How Hard Can it Be?: Liverpool Triathlon ~ Swam it, biked it, ran it, smashed it! ~ 2:53:00

Sunday, 1 July 2012

Liverpool Triathlon ~ Swam it, biked it, ran it, smashed it! ~ 2:53:00

Had a great day at Liverpool Triathlon beating my previous best time for the Olympic distance by 14minutes and 34seconds, achieving my goal for this year of getting under 3 hours... Elated!

Had a trip down to Liverpool on the Saturday to register and a look around the course. The swim course at a 1500m single loop of the Kings Dock looked huge and quite an intimidating distance (even though I swim the distance regularly it's always in 750m loops).

Didn't get a great night sleep the night before feeling slightly wired but the adrenalin buzz paid off by keeping me going, along with the three SiS energy gels along the way! The Aero drinks bottle on the bike also helped!

The swim started in driving drizzle and quite a strong wind. It was cold before getting in but the water at 18'c was good.

Over 200 people in the swim made for a very frantic, close to brutal swim. I had folk on both shoulders, in front and behind for the first 500m at least. Despite this I felt quite calm on the swim and knew the pace was good. Born out on the exit time of 32mins 34 secs for the 1500m... A new personal best!

Swim to bike transition (covering over 400m) was 4mins 6 secs.

Bike too felt great and another personal best! Four 10km loops along the waterfront managing to keep tucked in the Aero position the majority of the way (except for the slight hill climbs at either end of the loop), averaging 17.7mph over the 40km to finish in 1 hour 22mins :-)

Bike to run transition was 2mins 25sec and total time out of the transition was just over 2 hours leaving me just under an hour to complete the 10km run in order to get under the target 3 hours! I regularly run 10km well within that time but couldn't take anything for granted!

With legs like jelly I stumbled into the 10km run. The first mile felt awful but only took me 8mins 15seconds so I knew if I could just keep up that pace I'd be ok!

Battled shin splints (which I never get) and cramp in my right achilles to finish the 10km in a very satisfying time of 51mins 42sec!

Total time for the Tri was 2hours 53minutes exactly... Never felt so good!

Just as satisfying was raising another £120 for the much needed work of the Isaiah Trust! The donation page remains open for another couple of months so hopefully might be able to add to that total before it closes ~ http://www.justgiving.com/Daves-IsaiahTrust-Triathlon ...

Thanks to everyone for all the support and well wishes... Hugely appreciated!!! :-)

1 comment:

Anonymous10 July 2012 at 05:42
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Why am I doing this?!

I got drawn in to running in 2007 to raise funds for charity and discovered it's a great way to keep in shape! I expanded the fundraising to open water swimming in 2010 and loved that too which lead to taking up cycling and Triathlon's in 2011!

I've kept a training blog for the past three years and found it a huge motivator to get out and do something to report on so here I am again! I'll be keeping a record here of all my training and event ups and downs as well as a few deviations on my hobbies. I'm planning a few events this year for my own benefit and a couple of major events to raise funds again for two charities that mean a lot to me:

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution ~ http://www.rnli.org/

In September 2007 I had an accident whilst sailing my Laser Pico dinghy out at sea off Abersoch, North Wales. The Abersoch crew came to my aid and I'll be eternally grateful ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk6edftmHtg

I spend a lot of time out at sea with family and friends and it made me realise just how dependent we are on this life saving volunteer emergency service funded entirely by charity.

I ran the Great North Run Half Marathon to raise funds for the Abersoch RNLI station in 2008 & 2009. In 2010 I taught myself front crawl and swam a mile in open water at The Great Salford Swim and in 2011 rolled it all up taking on the Tatton Triathlon Olympic Distance.

This year I'm going to extend the cycling by riding Coast to Coast from Morcambe to Bridlington along the 'Way of the Roses' route ~ http://www.wayoftheroses.co.uk/. It's a 170mile ride over 3 days from 24th to the 26th August...

How hard can it be ;-)

The Isaiah Trust ~ http://www.isaiahtrust.org/

A registered charity started in 2001 by two good friends with big hearts, Nicky and Tim. The charity helps kids in Kenya orphaned by aids and surviving on their own on the streets in some of the most apalling conditions imaginable. The lives that these kids endured prior to the charity beggars’ belief and as a parent myself brings tears to my eyes... But the Trust has and continues to do some amazing things for these kids... Providing outreach and rehabilitation centres to give safe havens and remedial education, setting up orphanages and foster parent programmes. Helping children get back in to the state educaion system and providing 'resource centres' for older child who have missed too much schooling to teach them a skill or trade to earn a living. The Trust is now working hard setting up farms to establish sustainable food programs as well as teaching children farming skills. The trust has helped change the lives of so many kids but there are so many more yet to help...

After a four years of running the Great Manchester 10km Run, to raise awareness and funds for the trust last year I ran the Edinburgh Marathon which was awesome! This year I've signed up for the Liverpool Triathlon Olympic Disatance event (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run) where I'll be looking to get under that elusive 3 hour target! Watch this space!...