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Race Report: Merchant Taylor's School Triathlon

Sorry it's a bit delayed, been a manic few days at work...



Link to event here:

http://www.triathlon-zone.com/events.html - Sunday, 24th May.



Quite a small race. 110 competitors on the day. Seemed to be a very fast crowd, with lots of bike porn. Mostly men, with only about 10-15 women total. Seemed mostly younger too, lots of 20-29 year olds, although that could just have been the realisation that I hadn't trained as much as I would have liked! :). Very early start (6am checkin, 6:30 race briefing, 7:10 start) which was hard for me because it was an even earlier start for me to drive there (4:30). One red bull in the car.



The swim was open water in a lake on the school grounds. Mass start and a simple out and back, which is good as I wasn't thinking too well. Very early start and not much sleep the night before because of work stuff. Entry was a bit steep, which you didn't really notice until you were climbing out. I imagine there was an issue with the fast lads as it was a bit of a choke point getting out. Swim took me 37:54.



The bike was very technical, on open roads around St Albans. Some of the roads had pretty loose chip seal, some had the normal potholes in the lanes, whilst others had a decent amount of traffic, although it was well marked by the organizers and the marshalls did a good job controlling at dangerous points. I got some nice long runs, though, and used aerobars lots. I felt great about the bike, passed about 10 people including 4 or 5 women racers which felt really nice as their mass start was 10 minutes ahead of the boys. I took on 2 gels and about half of my 2 waterbottles with go and pp2p. 1:30:02



Run was a bit of a slog. Mostly off-road which was nice, it was around the lake and then around the school's sports grounds, for 2 laps. One water point, and took on one gel during the run. 1:03:50.



Only real letdown was the transition area - it was pretty simple, but by the time us fat slow blokes got in on the run security had become very lax. I didn't get checked going in, which was 30 minutes before the race started, however more alarmingly I didn't get checked going out. Of course, there were only about 10 people left behind me on the course, with most other folks already having packed up, but still - would have been nice to know that my stuff was secure as I was plodding around the run course. T1 and T2 pretty good for me with no major hiccups (2:26 and 1:20).



All in all, a nice, small, friendly race. Awards for fastest 3 men / women, fastest overall, and fastest in each age group for men and women. My time was 3:16:02, which I don't feel all that bad about even though it's well off my PB for an Oly.

Comments

  • gavinrigg06gavinrigg06 Posts: 176
    Great report gomiboy, well done.



    I too would not have been impressed with the security situation, to have my pride and joy racked with no-one watching over her (properly).



    It might be worth dropping an e-mail to the organisers just to let them know the situation, so it can be improved next time.
  • PC_67PC_67 Posts: 196
    Good effort, well done.



    Thanks for the good race report. As I live in NW London it's a race that has been on my radar for a bit and may use it as a warm up for next year's Windsor.
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