Viceroys Adel, James, Karl, Yann, Lara and Kate all headed to London Triathlon with very different expectations and experiences. Our most seasoned triathletes Adel and James competed alongside the likes of Yann, Karl, Lara and Kate all of who were attempting their first London and first Olympic too for the latter three.

Adel enjoyed the swim and the cycling but found running very hard, particularly lap1 and then in lap2 he ran into a traffic cone and fell over! Adel tells us:’But I rolled over straight back onto my feet. Pity there was no camera about, I am sure it looked good bear in mind I am not a stuntman…it was nice to hear the encouragements of the runners behind me. Last years race went slightly better, but I am pleased with my result and I achieved my race goal with 2.48h.

What a fantastic event and I am going sign up for next year!’

Next was the turn of Karl and Yann, Karl tells his story:

‘I did my first Big Boys Olympic Tri on Sunday. What an experience, I thoroughly enjoyed the battle physical and mental of pulling it off. What a result – 2:32:48. One image I will never erase from my mind is Karen’s (my wife) face when I came out of the swim @ 33 minutes, we were expecting between 40 and 45 mins, she had to pick up her chin from the ground and completely missed a great photo opportunity and almost fainted in shock (all at once). The bike ride was just amazing, so glad I put on the tri-bars/bottle (it really helped with head wind we had on the route to westminster and hydrate properly) did the cycle 1:06, had a great run 43:58 and been eating non-stop since. So for the next one I am going to shoot for a sub 2:30, and need to work on those damn transitions – taking me tooooooooooooo long.’

And finally Lara:

‘Almost a year ago I signed up to do the London triathlon and in that brief moment I thought I’d do the Olympic distance having only done sprints before. My reasoning was I’d have ages to train………well that didn’t quite go to plan!

In the swim brief Kate and I were madly looking for Jon who had been sent on a mission to find new goggles. Being worried that Kate may have to swim 1.5k breaststroke took the fear away of what I’d let myself into! Fortunately Jon came to the rescue lastminute.com!

The swim started ok, a fair few arms and legs but I was ready for them. I wasn’t quite ready for the whole swim to be a fight though. I got to the end buoys quite quick and felt really good, but the swim back felt like it went on forever. Not helped by a guy who consistently tried to barge me off the magic toes I was following. Remembered to kick my legs and gulp my suit on the way out!

Out of the water I was prepared for a long jog to transition, but stairs?! I felt kinda ruined jogging with a heavy Santa sack full of wetsuit when I got to my bike. For some reason I just couldn’t get the two ends of my helmet strap to snap together either.

Onto the bike, I’d practised a ‘flying mount’ much to the amusement of my neighbours the day before. It went pretty well, not massively fast, but I didn’t fall on my face!

Someone said the bike course was flat – they lied! It was so windy at one point it felt like my bike was going from under me. At the turning point it seemed less windy and more downhill, reaching 34mph through the tunnel was pretty cool.

I would have loved to ‘spin my legs’ before the run but the hill / mountain to get back to transition didn’t make it possible.

I’d been dreading the run as I’ve never run 10k before. As it got closer to race day I didn’t want to attempt it for fear I couldn’t do it. All I kept thinking on the bike was ‘I’ve got to run 10k.’

It took a while before my legs would work, and when they did my shoes chewed through my feet. I stopped by St Johns to get plasters, which didn’t really help, and got through the run thanks to everyone shouting words of encouragement (I was in a charity tshirt with my name on it).

Finished in 2 hours 46 – swim 27 mins, bike 1 hour 14, run 57 mins. Wanted to complete it in under 3 hours as my sprints are around 1 hour 30 so I was well happy. Training definitely works! Thanks team Viceroys and coach Mark. I may even do another Olympic!’