Second Senior at Southam Sprint

Checking the weather forecast the night before the race, I was preparing for cold but dry.

I was happy that it would be dry but the thought of getting out on the bike after getting soaking wet in the pool made me shudder.

I'd arrived early which was good as I hadn't prepared my trail shoes with elastic laces. I'd made a split decision to run in my trail shoes after I'd found out the course was all on grass.

Racking the bike, there didn't seem to be as many people there as I thought should be, I shrugged it off because  I was  there super early.

With pool triathlons the start times go off with the slower swimmers first and so my predicted time had me off third to last woman.

The nerves were building waiting for my start time. A few of my club members had  already started swimming and some were well on their way cycling.

My swim went well, or a  well as expected, no one over took me or tapped my feet so I was able to just swim my speed.

 I'd slipped trying to get out the pool which cost me some time. On the results my swim looks slower than what I'd normally do but I think this is due to the length of the run from poolside to transition.

I'd faffed around for too long in transition but headed out  with my bike.

Using my new bike for the first time in a race it suddenly dawned on me I'd never  done a flying mount with a bike that has such low handle bars.

I managed it once my muscle memory adapted for the slight change of position.

The bike seemed brutal, cold from the pool and with a headwind that chilled me to my core I focused on holding my power output rather than in my speed.

Overall I was happy with my bike performance but also saw area that I could massively improve on.

On to the run the second transition was fairly quick and I tried to keep a high cadence turnover to help get the feeling back in my legs.

I settled into a pace I thought I'd be able to sustain for the 5k and went at it.

Running, it has to be said is my weakest of the three disciplines and with the rub all on grass it felt very hard going.


The course was 5 x 1km loops which seemed to get more and more brutal each time around. After finally collecting my last band signalling I was on the last lap I dug deep and pushed on towards the finish.

This felt very mentally tough as I'd said being one of the last to start the race due to my swim time but being also one of the slowest runners I was the actual last person still out on the course. I found this a bit demoralizing because it made me feel like I was super slow.

However crossing the finish line I got the biggest cheer I'd ever had all of my club mates had waited and all cheering  me across the line.


There wasn't many other  people who had stuck around to the end so I'd said I'd wait for the prize giving to be announced. I think there is nothing worse than achieving a podium position when there is next to no one saying to support.

All in all I felt like I  had a good race, I was aiming to get a PB on my Sprint distance triathlon however I'd missed out by about 1 minute.

I did not think that my name would be called for 2nd place senior.

Originally I'd seen that there was only 6 women in this category and so I thought I'd stood a chance of being in the top 3. I was a bit dumbstruck that I had gotten another 2nd place. After Bosworth I was convinced it was a fluke and most likely due to not many people racing, post 2020 covid postponed season. This 2nd place validated that I am half decent-ish.

Well until I looked at the results and saw that out of the 6 competing  in the 25-39 age category, only 2 had turned up. The winner, most justly deserved and me!!!

Well in the days following the race my legs recovered and the wooden trophy still sits pride of place in the Pyramid Coaching office. As a very wise person said to me, you can only race the conditions on the day, whether that is weather conditions or other competitors. So I'll take my second 2nd place with pride.