Two years ago I raced at the National Triathlon Relays up in Nottingham for Triathlon Redditch. Having moved house during covid to Halesowen, I had also moved triathlons clubs to Halesowen where I now coach both adults and juniors on a regular basis. Halesowen had entered 6 teams into the relays for 2020 but due to the distinct lack of social distancing that takes place there it got postponed to 2021. Lucky for me this meant a few of the original participants could no longer race and a place on a women’s team became available. Having had so much fun there 2 years ago I couldn’t say no!
What I hadn’t realised when I signed up was that the rest of the team were in fact not only younger than me (in face someone kindly pointed out that if I added two of their ages together they were only just older than me!) But also significantly faster than me!
About 2 weeks before the event one of the girls dropped out and we were short. I knew I could rope someone from the office into joining us. I mean I work for the Commonwealth Games so surely there was at least one other female who did triathlons?! The Wednesday before the race I managed to persuade Sam to come and join us and she jumped at the chance.
The night before I laid out all my kit and headed off for my first event that involved all 3 sports, since the tri club relays in 2019, exactly two years ago!!!
Halesowen have clearly been doing this relays malarkey for quite some time as they’d got their marque all set up in prime position the night before and the head coach had even gone and registered all the teams so we didn’t have to rush to do it in the morning.
I decided that given two of my team were under 18 and one had never done this race before that I should take the plunge and be the adult for the day and go first. The person who goes first has to face the absolute carnage that is the mass swim start. Another reason for going first is that the first person has a slightly shorter run. Given one of the girls had been discussing their “bad” run time of 21 minutes a few weeks ago, whilst that morning my 5k had been around half an hour, I concluded it was best for me to have the shorter run, even if it was only by 0.3 miles.
The whole morning felt quite rushed and fanatic to be honest and that’s how the rest of the race was in all honesty. I arrived with plenty of time but somehow it all disappeared rather rapidly. I sorted out our numbers, tried to explain to the other girls what was going to happen, introduced Sam to Fliss and Izzy, set my bike up in transition, went back to transition with my water bottle and ran down to the start line with Josh where we zipped each others wetsuit up as we walked into the lake – nothing like being last minute. At this point I lost Josh completely which wasn’t ideal as I was hoping I’d be able to draft him a little bit (although turns out he’d have benefited from drafting me!)
I set myself up to the left in the hope I’d be able to avoid the chaos. Oh how wrong I was. It’s probably the worst mass swim start I have ever experienced but in a crazy fun way. The horn went and off we swam. I thought I was staying to the left hand side but when suddenly I was being submerged by an entire body swimming over me and inhaling large amounts of water I soon realised I must have drifted into the pack of the limbs. In the end I had to stop and take a breather before I choked, and eventually got back swimming. Round the first two buoys I struggled to settle into a rhythm and all I was doing was swimming for my life, literally. I turned at the 3rd and final buoy and suddenly had some space around me. I ploughed on towards the swim finish wanting to get out the water as soon as possible and ran across the timing chip in search of Sam. Now this is where it gets even more interesting because all I could see was a wall of individuals in black wetsuits with yellow swim hats and masks on – it was hard enough 2 years ago with no masks but this added a new challenge! Luckily she heard me shouting “Sam” and I passed the baton onto her. I now had about 30 minutes to regain my breathe before the bike leg.
My bike was racked right near the swim exit so I saw Sam come out, and then Izzy and I knew this gave me about 10 minutes before Fliss would make an appearance and it would be time for my bike leg. I waited in the “holding pen” with the other Halesowen Tri teams expecting at least one of the men’s teams to head off before me but suddenly Fliss appeared and I realised that we (the girls team!) had in fact beaten all the other HTC teams (4 men’s teams and one other women’s team!)
I headed out for my 3 laps of the bike course which involved cycling into a headwind to the top of the lake, along the top of the lake then back down the other side with a tailwind. During the first lap the course felt really empty but the number of teams joining the bike course increased with each lap which actually meant my times improved as I benefited from a bit of a draft. Josh was the only HTC member to catch up and he caught me up after about a lap and a half, just as the geese tried to cross the path we were cycling on and cause havoc! I finished the bike not far behind him, in a faster time than 2 years ago which I was chuffed with, and handed the baton over to Sam once more.
Now was my chance for a proper break of about an hour and a half where I could head back to the gazebo, chill for a bit and have some food and a drink before my 5km run.
Being first meant my run was slightly shorter, and avoided one of the “hills” on the course which benefitted me as I have spent the last 2 years focussing on Aquabikes with very minimal amounts of running happening. I did what I always do best and set off way too fast, only to regret it about 200m later. The lake certainly didn’t feel that big when I cycled round it 3 times but running to the end of the lake I wondered if I was ever going to make it, and then I had to run back down the other side! Now I remember why the Outlaw Half Ironman run there is so tortuous. I did suprise myself though with a faster average pace than 2 years ago, before I handed over to the much speeder 3 girls to follow me. By now two of the men’s teams were way ahead of us having gained a fair bit of time on the bike legs, but one of the other men’s team only overtook me 1 mile in and I knew that the other 3 girls would be able to make it back up (which they did!)
We had hopes of being able to all cross the finish line together as a team but soon realised that Covid restrictions meant they had unfortunately banned it this year, but we cheered Fliss and all the other remaining HTC guys across the line.
It was so lovely to finally get to race and celebrate together as a team and we topped off the day with a nice BBQ and cakes back at the campsite. However, my legs are now covered in bruises and I’m yet to work out whether that’s from Saturdays swim/washing machine, Mountain biking the following day or Monday nights Bongos Bingos! I guess we will never know which is the main cause!
Defying the Stereotypes of an Accountant 