National Aquathlon - Salford

Having raced and trained hard over the winter, I decided coming into the summer that I would do something different to stop myself just drifting whilst waiting for the xc season to start again… Aquathlon was one event that was mentioned to me (by he who will not be named!) and as it combined 2 things that I can do, ie swimming and running I thought that I would give it a shot!

My first foray into this multi-sport from a small low key Thames Turbo event, which I didn’t do too badly at, so I decided to head to the nationals to see just where I am at, and to get some idea of what it is all about!

So on Saturday evening I found myself standing on the Quayside in Salford… unsurprisingly it was raining, but following in the footsteps of IMDE it was surprisingly a non-wetsuit swim… hey if you guys could do it over 3.8km, bring on 750m!!!

The starting hooter went and before I could put more than a couple of strokes together I was left for dead… the whipper-snappers of the 20-24 age group (plus a few others), had shot down the quay… Now I am not a bad swimmer, not Olympic standard, but I can usually hold my own, so I was a little in shock at this time as to how I seemed to end up swimming along without a sole to draft off… but there was nothing I could do except, get on with the task in hand, and hope that thing would improve on the run!! Coming out of the water, I discovered that I had actually had a good swim by my standards, going through the first 400m in 5:44 and completing the 750m swim somewhere in the region of 11:45… but then the fun began!

Okay, so maybe practicing transistions is a good idea, but there is nought like entertaining the crowds… so after very dizzily putting on my first shoe, I just couldn’t seem to connect the second one with my foot, so ended up having to sit down to put it on (okay H. I will no longer laugh at your Bala transistion!)… that done and I was out on the run…phew!
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