Northants Roade Triathlon 2003[2]
By Ivan Scott (most photos by Paula's Paul)
The saga of the "Cottenham Triathlon that never was" finishes with Paula, Carl & myself going to the village of Roade [Ed. - sorry you couldn't get in Georgia], South West of Northampton. Paul came to cheer us along, sample the local brew and take some photos.
What had we let ourselves in for? My wife is convinced that the "tri" in triathlete actually comes from triangle: the typical shape of the upper body of your average triathlete. Hmm ... none of us seemed to fit that description.
Carl in particular was worried. Starting times are sorted according to expected swim times & that put Carl in with the Elite triathletes.
The Triathlon was based in the school grounds, with the swim in the pool, transition area and finish-line on the school field.
The Swim
18 lengths of a 23m pool. No sweat. Well actually quite alot of sweat. And chlorine. And some mystery ingredient that expanded the strap of my goggles so that they fell off on the first length. What's this floppy rubber thingy. I put it on my head? Your having a laugh, look - no hair! Oh if you insist...
Carl had a good swim and Paula emerged from the pool with a big smile on her face.
The Cycle
Before you get on the bike you need to get some clothes on. When you're wet and cold that's not as easy as you'd like it to be.
The ride was 2 laps of 10k each and was supposedly flat but looked mountainous to us fenlanders. There were lots of tricky junctions to slow you almost to a stop usually situated at the bottom of a hill.
Paula was going well until her chain came off. Undeterred, she pushed it back on by hand and got on with it.
Carl wanted to make sure people knew he was new to all this & left pannier rack & mudguards on his bike. Making this statement proved unwise, one of the mudguards caught in his spokes & he had to stop to fix it.
After the first 10k I fervently wished I'd done a bit more cycling than the 5k trip to work.
The Run
I hear that running after cycling is called "bricking". That meant something else where I grew up. Actually it had a number of meanings and none of them were pleasant.
You imagine you will get off and run with an easy, elegant stride. You don't imagine you'll be hobbling along like some sort of demented simian. It took us all about a mile (out of a 3 mile run) to remember the tricky business of putting one leg in front of another.
I run regularly and both Paula and Carl had put a commendable amount of training but I think we were all glad to see the finsh line.
The Finish
We all enjoyed a number of banana's and High-5 at the finish line, successfully avoided the double-spongy-burgers (with extra spinal column) before winding our way back to Cambridge. We all wished Georgia could have been with us and are itching to do it all again, sadly that's it until next Spring.
[You can't zoom in on these pictures but you can buy them online from www.finishlinephotos.com.]
The Provisional Results (of 501 finishers)
Pos. Swim Cycle Run Total
Carl 153 00:07:08 ( 73rd) 00:42:37 (175th) 00:22:13 (202nd) 01:11:58
[31st Male Novice out of 125]
Ivan 189 00:08:56 (249th) 00:44:31 (219th) 00:20:11 (105th) 01:13:38
[should've been 47th novice of 125 had Ivan been correctly classified as a novice]
Paula 337 00:07:25 ( 99th) 00:49:13 (328th) 00:28:15 (375th) 01:24:53
[28th Female Novice out of 63]
[Ed. - Official results are available on the Just for racing site]
Paula believes that the person manning the check-point at the start of the run got it wrong and that she finished the cycling 7 mins faster but did the run 7 mins slower.
Ivan.
[Ed. - thanks to our friends at the Cambridge Triathlon Club for masses of encouragement, advice and patience - particularly, Eddie, Chris and Helen, and Tim! We'll form an orderly queue for our club kit now!]