Race Report Dextro Energy London Triathlon Hyde Park Course

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Hi everyone, It’s taken me a little while to get round to writing my first race report but better late than never! Here is my account of racing in my first Olympic distance triathlon on the 6th August: In May I was offered the opportunity to take a friends place at the Dextro Energy Olympic tri at Hyde Park and as the course would largely be the same as that used in the Olympics in 2012, I jumped at the opportunity to take part. I had been watching the weather forecast all week, praying that the mini heat wave would disappear before Saturday as had a 12pm start time and I wasn’t looking forward to cycling and running in the afternoon heat. Luckily for me Saturday was almost perfect conditions for racing, albeit a little bit windy. I woke early so I could catch the elite women’s race in the morning on the TV before making my way to the course. It was a fantastic start to the day when Helen Jenkins did GB proud by winning the world series event in the morning, and the atmosphere was fantastic around the course when I arrived to set up. SWIM: Having only learnt to do more than 50m front crawl last year, this was the part I was dreading. The course was a single lap of the Serpentine and we started in the water by the side of the pontoon and 1500m looked very far when I stared out towards the first buoy. However I didn’t have a chance to worry about nerves as a 15 second start call was announced as soon as I entered the water! I started at a comfortable pace and found that despite the warnings of blue algae and weeds, the water conditions were great (similar to Ellingham). I appeared to be on my own for much of the swim as everyone seemed to dash off at the start but as I exited the water I looked at my watch to see I’d managed a swim time of 30:44. Bearing in mind I’d planned for a sub 34 minute swim I was ecstatic (I even gave the crowds at the exit a jubilant wave as I ran past)! I then realised I still had the bike and run course to complete… T1: Out of the swim, you had to run approx 600m to get to transition. I managed to find my bike pretty easily and then had fun trying to get out of my wetsuit as quickly as possible (note to self: worth practicing!). BIKE: The bike course was 5 laps of Hyde Park (and was actually 37km rather than 40km) with two ridiculously narrow hairpin turns for each loop. You also had to navigate a number of speed bumps plus a number of other turns and bends in the road whilst also trying to (a) avoid other cyclists and (b) avoid accidentally drafting anybody. I found that no sooner had I got into a good rhythm and aero position (the course was flat apart from a small incline at the start of each lap); I would already be approaching a hairpin turn and had to almost slow to a stop to navigate the turn. Despite this I really went for it on the bike and my split was 1:07:20. I was pleased to find out post race that this was actually the second fastest bike time in my age group and 19th quickest lady of the day. T2: As soon as I got off the bike and waddled into transition I realised I may have given it a bit much on the bike. I wasted a bit of time having to move someone’s bike in order to fit mine on the rack but my recent purchase of elastic laces saved me a lot of faffing and I was off on the run… RUN: Since running the London marathon in April, I have struggled to get back into my running training and as soon as I started on the 4 lap course I could tell that this was going to be a tough 10km. However I had a Sarah Kemp fan club (existing of my parents, boyfriend and 6 university friends) on the course who cheered me on each time I passed and I looked forward to their cheers and chants as I set off on each loop. The run took you round the Serpentine on a pancake flat course and was very pleasant as it wasn’t very crowded. I started quite conservatively as my legs felt like jelly but I managed to pick up the pace in the last two laps and ran a negative split time of 48:32. I had been aiming for 46-47 minutes so I was slightly disappointed but not too surprised considering it was my first go at this distance. OVERALL: My overall finish time was 2:33:26, finishing 5th in my age group and 33rd lady overall. Positives were the chance to compete on the 2012 course, organisation, spectators, and small numbers in each wave only 30-40) so it wasn’t as congested as you might imagine. Only negative would be the very tight hairpin turns on the bike course. The next day I was up at 5.30am to marshal for the Sunday age group races, paratriathlon race and Men’s elite race. Despite the slightly aching muscles, I was able to complete a 12 hour shift and cheer on the Brownlee brothers as they took 1st and 3rd. I even managed to make it onto the BBC 2 coverage (if you blink you might miss me :-)) All in all an excellent weekend and next stop will be a middle distance event in 2012. Roll on autumn training!

(UPDATED : 17/08/2011)

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Author: Sarah Kemp - 16 August 2011 16:29