Beachborough Triathlon Club have 7 confirmed South Central representatives for the IRC event at this years nationals in Sunderland. This is an amazing achievement and it’s all down to the dedication of our coaches and triathletes over the past few years.
All those early Saturday mornings, evenings in the pool and run training at the track (Banbury Harriers) are paying off – keep up the good work and good luck to all those competing, we are very proud!
IRC Qualifiers
T2 Girls
Mollie and Jess
TS Boys
Lewis and Joshua
T3 Girls
Hannah and Charlotte
T3 Boys
Thomas
Henry and Whistley’s first open water triathlon
School holidays are now here! Which is great from both my sister’s and my point of view. Unfortunately, this meant we were both at sleepovers and Mum & Dad were at a wedding the night before, so we were all very tired with an early start on race day.
After a big bowl of porridge, we left our house and arrived at Eton Dorney at 9:30. We were registered at 10:00 and we racked our bikes at 10:30. There were two sets of races for TS2, one was the casual group, and one was IRC (the league for those who are looking to compete nationally.) When I was racking my bike, they had to check my gears because if I were racing in IRC my gears could be used as an unfair advantage. This was new and we had not had this check at any of the previous 5 triathlons. We also came with cross tyres and not smooth road tyres so it would be a good idea for the event organisers to provide course surface info in their pack.
It was our first open water triathlon, so we weren’t expecting to do well. Usually, you wear wet suits in an open water triathlon, but the water was too warm to be wearing a wet suit, so we went in our normal swimsuits.
The distance for TS2’s is normally 200m swim, 4km bike and 2km run but this time it was a 5km bike. The other new aspect was that we usually cycle on grass but this time we cycled on the tarmac which was a lot faster.
We were told to get in the water and when everyone went in for a mass in water start there was so much thrashing around in the water that we did not hear them say ‘Go’. My sister fears deep water where she cannot see the floor and was concerned that unknown things lurking underneath would get her. But this time there were so many people that she was not scared. I overtook 5 people in the swim and 15 in the bike I overtook 2 people on the run, and I was not overtaken by anyone so thought I had a good race but a very slow start. It was the first event where you knew your position in the field as we all started together, and I preferred this we also liked that there was only one bike lap so did not have to count them.
If I were doing it again, I would try to start the swim at the front of the pack to avoid being kicked in the face and whacked by thrashing arms.
In summary, it was a tiering triathlon, but I came 15th out of the boys and 23rd overall and my sister came 13th out of the girls and 35th overall including IRC competitors.
Race report written by Henry, T2
