Redcar Sprint Triathlon – 31 Jul 11

This was the first running of this race. It consists of a 750m sea swim and was my main reason for entering. With Ironman Wales in September having a sea swim and never having swum any sort of distance in the sea before I thought it might be a good idea to enter and get an idea. Being a sprint event meant that doing the Outlaw the week before shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The swim was a mass start, with only 150 entrants this wasn’t really a mass start, and consisted of going past 3 buoys before returning to the start point. The first buoy was only about 75m in and the water was so shallow that I managed to run most of the way towards it before starting to swim. I exited the water in around 13:30 which was a pretty good swim for me. However, my swim time of 15:10 included the 200m run across the beach into T1 where I managed to overtake 2 slightly quicker swimmers. T1 was very brief, 35 secs, as I only had to take off my wetsuit, grab my bike and run out. Once out of transition we turned 180 degree and ran past transition before getting to the mount line. It was at this point that a spectator shouted that I didn’t have my helmet on. A rookie mistake that I quickly rectified by nipping back into transition at the run out point. Fortunately I was located at this end so could grab my helmet and get on my bike without any marshals or referees noticing.

I then managed to get on my bike and get on with the race. The route consisted of 6 laps of a closed circuit for the 21km. This headed south, around a large roundabout, back past transition heading north to a turnaround point around a few cones and then head back to transition. This was a great route for just getting my head down and cycling as hard as I could, especially as I was a bit annoyed after forgetting my helmet. As it was such a short route, just about 3.5km per lap, there always seemed to be somebody to chase down, whether they were on the same lap or not. The route also helped with crowds, especially around transition where there was a lot of support. All of this helped in completing the bike course in 35:39 which was better than I thought I would do. T2 was also very quick for me, 31secs, as I again refused to use socks.

The run route is as flat as the cycle. It heads south from transition for 2.5km before turning around a marshal and returning to transition and the finish line. Within the first kilometre I felt very tired after pushing quite hard on the bike only seven days after an iron distance race. As one or two others tried to overtake I decided to push as hard as I could. Within the next 2km I overtake a number of others but found myself running the last 2km all on my own. At the finish the person in front of me was 40secs ahead, the one after me was almost 30secs behind. The 5km run took 21:27, which I was fairly happy with, and meant the race took 1:13:22 finishing in 37th position.

For the first running of the race it went well. The closed roads and short circuits all help to keep triathletes of all levels interested and is definitely recommended to anyone considering a sea swim sprint triathlon.

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