Eton SuperSprints - 2008

Seems that all the races are coming thick and fast at the moment....I still have two 25 mile TT's for the next two weekends and then it is Windsor Triathlon again. This weekend though, it was time for the Eton SuperSprints which are held at Dorney Lake just outside London. The venue provides an almost perfect setting for racing, with calm water, flat good surfaces and no traffic. However, the popularity of these events (over 2500 people competing over two days at this one) mean that the bike leg can get especially busy.

Anyway, after the result in Lisbon I had pretty much done no training, apart form the odd easy ride whilst in Portugal so felt no where near as prepared as I would normally be for this one. I had probably also piled on a couple of pounds in my post European success, but I figured it was only a short race so hopefully things would be okay. This race was however also set to be the Club Champs race for Thames Turbo...as in the person with the fastest time over the two days would be crowned as the Thames Turbo Sprint Race Champ for the year. Having seen some of the times from Saturday, I knew that I would need to put in a good performance to be able to get close to it this year.

The swim is 400m and before the horn went off, I was pretty sure that I would be able to do a good time, even though I had not been in the water for a week, normally a bad sign. Anyway, the end result was rubbish...getting out in 5:43 was not that great, but at least I was near the leaders going on to the bike. I struggled to find my cord on my suit and this added some valuable seconds on to my T1.

The bike felt good though and I knew that I was lapping at a pretty decent pace, I was just not sure if it was actually going to be fast enough in the end - there had been a load of good times posted on the Saturday so I was mostly just trying to ride and beat those times. In the end, I came in with the second fastest split of the day, which I was pleased with.





When I started the run, my legs were not feeling that great, but as I had done at the Turbo race, I decided to just slowly try and increase my speed. Again, this seemed to work a lot better and by the end, I was putting in some of my fastest km's. The only problem is, they were just not fast enough really. My run time was much further down the leaderboard so I think I need to do some more work on it, especially so that I don't lose so much time at the start of the run leg.





Anyway, my time of 54:42 for the race was enough to give me the 3rd fastest time of the day and the 4th fastest out of the 2500 racers over the weekend. The best bit was that I just managed to get the Club Champ honours as well...by a mere 9 seconds from last year's winner. I won my AG as well and this got me £50 in vouchers...which Paula used.