Blenheim Triathlon 2011

Lets get this out of the way early doors – this is the best Triathlon I have ever done – both in terms of the experience and the setting. Yes, it cost £68 to enter, but in my opinion, it was worth every penny !

Friday
Being from Lincoln, we decided to make our way down to Oxfordshire on the Friday evening and I found a very cheap Travelodge at Cherwell Valley services that only set me back £19. The room was a little ‘skeffy’ and the people above had a dog trotting about for most of the evening, but for the price what could I expect ? Besides if anyone asks, we stayed in Cherwell Valley which sounds like the Welsh countryside to anyone not local !!

The day
We only had a half hour drive from our idyllic country hideaway to get to Blenheim Palace so we arrived in plenty of time. There was ample parking and we had the added benefit of being parked right next to the ugliest old tree in the car park, which was useful when I forgot to take Heidi’s spectator pass to the entry point and had to run back to the car (this theme would continue later in the day !). We had a good walk around the expo, and even managed not to buy anything which is a first – however, I decided to save it for the Ironman expo so it will get spent either way ! I took the bike into the massive transition area and then made my way 400m or so down to the swim start for my 12.20 off time.

The race
The swim – A floating start and time to get used to the water – that’s a first ! I positioned myself in the middle and towards the back of the pack and before I knew it we were off. The swim didn’t seem to go on for very long and I felt I swam well the whole way round thinking I was on for a 15 min swim – in the end the clock read 17.03 which is still my quickest 750m open water swim to date, but felt it could have been quicker.

T1 – Transitigeddon !!!!! Where to start – firstly, there is a mostly uphill 400m swim exit before you even get to transition, then when I got there I thought I’d pulled off a textbook transition only to find at the mount line that I’d forgotten to put on my race number, so it was dump the bike and dodge my way back up my bike aisle to retrieve it – this must have cost me nearly a minute all told – D’OH !! 5.09 in total and my slowest ever !
Bike – This was more like it – closed internal roads stretching around the stunning Blenheim estate, some ups, some downs and lots of bends making it ideal bike racing. There were that many racing at the same time that it was impossible not to draft at some point ! the first lap took 13.15, the second 13.20, but by the third lap my legs were beginning to cook and I was happy to pull into to T2 having posted a 40.26 split which was 277th out of 1831 finishers on the day. Two things that I am pleased I did – chose my TT bike over the normal roadie, because although technical in places, it was manageable and a lot faster, and then having the water bottle on it – it was absolutely baking on the bike and I could have been a real state by the time of the run if I hadn’t !

T2 – No worries this time – pretty much smoothly done , again size of the Transition area meant 1.41, but this was fast in comparison to the majority of the field.

Run – Straight out of transition, and straight up a bloody steep ramp which bridged over the bike course ! The route took you out around the lake for a two circuit run which had both uphills and downhills. Once out on the course, it was apparent just how warm it was and I had to settle for a pace slightly slower than I ran at Woodhall last weekend. Because of the roasting temperature, I took on a little water at each aid station, and just enjoyed running in such great surroundings. At 29.04 not a bad time for a 5.4km run in such conditions and an overall time of 1.33.21 was good enough to be 436th out of 1831 on the day and good enough to be in the top quarter of the field.

Do I recommend Blenheim ? Am I going back there next year ? A resounding ‘Yes’ on both counts.