I had my first race a fortnight ago at the Marlow Triathlon (Olympic), using it as more of a training race for an adventure race I have this weekend in Scotland, so just thought I’d drop you a bit of an overview!

The swim (always my weakest discipline) was a two lap course of in the river; although I think I must have been swimming upstream for most of it as I clocked 31mins when I finally made it out! The water was warm enough but I struggled to find any room to get into a rhythm, and I think not racing since last season didn’t help.

The bike was an out and back course on Open roads, with a bit of a climb at the turning point which meant that the end of the ‘out’ section was a bit of a plod, but the start of the ‘back’ section was a quick few km! My ‘good’ racing bike had also been taken up to Scotland so I was on my old ‘touring’ bike (I did take off the mud guards and pannier rack, which helped a bit!!), but came in at 1hr 14.

I managed a decent transition into the run, and the track sessions with Mark definitely paid off as my legs felt pretty fresh (…either that, or I hadn’t pushed particularly hard on the bike!). The first half of the lap was a river-side, off-road track which was pretty uneven before turning back on the road to transition. I don’t think I was overtaken on the run, so made up a few places and clocked 40.40.

All in all, it added up to a total time of 2hr 26mins. Definite room for improvement (and I think I’ll take up Mark on his offers of a 1-on-1 swim lesson!), but a really enjoyable race and a decent marker in the sand for the rest of the season.