Events Blog

June 25th 2017 105 mile ride from Nottingham Another go at this lovely ride in Nottingham, this year with an ice cream parlour feed station which was very welcome. Those extra 5 miles on what I thought was a 100-mile ride were a killer though! I think this is my 7th century to date. The photos below show this year (top) and 2015 (bottom) - not much has changed.... Results Distance: 105 miles Climbing: 910 m Time: 6:40 Pace: 15.0 mph

March 5th 2016 45 mile Sportive This event was a fairly flat sportive in the Southwell area of Nottingham (some familiar roads from Outlaw!). The "No Excuses" aspect of it was that you pay an entry fee, but if you turn up and ride, you get your entry fee refunded! Otherwise, it is donated to charity. I'd actually entered the "Epic" 70 miler, but thanks to getting a chest infection three weeks prior to the event I decided I would ride the first 38 miles of it, then cut to the finish. I could have done the short route, but the course split was just a couple of miles in so it would have been a lonely ride! This way I was guaranteed companionship (if I could keep up with it!) for the majority of the ride. We set off, glad it was not yet raining as forecast. I was a little toasty in my arctic waterproof gloves over my winter cycling ones, but was mainly focused on trying to keep up. The route was fairly flat to undulating, and after 10 miles or so I got into...

May 29th 2016 1900 m swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run This was it. The one I'd been waiting for - my big race of the year! Did I feel prepared? Yes, I suppose so. Tapering week for me is always an unpleasant experience of feeling fidgety and imagining niggles, so I was glad it was race day! It made a nice change to be in a familiar setting (as I had raced the iron-distance Outlaw Triathlon) last year, albeit they had made a few changes. Due to blue green algae at the normal entry point to the lake, the swim start was now under the commentating tower - and I knew my transition point would be along this wall too. Getting to the race was a bit of a nightmare. Having got me their perfectly the day before, my Satnav had kindly decided that today was the day to direct me to the wrong side of the lake. Rookie error, but this meant I joined the car park queue 10 minutes later than planned. The queue was also quite a bit longer than anticipated based on last year, so I ended up ge...

September 20th 2015 400 m pool swim, 18 km bike, 4.5 km run Goodbye 2015 season! And with the best weather conditions so far. Low winds, a little bit of sun and around 15 degrees. The swim was a rather busy affair - with six people in my lane when I got in. This made for a terrible swim as I was significantly faster than a few in my lane and therefore got held up. Someone also managed to punch my wrist at one point, knocking my watch right up my arm which was incredibly painful and necessitated a stop at an end to put it right. My lane also happened to be almost the furthest from the swim exit... A grassy transition later, I was onto the bike. The course profile looked mostly downhill on the way out and fairly uphill on the way back. I was therefore surprised to find myself really struggling on the way out. The downhills there were did not create much free speed and were followed by uphills. Once onto the flat it was hard going - watching people speed past the other way wasn...

July 26th 2015 3800 m open water swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run This was it. The big one. The one we'd all (well, myself and Hannah) been waiting for! Seven months of hard training had us standing at 6am on the side of Nottingham rowing lake. Shaking. A quick good luck, shuffle into the water and we were off! What a start. Over a thousand wetsuit-clad people going off at once - from the bank it looked like a flock of geese were fighting over a single morsel. From the water it was, well, messy. Having started at the back I actually didn't get too upset by the melee, and after about 10 minutes had a suitable (probably too much) amount of space. About 25 minutes later I reached the turn point and was relieved of the direct sunlight. On my way back down I amazingly came across Hannah, and we near enough stayed together for the rest of the swim, meaning our spectators could have a nice leisurely walk together. Upon exiting the swim, the motion of moving from horizontal ...

June 21st 2015 100 mile ride from Nottingham A great route which was well signposted and well organised. Nice early (7am) start time and lots of options for different distances. We entered as the route covered some Outlaw territory, and we wanted to have a gander at the Nottinghamshire (and Leicestershire!) countryside. Results Distance: 100 miles Climbing: 910 m Time: 6:40 Pace: 15.1 mph

August 23rd 2014 500m open water swim, 15km bike, 5 km run Club Relays! - representing BRAT (Birmingham Running Athletics and Triathlon Club) So different from a normal race. And my first dabble at proper training since my accident a month before. The club relays involve teams of four competing in a swim-swim-swim-swim-bike-bike-bike-bike-run-run-run-run format. There are mixed, women's and men's categories, and I was competing in a mixed team. We decided to order our team so that I was second, and the two women were sandwiched by the men. The start of my race would therefore involve receiving the rubber band (baton) from Andy, our first competitor. Not being familiar with my number one and three team mates, transitions could have proved a challenge, not helped by the face that everyone is wearing a black wetsuit... However, Andy found me fairly smoothly and I dashed to the water with the wristband on and ran in. COLD! Ok, so I found out afterwards that the lake wa...