Llandudno Sea Triathlon

My first triathlon of the season, in at the deep end with a World Championship Age Group qualifier, the Llandudno Sea Triathlon.  Sprint distance with a brutal swim in freezing, choppy waters (awesome fun!), a hilly and technical bike course (scary fun!) and a reasonably flat run (flat fun?).

I made sure I didn’t go off too fast as I usually do on the swim and tucked in behind the leaders, came out the water 3rd and felt reasonably fresh going into T1.  Although Draft Legal this course has very little opportunity to benefit from drafting due to the fact that we were very spread out and the laps are essentially up the Great Orme and back down.  That said I was surprised at the benefit I got for a short while when I tucked in behind a guy who overtook me on the first ascent.

Bike went ok, was passed by about 6 guys, still my weaker discipline but I’m definitely stronger this year.  Descending towards the end of the bike leg allowed the heart rate to calm down a bit and I felt strong on the run where I ran the 3rd fastest leg, sub 20min 5km and regained a couple of places.   Finishe7th out of 37 in Age Group. The top 4 in each Age Group qualify automatically and with one guy ahead of me not registered it looks like I’m sitting 6th at 102.9% of the winners time.  So, with my goal being to benchmark myself against the best this year there is possibly a slim chance of a fastest loser spot.  Got one more shot at the final qualifier in Redcar in 5 weeks time

Sandy Whisker

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About Kate Wallace

I've always been involved with sport of some description, particularly adrenaline sports (skiing, boarding, kite-surfing, bungi jumps, parachute jumps, mountain biking) and endurance events (7 marathons, lots of halfs, Caledonian Challenge, London to Brighton bike ride, Moonwalk, played/coached rugby), but I'm relatively new to triathlon as it's actually taken the place of other sports after a couple of bad accidents! Although looking at the biographies of all you other Viceroys I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that all I've done are a few team traitahlons (running or cycling leg) and a couple of super sprints and sprints on my own, I'm hoping that being a Viceroy might persuade me that swimming in open water over 400m is actually possible. Read more about me in the May 2012 Triathlon Plus: http://www.triradar.com/2012/04/09/were-inspired-by-kate-wallace/