks to some cancellations and i'll be definitely up to do this one again next year.
So after a poor nights sleep thanks to Sophie who decided to wake at 3am and stay awake until 6 when I had to get up she then fell asleep. After a breakfast of porridge and blueberries and raspberries it was into the car and off to Wells. I arrived there at 7am where parking for the race was set up at Wells Town FC, right next to the harbour.
Registration was quick and efficient, the staff were really friendly and your registrations bag contains your race numbers, t shirt a few energy gels and a banana.
The swim seemed to be close to the high tide mark. The first half of the swim was about 12 mins and the second half was about 16 mins so I kept nice even pace and apart from one swimmer who was way faster than me but constantly zig zagging in front of me he ended up as the same pace as me and kept clattering into me every couple of minutes but not just bumping into me he was t boning me every time. Clearly he'd not grasped the concept of sighting ! I've never seen the high tide at wells before either so was interesting see how much the water level increases.
Overall i'm pleased with the swim and don't think there is much i could have improved on apart from more training. At the end of the swim my transition was good although did feel a little wobbly as i had water in my ears from the swim. This soon wore off and it was a smooth mount up and off on the bike. I did forget to click my watch for the end of transition until a half mile down the road.
The bike route was mainly small back roads, firstly to Binham and right past the priory ruins there, this first section had a nice tail wind and flew by but the second half was a stiff headwind and i was so thankful for the trip bars.
The course overall wasn't too tricky but was made worse by the wind. Coming back into the transition was fun dodging the traffic as there were a few cars not realising the front harbour road was closed so it was a case of weaving around the cars.
T2 i'd decided to go with socks this time due to the length of the run and issues I've had in the past and the socks had been pre filled with talc. I did put a dab of vaseline on two of my toes which always blister. Overall the extra time spent doing the foot preparation definitely saved me time on the run.
The run was straight down the embankment to the end car park and then left through the car park and follow the woodland path to holkham. I made really good pace and was gradually picking off runners and maintain consistent form and pace. At holkham its a right turn and onto the beach for the run back to wells. The first two thirds of run back is on firm sand and was easy going. There is about 1km of soft sand running before joining back onto the embankment to the finish. The sand running was hard but not as bad as I was expecting and made a nice change. The run back along the embankment was nice and easy running and i was very pleased with the 51 min run which considering my lack of training is a win.
On crossing the line my chip tag was whipped off and the medal was hung round my neck and a bottle of water handed to me all very efficient and friendly. What was a little surprising was how much the tide had gone out since the start.
Overall this was great fun and i'm really pleased with my overall time considering the complete lack of training recently. Autumn Waveney sprint try next week.
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