Tri Hards : Podium Finish

9^th August – it used to be my Grandma’s birthday and I think this year her grandchildren would have made her proud. Sunday turned out to be a successful day at the Nyon Triathlon in Switzerland and at the Peterborough Regatta in the UK.

George has been back on the water this summer after a winter of injury and recovery (more to come soon about George and his progress following on from last year’s blog Eat. Sleep. Row. Repeat.). He had a successful weekend of competing at the Peterborough Regatta. He entered three events: a single, a double and a quad race and won all three. This helped Nottingham Rowing Club win the Victor Ludorum.

Sunday was also the Nyon Triathlon. Nyon is situated between Lausanne and Geneva on Lac Léman. Jake Gough and Lottie Pridham kicked off the day in the sprint triathlon. They are ski instructors during the winter. Jake is also a personal trainer and Lottie is a fitness fanatic. Both of them are based in Verbier – check out their website/Facebook page: Jake  & Lottie. Jake finished in 1hr20 and Lottie was hot on his heels with a time of 1hr22. She came 13^th out of 85 and he, 59^th out of 190 in their respective categories.

Tess’s (cycling member of our team relay) brother competed in the Pro League sprint event. After having to pull out of Zurich and having a nasty crash in Alpe d’Huez that resulted with stitches in his elbow, completing the Nyon course was high on Jack’s agenda. A hard swim meant having to make up time on the bike, but he pulled through and came 12^th. I think he was very happy and relieved! It was a shame our event was starting so soon after his as we needed to go and register and sort ourselves out and  weren’t able to watch and support Jack as much as we would have liked. It’s inspiring stuff watching the pro’s.

Our relay kicked off at 14h. Tess approached me a few weeks ago with the idea of doing the relay event and I jumped at it; what with me still having a weak ankle and not prepared to do an individual triathlon, combined with the fact that Tess is ace on a bike and Emma has some serious running skills, it seemed like the perfect event for us to enter.

I started us off with the swim. I made sure I was out to the side so as not to get kicked in the face. There was a pretty strong current and there didn’t seem to be many people around to know where you were going. I felt I zig-zagged my way around the course despite keeping an eye out for the yellow and red buoys we had to swim around. It was disorientating, but the volunteers on the paddle-boards and rescue boats did a good job of trying to direct us in the right direction. The run up to the transition area was LONG and STEEP! Seeing Tess waving manically was a relief and we quickly swapped the timing chip from my leg to hers and she was off. Transitioning as a team is so much easier than individually – no faffing with wetsuits and shoes/trainers and helmets. We were much slicker than my attempt in Rumilly in May…ahem. I swam the 1.5km in 28 minutes, 1:30 behind the leading girl.

Jack had advised Tess to get a quick first lap, settle into a steady pace and finish hard. Her first lap only took her about 15 minutes! She flew round the 42.5km course in 1hr13, putting us into first position. She cycled 7 minutes faster than the 2^nd girl. Not only that, she would have also come 4^th in the men’s relay, too!

Another quick transition and Emma was off. Not long after she had set off, a guy with his bike came up to Tess and me. Tess turned to me with a grin on her face and whispered ‘I over took him!’ And boy did he know it… He looked at Tess and said “tu fais un peu de vélo, toi?” Tess just giggled and blushed, not really understanding what he was saying. I answered for her saying that yes, she did happen to do a bit of a cycling (you know, just 700 odd metres of vertical every morning to commute to work, on top of other training after work). He wandered off looking a bit peeved.

Our chief cheerleader, bag carrier and Emma’s friend, Pike, did an excellent job all day to help us out – sadly he was so busy taking photos of us we failed to get one of him. Together we were trying to work out what sort of time Emma would run the 10.2k in and when to expect her round. Emma is brilliant at long distance running. She has put down some brilliant times for marathons and to celebrate her 30^th she even ran 3 marathons over 3 days, finishing 4^th out of the girls. She did the 30k Verbier St-Bernard trail run this summer, too. However, she had never done a 10k race before and had no idea what sort of time she was going to do – “I can run for a long time, but slowly”. Well, she lied. She smashed round the course in 46 minutes.

Alas! The team who won (Triathlon Fribourg – they had matching outfits and everything!) obviously had a sneaky runner who crept past Miss Bodkin without her realising and we came second. We were only a minute behind them and those who came third were 28 minutes behind us. There were big smiles all round as we were awarded with medals and backpacks full of goodies.

I loved the relay event and the other girls did, too. There was talk of repeating it next year or doing another one later this season. It’s a fantastic event if you’ve got three of you who enjoy a particular discipline each, to share the competitiveness and to inspire each other to do well.

Tess is off to do some cycling races in the UK towards the end of the summer/autumn. Emma is on a mission to get even faster. For me, well, I signed up for my first individual Olympic distance triathlon in Lausanne in less than two weeks. The plan until then is to keep eating well, resting well and not injuring myself. Hopefully my training will fall into place around resting and eating properly all the time, as for me, those areas are my weaknesses.

Well done everybody, it was a great weekend!