With no small amount of nerves and the rest of the club living it up in Windsor, Ian Talbot snuck under the radar to the wilds of Norfolk to make his first ever attempt at an Olympic distance tri after having tasked Coach Yeo (last October) with getting him in decent enough shape to: ‘wangle my way under the 3 hour mark. At that time my best individual, one-off times for the 3 disciplines would have seen me doing a 3 hours 10 so you see the size of the task !
Having hosted a super sprint and a sprint on the Saturday the venue was still buzzing come Sunday’s sparrow’s fart as I eased the bike etc into some very full racking with no little amount of nervousness at what lay ahead. The swim was a straight rectangle in a clear, perfect temperature lake mixed with some enthusiastic, amateur martial artists due to the somewhat slim starting gate which saw me lose my goggles after about 50 metres (don’t worry, I got them – and him – back !)
Ian Conquers First Olympic Distance Tri
The slow 300m uphill from the swim exit to transition was an early indication of where my running legs were at but I was soon out on the bike and pushed round a flat-ish, 2 lap course enjoying actually overtaking people on “hills” for once. These East Anglians clearly don’t go on training camps to Lanzarote – preferring to stay on the climate-change endangered flatlands of their home county. A 3 lap cross-country run followed which tested the ankles with several tree roots, gravel traps, wayward golfers and a prone, cramp laden sexagenarian who urged all who offered assistance to “just get your arse to the finish – I’ll be fine”
Which I did – and he was.
The time ?
2 hours, 53 minutes, some seconds
Cheers to the Yeocoach – 2 out of 2 targets for the year hit….. one to go !’
