There’s nothing worse than the thought of the first race of the season. Not knowing how the winter’s training has gone or ‘what the hell am I doing racing in this cold’. With many starting their seasons off with some duathlons, I resisted and stuck to my plan.

Besides the early rain and low air temperatures I was feeling positive about racing. Although pool based triathlons don’t allow me enough to capitalise on my swim speed I knew going off last that I could chase everyone down for added motivation. My new Huub swim skin gave me the early edge over the other faster swimmers, setting the fastest swim split of the day. The transition was close to the pool but I still wanted to protect myself from the cold so I opted to put on my gabba top to keep toasty.

Out onto the bike and into the local traffic but this allowed me to find some warmth as my legs were frozen and felt numb. The bike course was a technical twisty affair with numerous left hand turns. I tried to say opened minded about the traffic but you still feel that you are giving away valuable time to the others and once again the fastest bike split. On the second lap I felt stronger and was able to push on. Coming back into transition I was looking to chase down a club mate.

I was unsure how the run would go with cold feet and brand new shoes. Slipping on my colourful Asics Hyper Tri shoes I was hoping that the shoes gods would be giving all the blisters to those doing the London marathon. The run was a three lapper which twisted and turned around the local park. Trail, path and XC all thrown in. Lap one felt sluggish but by lap I felt dare I say, strong. I’ve worked hard on this and by lap three I was pushing on. Light on my feet and passing people at will, I finished with a 18.08 5km so super duper. 1st overall, course record by 5mins.

Super excited about the season now and looking forward to next weeks adventures in Northampton

Thanks for the early support guys.

As raced and reported by Mark Yeoman.