Wadebridge Sprint triathlon

At last, my first win of the season.

Though I had to travel all the way to Cornwall to get it. I went down to visit the parents, on a rest week after Ibiza Long Course and before the last big kick of training to IM Arizona. I took the opportunity to enter my (nearly) hometown sprint triathlon in Wadebridge. Apart from a very spacious, but rather slow, 2 people per lane limit in the 400m swim - which meant I had to wait nearly 3 hours for my wave to start - it was an absolute cracker.

Not knowing any of the names in Cornwall I had no idea what to expect from the competition. So I was pleased to come out of T1 heading up my wave. Within a mile, on the bike, I got into a battle with Rich Brady (www.tri-monkey.co.uk), which would last the rest of the race. The bike course is 7.5miles out and back along the North Coast Atlantic Highway – fantastic name- up on the tops of the north coast overlooking Padstow.

So 7.5miles grinding up hill, and then 7.5miles flying back down to Wadebridge, I was averaging around 21mph at the turnaround and got that up to nearly 25 by T2, which gives some idea of the average speed on the way back, long periods topping 70kmph is a tad dicey with a big offshore cross wind and 808's. After a bit of cat and mouse I finally took the lead back from Rich in the last mile, to lead by 10secs into T2, just taking the fastest bike split.

By this stage it was a two man race, two quick T2’s and we had a 800m downhill run into Wadebridge town itself, over the bridge and out along the Camel trail towards Padstow. I hit mile one in 6 mins and knew that wasn’t going to be enough to hold him off. Sure enough a couple of minutes late he came past me looking to be cruising. By the turn around the he had me for 16secs and my training buddy Darren's comments about me never winning a race were ringing in my ear!!

I tried to relax and pick the cadence up, sure enough I started to creep back at him. I was within 5 secs by the town and then on his shoulder at the bottom of the hill to the finish. I sat on his shoulder for the 1st half of the hill, matching his pushes, then with 400m’s to go I surged as hard as I could. Thankfully I went past with enough pace that he didn’t respond and I was able to cruise home for a 10 second win.

I had a good chat with Rich afterwards and found out he is off to IM Florida in 3 weeks, just 3 weeks before I go to Arizona, good luck to him out there. It'll be very interesting to see how he gets on.

Seems there is a very healthy tri scene at home in Cornwall, I might get back for a few more races next year, if you’re down that way for a break check out www.tri-cornwall.org.uk for great races all through the year.

Me me it was a great confidence builder, it's good to see that even with all the training concentrating on long slow stuff I have picked a bit of speed up too.

Straight back to it now for a few tough weeks; a 200k ride and a 2hr bike, 1hr run, 2hr, 1hr run brick being the fun to look forward to over the next two weekends. Thanks Dave!