Bassetlaw Triathlon

Today was a return to Sprint Distance Triathlon racing, following all that long distance clap trap I've been doing this year, and also following last years injury which meant that todays effort would be my first Sprint Tri for over a year !

The Bassetlaw Triathlon is a new event laid on by Bassetlaw Tri Club and consists of a 400m swim, 20k bike, 5k run - standard fare in sprint world, however as a new event, the cost to enter was just £27 and that was an absolute bargain.

I arrived early and registered straight away. Got a lovely T-Shirt too so already in a good mood. I was also very relaxed about the whole thing so didn't feel any pressure about time etc, and I was just focused on not getting injured and finishing OK. This is how my return went :

Swim 8.32

Fastest....swim.....ever ! Started at 9.26am and settled very quickly into a sensible stroke and breathing pattern which meant that I didn't blow up early on as is usually par for the course with me. I drafted where I could and overtook where I had to, but an otherwise uneventful swim ended with a longish run into T1 which I would estimate took c.45seconds so more than happy with todays effort.

T1 -

In all took about a minute and that was with a run across a tennis court with no socks on - ouch !

Bike

Got on the bike, managed to use the laggy band trick without problem, got my feet in the shoes and then smashed it as hard as I could for the first couple of miles ! It felt like a headwind, but for the first 5 miles or so I was averaging 25 mph so thought I was going extremely well. However, one I turned left, there was some climbing for a mile or so, which while shallower than the bike profile had suggested, saw my average speed ebb away, and then another left turned showed me what a real headwind was and I eventually ended up back in transition with an average speed of 22. something mph !

T2

Quick, I think, less than a minute maybe ?

Run

The run course at Bassetlaw is a two lap affair entirely residential with a sneakily long ascent after a couple of hundred metres. This was also going to be the first run sans calf guards too so it was always in the back of my mind that I could injure again. It was a big unknown as I ran out of T1 then, and although I was carrying some speed, this soon waned and said climb put paid to any giddiness that I was feeling. My Garmin gave me 7.21 for the first mile which is a good 30s slower than my pre injury pace, but plenty of time available to put that right.
The second mile was consistent and the 2nd lap thankfully left out the climb which meant that my 3rd mile came in at 7.27, which left a sprint finish and over the line in 1.11.44.

Second event in a row where I felt I went well - surely this cannot last ?