Bishopbriggs Krystal Klear Sprint Triathlon

On Sunday 3rd May I entered Bishopbriggs Krystal Klear Sprint Triathlon. I was really looking forward to it. It was my first triathlon since Gullane in July last year and I wanted to test myself out. A sprint triathlon involves 750m Swim, 20k bike and 5k run.

My goal for the day was to get a faster time than my last sprint tri, which was 1.25, race on my new bike for the first time and to check out my fitness after a winter of training.

Swim

The swim takes place in swimming pool, rather than open water, which was great because it felt quite cool outside. When you enter, you say what your swim time will be. I took my time from last year, 12.50, and took 20 seconds off. I have done more swimming this year so I hooped that it would make me quicker. I chatted to a girl, Suzanne, I met in training about her entry time and started to think that I should have put a faster time down. The format of the race means that you swim with 4 or 5 others all who have entered a similar swim time. You start in the pool, with different colour hats on and go at 5 second intervals. I'm glad to say that I was the starter in my lane, when the whistle went I was off. It became clear to me that I had miss-judged my swim time pretty early on as I pulled away from the man behind me. By the end of the swim I had lapped one chap twice, and others at least once, maybe twice too. I was the this out of the pool which felt really good, really strong.

T1

Ok, no records just number, helmet, shoes, unrack bike and go.

Bike

I had my new bike with me today. I haven't been out on it much at all so I was always going to be a bit slower that I could be. The course was pretty slow. It was an out and back thing that you did 4 loops of. What made it slow was the turn by transition, it was more like a chicane with a right, left, 180 turn round a cone, right, left and off again.

(Taken by Alister Russell)

I was a nearly half way through my third lap when I noticed a body being attended too on the verge. It was Suzanne, one of the girls from our team. She was being attended to so I carried on, my plan was to get medical attention to her when I got to the marshal at the far turn around, but when I turned the corner in the road they were already driving towards me. I don't know whether I did a bad thing carrying on, I had only met her the day before. When I got to the turn around by transition, I shouted to her coach and friends that she was down but had medical attention. When I cycled past her she was sat up. I shouted was she ok. She said yes, get a move on.

T2

Again, ok. Rack bike, remove helmet, change shoes and off.

Run

The run went well. I just ran at the pace that felt ok. I have no concept of how fast I was actually going. Nobody past me for quite a while, which was good. I came to a sign that said 2k and I got a bit demoralised, I felt like I had gone further, but I was in my stride so I picked up the pace. 1k later there was a sign saying 1k! I don't know if I missed 2 other count down markers or if these were the only ones but, boy, it helped me. I picked up my pace again, over took some folks and dug in. I started to lose it again towards the end, got re taken by a chap. The supports start to to shout 'dig in, your nearly there' so I dug. I heard a familiar voice from our team, so I sprinted! It felt good.

Final time? 1.22.34

Swim: 12.07, T1: 1.04, Bike: 43.39, T2: 0.53, Run: 24.48

And Suzanne?

31 stitches later!