Time for a little sprint

 After the Kitzbuhel blues, and quite a while without a race, I thought I would ease myself back into the fold with a sprint.

However...I had not anticipated the trauma sustained to my achilies at the Inter-Service Track and Field Championships the previous Wednesday. I intended to do the swim and bike only, and I should have listened to my own advice (who ever does!) and not taken my trainers with me...

Into the deep

Another very early start, arrival and registration all went very smoothly. Set up in transition was stress free, and due to it being quite a small event I was confident I would be able to find my bike. It was really great to see so many hands go up at the race brief when "who's first triathlon is this?" was asked. I really hope they all caught the bug! And not the bug in the water (more on that later)...

Swim
Terrible as always. At least this was only 750m, and with so many novices I thought it would be fairly friendly - WRONG! I got my head fully dunked after about 50m, then my ankles grabbed (definitely not by accident) and then a swift punch to the face! A little extra trepidation was added to the swim after being told that there was a parasite in the water which causes 'swimmers itch'. Basically this parasite lives in water, and will try and lay its eggs in your skin. From what I have researched you don't then become some sort of walking parasite house, and they die quite quickly, but it can just make you itchy! Out of the water and a loooong old run to transition. Really glad I brought an extra pair of trainers as it was pretty gravelly and I managed to run past a few people exuding a lot of "ooch, aah, owww, ouch" sounds.

End in sight - getting pretty warm too!

Bike
I was really looking forward to racing the bike as I was determined I wasn't going to run so I could really go for it. However the course was pretty flat and I tend to switch off when there is no hill. I was catching people though which is always fun and definitely a motivator. Managed to stay in the TT position most of the course except some corners (still need to work on bike handling!) 

Run
Yes...I ran (bad athlete) but only at a plod really. The course was off-road which helped, and I wasn't feeling any pain so I just kept it steady and plodded on. I finished as the 1st Lady which is always a welcome confidence boost, and even got a prize donated by Wokingham Lexus which was pretty cool.

Love this photo
My poor other half supporting and photo-ing

Goody Bag
The medal was absolutely gigantic! And the post race goody bag had some good items, a flapjack and some face cream and the obligatory flyers. One of which was for Miles Stronger who make these really cool bar-code t-shirts for Park Run! 

There is this really cool video from the event. Someone had a remote control UAV type camera which got some really unique footage of the race. Very impressed with how high it got too! 

Thanks for all the great marshaling and officials who made the event possible :) 
'Grey Snapper' photos
'Sports Alive' photos

Results