‘I turned up at Stowe School to see some of the most amazing sights, stunning buildings, perfect playing fields and blue skies.

The swim was good but the water was so dark that drafting was incredibly hard, I struggled to see the person in front. However, the two laps soon passed, then it got hard as I cramped getting out of my wetsuit, before an 800m run uphill to to the bikes, whilst carrying my wet wetsuit.

The bike was a long 60k undulating course, however the wind and the road surface made it feel almost alpine. The two laps passed and heading towards transition I saw a red flag and several emergency vehicles. An accident had closed the road, this required a 2.5k diversion. However I was so tired it took me several minutes to understand the instructions. As this bike ride came to a finish there was one last surprise – an evil short sharp climb, pure evil.

Then the run, I expected it to be hilly, but hadn’t prepared to run down hill, it’s bloody hard, worse than uphill! Strangely I was told the standard tri was a 3 lap run so I eased off, until I learnt it was actually only 2 then I finished as hard as I could. I finished 4th in AG and 13th male. As tough as it was it was an incredibly picturesque and beautiful race, for my first Olympic distance race it was a tough introduction, but I didn’t show weakness.’

As raced and reported by Tim Ferguson