Here’s an account of TORQ’s Martin Goodlad kicking off the tri season in Scotland. Martin has raced at the Ironman world championships multiple times, so expectations were high.
“My Triathlon racing season started at Turriff on the 9th May with a local (allegedly low profile) sprint event. On turning up at the event in the beautiful spring sunshine (always welcome as previous races have had howling gales, snow and hail stones) I met two full time athletes; Scott Neyedlli (Ironman UK winner) and young Mike Adams (Mike swims a 750m in 8m20!!!). So much for the low profile event! Scott lives locally so always supports the local triathlon races when he is back in the area, which is great as we get the chance to test ourselves against some of the best.
On to the race, the swim was the usual pool affair for this time of the year. For a change I didn’t even make the fast swim lane! However I had an excellent swim and exited the pool with a PB for the 750m, a good transition and it was time to test out the sparkly new Quintana Roo CD01.
I had only used the bike a couple of times before the event (once to knock 2-1/2 minutes of my 13mile TT PB) so I was hoping for great things. The bike course started off with steep hills for the first 15 minutes and I’ll admit I was flat out and got caught and passed after about 5 minutes. However, I knew I would catch up as things flattened out. I put the hammer down and started catching places. By the end of the 25K bike I had gone from 6th to 3rd overall with only the 2 pros to catch. I passed Scott & Mike on my way toward transition (both had done about 1K of the 5K run by this point (so absolutely no way of catching them). Onto the run and my legs were a bit ‘jelly like’ despite all the ‘brick sessions’, maybe I pushed the bike a bit hard. I kept the pace down a bit to let the legs sort themselves out until just before halfway when I was caught again, I upped the pace all the way home and managed to gain a 10sec gap between myself and 4th place, to take 3rd overall.
Very pleased with my result, only to be beaten by two Pro’s is a good start to the season and shows that the form has come back fairly quickly despite the terrible winter and endless snow. The new bike performed brilliantly, the combination of the FFWD wheels, Quintana Roo CD01 makes a mean machine, and it was nice to hear somebody say that it was the best looking tri bike they had ever seen!”
Many thanks to all our sponsors who have made everything this year possible:
Bikes: Quintana Roo www.quintanarootri.com
Wheels: Fast Forward www.ffwdwheels.com
Powertaps: Saris www.saris.com
Delicious, natural and healthy nutrition: www.torqfitness.co.uk
Regards,
Martin
