mini-Mussel - TriathlonMini Sprint

rank of 11 for females

This was weedy swim. I found my hands full of weeds and on my face on several occasions - on the first bit before the turn more than the second bit which surprised me. I just kept a swimming though. I swam pretty much on my own for the first part. One pink cap had shot off at the start (think she must have had a jet ski attached), there were a few other pink caps around but none close enough to draft.
I caught up with a few of previous wave before the first buoy and then was passing for rest of race
After the turn I got some feet to draft off for a few minutes which was nice. I followed her in and out the people we overtook. Then I lost her cos she headed off across the canal. Not wanting to go the wrong way I swam on my own for the rest. Towards the end I saw she'd swum across to get on the feet of another pink cap who was swimming a bit wider.

I turned into the ramp, put my feet down, found it slippy then heard the cries of "swim up the ramp" so I swam a bit more until knee deep and was easy to stand up then.

This was a good swim for me - my second in open water this year. I remember thinking my arms felt tired so I knew I had given it a good effort.

Um, er, maybe train a bit more in open water :)

Transitions aren't my best but i was 2/41 for my ag (122/66, 34/297 f) so could have been worse. I purposely didn't sit down for this.


Same old same old
I like to take my time to get my breath back so not really concerned here

11/297 female, 87/666 overall. The number 2 in my age group beat me by 1 sec and as I had a little mishap on my way back in (see below) I still feel comfortable that my biking is quite strong (so how the heck did ridgelake beat me by 1min and a half????)

I found this hard, maybe it was just the relentless pedalling. It felt into the wind to me for the whole way (perhaps I went a different route to ridgelake - where was that with the wind????). I just didn't enjoy this ride - it felt like something to get through rather than enjoy and I kept looking at my computer hoping it would be over soon. A female wave had gone before me and I was overtaking them the whole way plus a few men here and there. I only got overtaken by one female (my ag winner - she was over 6ft!) but a handful of men went whizzing by on the last bit of the course.

Hard to overtake on the narrow coned bit on way back. Once in the park I shouted "on your left" to a guy who was fiddling with taking his shoes off ready for transition I suppose. Anyway he swerved straight into me and I ended up off the road, nearly fell and had to pedal across the grass and across a little ridge to get back up. Heated words were exchanged!

Train more maybe, haven't done that much lately but perhaps it just wasn't my day.
I am disappointed with my speed - knowing it was a flat course I was hoping for better but heh, no big deal - I wanted to focus on pushing myself on the run today.

6/41 ag 82/297 f 250/666 overall

same old same old.
I was hopeless getting off my bike. I caught my leg and almost fell over. I managed not to, carried on trotting along and heard cries of "good recovery" so I knew there had been no elegance there!
Had to adjust my running shoes but all in all kept moving reasonably well

I wasn't really racing racing so not really worried about this. I know I could have gone a bit faster if needed

This race was about fun for me but the one thing I did want to do was try and push myself on the run because this is where I need to work on getting faster. Unfortunately it just wasn't happening today and I have no good reason. I'd pushed on the bike but hadn't hammered it so hard as to affect the run (might have hammered on the bike if I knew ridgelake was going to get me by a minute and a half but that's hindsight).

I was hoping for something well sub 8min miles but at least I snuck in just a second below that. Given that I did the flt oly run (double the distance) at sub 8min miles today wasn't so good really. Oh well.
The atmosphere was amazing, lots of supporters and quite a few people that I knew (people doing the musselman tomorrow from my old coaches team, my ex coach, and a load of BT people manning the BT aid station). That was awesome to have people calling you by name to cheer you on. Thanks guys and gals.
I had conversations with my lungs and legs all the way on the "out" and they just told me they couldn't go faster. So I decided to be patient and wait for the turnaround.
Got to the turnaround and it didn't feel so bad and I realised we must have been running into the wind. I couldn't go much faster but I didn't feel any worse at the end than I did at the start and I reckon I probably negative split the out compared to the back.
rstocks was there taking photos near the turnaround, he told me to smile - I thought I was so perhaps it was more of a beastly grimace.

More running

Water, chat, icecream, yum


This was low key race for me so overall I don't really mind although it isn't nice to know you're not performing how you could.
However I guess I have been very inconsistent training wise for the last month because of having visitors from the UK.


The atmosphere and organisation of this race are top notch.
And free icecream to boot!