Eton Super Sprints

Before P and I even made it to Eton on the Sunday, there was one thing that we both wanted to do to lessen the shock of what was to come, namely to have a go in open water. The main reason being that the comfort of the pool of Swiss Cottage was going to be replaced by water which was reported to be near to the 10 degrees mark - not a nice prospect. So, on Saturday we headed to the lido and almost had the most expensive swim ever, after one length, I was on the verge of defeat and contemplating getting out...£4 seemed too much though so we soldiered on with ice cream heads for another 20 minutes. In the end, it did not seem too bad. Needless to say, there were people there in speedos...nutters.

After making the often traveled journey to Eton Rowing Lake, we were all set for the first of our triathlons for the 2010 season. I seemed to remember how to do everything, getting my bike set up, sorting the wetsuit and various other things that need taking care of, like remembering where your bike is when you get out of the water! The swim went quite well for the first 100 metres or so, I had made it in to the lead and I event think I was pulling away a bit. This was not really what I had hoped for however, I wanted to be towed around the lake by some good swimmer so that I could just sit on their feet and nab myself a good swim time. My legs pretty much gave up on the last 200m, not really sure why, perhaps I need to kick some more. Anyway, out the water in 1st and on to the best cycling course in triathlon.

The wind was not as bad as the flags were showing and there did not seem to be the normal headwind on the outward stretch which was a good indicator that it may be possible to get a decent ride in. Sadly, the Garmin had decided that it did not want to cooperate today and for the remainder of the race, the only information I had was how much battery life the watch had left...not that useful when you want to know how fast you're going. Still, things seemed to be going okay though and the 56x11 stints on the back straight were good fun.





A quick T2 and I was out on the run. I tried to start off quite hard and I think I paid for this after about 1k when I started to slow down a bit. I think it may be better to build into these short runs a bit more, rather than trying to bolt out of T2 as if I was planning on running a 15 minute 5k. Still, settled down after about 3k and started to up the pace towards the end. By this time, I knew I had won my wave by about 4 minutes but my main aim of the day was to win the day outright by beating all the other waves that took place.





In the end, I came in with a time of 55:41 which was about as good as I could have hoped for - I think I would have been quicker had I known what was going on via the Garmin, but I did have a go and I think I raced okay. Looking back, I should have run a bit quicker as I certainly was not hitting the kind of pace I needed to on a few sections. As for winning the day, that didn't happen either - beaten by a measly 4 seconds in the end. Still, not a bad first race.