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Monday, May 21, 2012

Crystal Palace Sprint Triathlon - Laura's Race Report

I did the Crystal Palace Sprint Triathon on Sunday May 20th.
It was great fun and made a nice change from straight running!  I trained for 8 weeks going for a half hour swim once a week, doing a weekly spin class and running home, doing our track sessions and a 3-6 mile slow run on Sundays.   Here's how it all went down:

Pool swim.
Breaststroke as it's all I've got! I gave them a predicted time of 16:30 (guesstimate after trying to time myself in an empty pool a few weeks ago) and ended up swimming 17:34.  Apparently quite good for breaststoke.  Not wanting to slow down the next person when you're slightly in over your head is a great incentive to get a move on!
20K Bike
OK this was on my 1980s-vintage 5-speed Raleigh ladies racer bought unseen off ebay with no toe clips or cleats. The course was 9 laps and hilly, but it was the down hills and bends that threw me off -- not literally, though -- as I did most of my training at spin class.  I was just too chicken to freewheel down them at top speed. I was stronger on flat and uphills.  So a bit of a slow bike at 53:43, but given my lack of experience and funky equipment, not bad either.
5K Run
Well, I expected to run the slowest 5K of my life looking at the pained faces of other runners while I was on the bike. It started with a horrible hill which you negotiated on 2 laps, followed by some nice downhill and a lap and a half of the track finishing in the National Athletics Stadium (whoo hoo).   Surprised myself with 23:04 for the run.  Probably thanks to Jon's track sessions!

Nothing went wrong and even the weather wasn't tooo bad. No rain, anyway. Great event. Might do another sometime, but would obviously need a better bike if I ever wanted to take it seriously. Aside from a handful of mountain bikes I didn't spot ANY OTHER BIKES that weren't totally awesome looking. So don't believe what you read about people turning up to race on granny bikes with baskets on the front.

I came 15th out of about 50 in the FV40-49 age group and was 73rd female out of not sure how many but about 650 people raced. 

TOTAL 1:38:51
750 Swim 17:34 (breaststroke)
T1 3:21
20K Cycle 53:43 (hilly slightly scary 9 laps, and on 1980s 5-speed with no toe clips, mind you)
T2 1:07
5K Run 23:04 (same hilly, but some downhill so v. pleased with my run split)

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