Dorney Standard Distance Triathlon, 29 Aug 2021

A nice early start for 05:30 registration meant breakfast in two stages, 1st at home then 2nd on arrival at the venue.

Once I got there and had registered I was told that the women would have their own mass start at 07:05, five minutes after the men (something I was happy about as I’ve never done a mass start so the less people the better!).

07:05 came and we were off for the swim, I’d chosen a really good position to start, dead in line with the turning point buoy but all the bodies trying to converge to a similar point left me getting my head dunked at about the 300m mark and swallowing a gallon of water! After a few strokes of breaststroke to get the water out of my lungs and my breathing to a steadier rate I was able to get in to my rhythm and find some open water, finally! This meant the next 1km of the swim was much more enjoyable and I even caught up to some of the men! Out the water at the other end and although not as fast as I had hoped, I was still within the time range I wanted - 1st win of the day!

On to the bike and after a speedy transition it was on to the 8 laps of the very very flat course - my favourite! The first half of the lap runs parallel to the lake so you have lovely views of the water, then the second half loops further back between some bushes and trees.  I used the first lap just to settle my breathing and get in to my groove before pushing on for laps 2-8. I played cat and mouse with a guy, which helped me push on and stay steady with my pace to come back to transition in a time i was super chuffed with (2nd win of the day). I can’t wait to do this bike course again, it’s an absolute dream! 

Finally on to the run, and despite no elastic laces I managed to put my trainers on pretty quickly! The first 2km I had no idea what speed I was going, looking at my watch it didn’t make sense as I couldn’t feel my feet (numb from the bike) and my legs were still in bike mode. But once that wore off the sick feeling started to settle in…yay! I took kilometres 2-6 very, very steady, walking about 20 metres every km just to make sure I wasn’t going to vomit! (I think this might have been from the lake water I ingested rather than my gels, I hope so anyway!) then I began to feel normal again and pootled on, being sensible not to push on too hard so the the sickness wouldn’t come back! With 1km to go I felt I was safe to push it and ran for the finish line! Although not the run time I would have hoped for (especially after how well my runs have been going in training) I was still super happy to complete it under an hour (3rd win of the day)!

And that was the day done, all before 10am! My first standard distance triathlon and both a distance and a venue I would go back to! 

Thanks Tim for all the support in getting to here and to Barcelona in 4 weeks time!!

Lottie Lindsley