York Sprint Triathlon
Race report by Morgan
2nd Place | 1st Age Group
Going into York, my last triathlon was nearly 3 months ago so I knew I would of been rusty but always intended to go into it with the intention of outperforming my last in which I only won my age group in Cheshire.
12:27 start midday which was a late one. Arriving 2 hours early to setup and do a brief overlook of the course which was 6 laps on the bike & 4 laps on the run so didn’t require a full recce as normal.
Swim : My last 2 Triathlon swims both went dreadfully and that’s solely because I didn’t enjoy swimming back then. The past 2 months I’ve committed to swimming as you solely can rely on the bike & run disciplines. So when getting into the pool this time around my confidence was sky high. During my swim my ankle timing chip came off 100m down in the deep end. Fortunately I felt it slip off my ankle and caught it before it plummeted to the bottom of the deep end lol. Swimming the last 300m with it wrapped around the palm of my hand (which was not aero dynamic at all ????) I did the swim in 7:00 which is a huge PB for me but unfortunately it was wasted time because I spent an extra 2:00 in transition putting it back on my ankle haha.
T1 : Don’t even want to talk about it (lost count the amount of times I swore at myself)
Bike : My bike has always been one of my best disciplines with me only starting cycling 10 months ago. A flat 6 lap out and back course that had 2 technical turn around points, a slight gradual rise of elevation on the way out & what felt like a slide on the way back down to the end of the lap. The past few months since Cheshire I’ve been solely working on my high speed low elevation endurance in preparation for this knowing that I could absolutely smash it, without killing my legs for the run achieving a time of 29:36.
T2 : Pretty clean other than putting my shoes on which took longer than it needed. Also for some reason deciding to walk for 3 seconds while heading out to the run which I can’t explain
Run : My previous 2 triathlon runs didn’t go the way I would have liked. This time around was slightly different. The course was 4 laps mainly on concrete but a good 250m per lap on grass. I was instantly under pressure from a few members of STC (they know who they are) after talking big about a sub 20 5k. I knew I couldn’t show my face back in the midlands if I didn’t back up my talk. Anyway achieving a time of 19:34 I was disappointed because I had what I felt was a fresh set of legs after lap 1 but was too much of a wuss to push so ran what felt comfortable, going forward I now know that I can push beyond 19 possibly even 18 with the right strategy. On the last lap and Iron man was trying to run up my left, I managed to distract him with triathlon talk long enough that when we got onto the home straight I was able to put the gas on and floor him over the line which was the difference between 2nd and 3rd place with only 5seconds making the difference.
Mixed emotions overall, it felt like a loss but looking at my progress the past 3 months it’s a big win, won’t stop until I get that
Only my 3rd Triathlon and so it’s
- 2 Age Group Win
- 1 2nd Place Finish
I’m not going to stop and I know I have more gears to unlock and I know with a great support I have behind me from peeps from STC I can keep achieving more.
Next up Huub Relays then North West September 22nd to finish off my first season in triathlon where I’ll be aiming to improve again on yesterday’s performance.