Five intrepid Viceroys headed down to LLandudno in Wales for the ITU qualifiers… or just a nice break by the seaside, depending on who you’re speaking to. Hills, jellyfish and huge transitions seem to be the one experience each triathlete shared though.

The sea was a chilly 12 degrees, however jellyfish collisions were far more of a worry. Em and Colin were both victims of this Welsh predator, but it did not stop either of them. For Colin, the race had an ideal start, with a long swim to the start help to settle his pre-race nerves, setting for the final roll of the dice in the last chance saloon of world championships sprint qualification. Trevor, Alex and Fab’s swims went well (apart from some goggle failure for Fab) – Trevor taking particular pride in his race tactics: ‘I normally start at the front in the swim but because of the number of much younger swimmers I started just behind the first line. This proved to work well as I was able to draft off quite a large group and then actually overhauled some of them to finish 2nd out of the water in my age group.’

Colin’s most vivid swim memory:‘my face and neck stinging like fury – “feck… that smarts like feck, feck… that smarts …. and repeat…”. ‘

After an incredibly long transition, the bike leg was all about the hills for all 5 competitors. Blind corners, snaking roads, cliffs, rough road surfaces, scattered pot holes did not stop Alex reaching a maximum race  speed of over 70kph! . Meanwhile, Trevor at the top of on ascent remembers thinking : ‘how the F–k am I going to do the second lap! Then came the descent and I bottled it! my brakes were red hot by the time I got down.’  Continue reading →