So after the London Duathlon I thought I had 2 weeks to the Brighton Marina Tri – I got my dates wrong and it was actually only a week. So, I had a week training on very sore legs only to get a nasty sickness bug mid week which made me question the tri would even be possible. I thought, oh well last one of the season if I walk round its not far.

The tri is 1km Swim in the marina, 32km bike up into the downs and then an 8km run on the undercliff.  Raceday was a 5am start from where I was staying locally. Got my number, racked up and no real drama it was a nice little event and transition was in an asda car park. It was a straight forward out and back swim but this is the first OW swim in 8 weeks and my first race of the season with a swim. So off we went and I had forgotten all of the coaches wise words for the first 200m while I splashed about, on the turn around I eventually calmed down and went back to swimming normally and started working my way up but only for a midpack finish.

It was a 5-600m run back to transition which isnt nice, out on the bike for the hilly course and they were not wrong when they said, “Drafting not an issue the hills will see to that!”  The 2 main loops were around 7 miles each with 4.5 miles of it being up. At the top of the last main climb was a little switchback turn at a traffic light which strava has 24.1% – It was only about 30m but god, this sucked. Anyhow, bike was fine and back into transition…

The run was a nice out and back and I just stuck on the heels of a very fast lady (thanks who ever you are) and I finished the run 32.37 for the 8km which I was pretty chuffed with as this is the first time I have gone sub 7 in a tri run and only the track sessions to thank for that.

Overall time was 1.59.11, pretty happy to finish under 2hrs. I was 30/111 overall.

Time for the winter training plan to commence

As raced and reported by Dennis Parker