Ripon Olympic Triathlon, Sunday 14th July 2007

Always follow the instructions...Report by Michelle Harvie

I arrived at a very waterlogged Ripon race course to undertake my 3rd Olympic triathlon, first for 2 years, and my first without my faithful shopping bike. Would it pour with rain (again)? How windy would it be on the bike? Would the exertions of a mountain marathon last weekend and 2 sessions of military fitness this week catch up with this ageing athlete?

I registered along with about 400 others, though not the 2 Man Tri members who did not materialise. I was competing with my partner Mark. We had arrived in plenty of time to set up, look at the course and transitions and to make some running repairs with duck tape to my trainers which had just started to fall apart!

We were in the 2nd yellow capped wave at 2.10 pm. The swim was quite tepid (by Welsh Freeze standards), very shallow and weedy in places, but swimmable. The exit was very swampy but a helpful team of wet suit un zippers were on route to transition. To the frustration of one of the marshals, I spent the next 4-5 minutes drying my toes and changing into my cycling gear, before trying to rush(?) out of transition without my race belt & number. Finally after 37 minutes I was out onto the windy bike course. I managed to pick off a few mountain bikes, but was overtaken by quite a few more cyclists. Near the mid way point, I found myself alone heading somewhat implausibly for a busy dual carriageway. "This could not be right" - I doubled back to the last marshal who promptly sent back the same way, a few irritating minutes later. The route did indeed carry on along a dual carriageway (the old A1), to the turn around point. Eventually after 44 km (long bike course) and a fairly unimpressive 1.42 minutes I reached the race course, where I picked up a 2 minute time penalty for cycling a few metres over the dismount line. Finally out for the run in my duck taped shoes, just in time for the only sunshine we had seen for weeks. Despite the heat I managed to gain quite a few places and crossed the finish line after 44.44 minutes finishing overall as 37th out of 66 women, and 13th out of 22 in my age category.

The race has a great atmosphere, is relatively cheap to enter (£30) and has the sociable start time of 2.00 pm on Saturday. It is sponsored by Black Sheep Ale, but you don’t get any samples in your goodie bag. I would recommend it.

There are prizes for Clydesdale men and Athena women (who respectively need to weigh at least 200 or 175 pounds). Next year I will make sure I know the route and the transition points. It might even be worth eating a few pies to go for the coveted Athena prize!

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