London Tri - Nicky Samuels
18 August 2009
Hello, it has been a few days of adventure, a lot of getting lost, a race which went as about expected and now I am back at the airport to head to Australia.
The race day was a nice day as far as London's weather goes, in fact the whole weekend was lovely! Saturday at 10am was the start time so I left the apartment I was staying at at 8.20 am and made the 30min cycle in to the course. I got a little lost on the way (should have taken about 20mins!). Not ideal for race morning! But finding the right gate for Hyde park was always a challenge with so many gates having no cycling sections! Anyway the race start was somewhat cold as the water temperature was a surprising 21 degrees. When it is a shallow duck pond I guess it flutuates a lot depending on the latest weather! The water was dark and dirty as expected and I chose to start on the right hand side of the pontoon. I was right in the front of the swim until the first bouy turn where a whole bunch went on the inside and I was on the outside, they went past me just like that on the first two bouys and I was left in the struggle, not ideal! So I was well behind out of the water but cycled with my group up to the lead pack.
The cycle was rather dangerous, we had a group of about 25. The cornering was terribly slow, the accelerations hard, the bumps on the course causing problems such as cracked wheels, lost drink bottles, or in my case broken drink bottle holders! ek! I was glad to get through the bike, unfortunately on the last lap a group of 17 or so caught ours, and the group behind that was split into many as a crash sent bikes and athletes flying. So it was a big group as expected and again came down to the running section.
I came off the bike near the front of the group, had a reasonable transition and headed out on the run, my legs felt a bit fatigued in the first section but came right for the second lap where I tried to push on. I was in a group of five athletes so we tried to share the work a bit as it was a windy day. During the run my feet developed the best (AKA worst!) blisters you have ever seen on the soles of my feet, not ideal, I recommend keeping the innersoles of your shoes in them not taking them out! In the final lap I surged ahead to try and close the gap of one of the girls in our group that was putting in a hard effort but I think this is what blew me up and I found myself dropped from the group of runners and struggling to hold on. I ran 35.22 finishing in 24th position.
Right now I am at the airport heading first to Singapore and then onto Australia. A lot of sitting down for a triathlete!
Thanks for your continued support, I now inspire to have a very good build up in Australia for the World Series Finale in September! Fingers crossed, cheers, Nicky
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