First racing weekend of 2018

After so many months of endless training without so much of a sniff of racing, finally I saw a weekend of racing back to back. On saturday afternoon I would head over to Jodrell Bank for the Trike Association 10 and then on Sunday I would be the bike leg of a relay team entered into the East Leake Triathlon.

TA North West 10   25.48

I headed over to Jodrell Bank and Goostrey Village Hall for a 2.00 event on the rescheduled J2/20 course. traffic meant that I arrived in OK time but not early enough to go out and ride the course. I would be rider no.10 in a ten man field and the trikes would be going off in front of a regular field. I felt strangely serene as I got ready in the car park and readied the trike. Even on the way out to the start and during the warm up I felt no nerves at all and just looked forward to having my first race of the season.

The course would be an honest single carriageway affair with a couple of twists, a couple of roundabouts, a railway bridge and generally some poor road. Like I said earlier, I needed to learn it as I went along. It would also be a learning experience with the new position on the trike and I soon found once I started that this too was a work in progress.

So, good start, and I was quickly on my way to the first roundabout and pushing out crazy watts thinking wow could I hold this? The answer was no and to be fair, although I had caught 4/5 riders by the turn, I was seriously blowing out of my arse and wondering just how f'in far 10 miles is !!

The return was a consolidation exewrcise and I had a bit of a tail push back. I was hoping for an early season 24 minute ride, and I could see that come and go on the Garmin. In the end I just managed to sneak under 26 with a time of 25.48. 299W so in the ball park of where I maybe should be first ride and all that. How do I feel ? Pleased to get the first one done, underwhelmed with the time and wattage, but most of all clearere about how much I need to adapt to the new position. Things should get better.

East Leake Tri Bike Leg

Not being able to do the other two disciplines, I roped a couple of colleagues from work in to do a relay triathlon so that I could just do the bike leg. It was a race I had done a couple of times in the past so I knew the venue and the routes well enough - ideal when you are managing a team.

We would start at 9.50 and a good swim time of 7.55 meant that I was able to get out on the Trinity before 10. I started well and I have to say the Trinity just wants to go all the time - it's an incredible machine and I'm very lucky to have it. I had of course raced the day before, so I was off it just a little bit but still I felt had a good ride all things considered.

My bike leg was just over 33 minutes and when our runner out away a 20 minute run leg - we snaffled the team category win by a healthy margin.

Back to back wins - not a bad weekends results !