Chris Standidge braves the weather and wins rather convincingly…

With the end of last year’s 2014 Season feeling like a very long time ago, I was keen to get in an early race, before April approached. When in the U.K. and racing a Triathlon in March, there is a good chance it’s going to be cold, wet and windy. True to form, the forecast did not diassapoint and we were promised pouring rain and 50mph winds. As you can imagine, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this event, so I kept an open mind as to whether I would make the trip.

I arrived at the venue a few hours before we were due to go off and it was certainly windy, but the rain had stopped. As the faster swimmers were starting later, I was able to watch my fellow competitors heading out on to the bike (in full Winter gear, yes waterproofs, overshoes the lot), I started to think about what the right clothing strategy was going to be!

Registration done and bike racked, I headed out for a warm up run and ended up getting pretty toasty, so in the last minute, I decided just to brave it, wear my tri suit and go for it!

The 400m pool swim always goes so quickly. Therefore, in my opinion, whilst it is certainly worth racing strongly, there is little point in killing yourself for a few extra seconds. I was in the first wave of the last group of swimmers and as everyone within the group had started within approx. 2 mins. of each other, (despite being first out of the water), I wasn’t sure how quickly everybody else had been going. I was quickly into transition and then out on to the tough 20k bike course. The course is an out and back, with a mile or so climb at the far end, before retracing your steps. I was keen to get to the turnaround and then be able to see what the gaps were.

I felt strong on the first half of the bike and opened up some time. This momentum continued towards T2. The run was pretty spectacular and took us across the beach before then taking us up a nasty climb, through the town and to the castle, (which is approximately 6km). As my Winter training had been plagued by a knee injury (and so I had only being back running for about 4-5 weeks), I felt that the run was going to potentially be my weakness. Despite me knowing I wasn’t running at my best, I felt that I was strong enough to keep the lead and so after a final battle with the climb to the castle, I finished in 1 second over the hour and approximately 2 minutes ahead of 2nd.

As it was so early in the Season, I was particularly happy with my form. I certainly feel as though I have something to build on through the next few months.

Special thanks to sportpicturescymru.co.uk for the excellent photograph which proves you can wear a trisuit all year round if you go hard enough…
 

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