Italian Club Triathlon, 3 Oct 2020
I honestly thought this year of hard training would pass by without me getting the chance to finally try my first triathlon race. With race cancellations in the UK first, and my unplanned move to Italy next, I’d lost all hopes of experiencing race feels. In the last month or so I had lost most of my motivation to get out, or on the turbo, and sweat.
Luckily, though, I happened to run into a bit of a superwoman while getting a bike fit two weeks ago. She’s an Italian age-group triathlon champion, a multiple Ironman finisher, and generally-speaking a badass 50-year-old woman - I didn’t even know we had women triathletes in my region... It’s such a niche sport!
Long-story-short, she took me under her wing, and last week she basically dragged me to her tri club’s race, with a two-hour-notice. Was I ready for it? Certainly not. [It was a surprise to me too! Tim] This would be my first tri race and I didn’t even have all the equipment ready for it - I eventually swam in my cycling shorts and a top!
But I did it anyway. I thought that doing an informal club race would have been a much better way to learn the basics of tri racing, prepping and transitions. And I was right. Trying tri in a club race first is what I’d advise to all triathlon novices. It’s all about learning, support and having fun. No pressure at all. Then you might also come first, like I did (in my drenched cycling bib shorts) to my own surprise!
The weather that day was awful. Despite living by the east coast in southern Italy, I somehow felt like I was back in England for the whole race.
We did a mini-sprint: a 400-meter-swim, which I completed quite quickly, and without having trained in the discipline for a few months; followed by 20km on the bike and a scary 33km/h headwind; and a 3k run to finish.
It felt good to finally challenge myself despite lack of equipment, training (I’d only been training on the turbo of late and not doing nay running due to a knee problem) and the weather. But it definitely brought back my motivation to train and plan new goals for the year ahead. Bring it on!
Mirianna La Grasta
Library pictures with much better weather than for the event!
