Race Report: Chester Deva Triathlon 01/07/2012

I entered the Chester Deva Triathlon on 1^st July. It was a World Championship qualifier, 

Getting ready for the off!

and it wasn’t until I arrived at the transition area that I realised it was such a competitive field. To summarise it was me and 700 or so, very serious and experienced Triathletes. It was the Triathlon equivalent of entering a 5 mile race to find you are only up against the Kenyan Olympic squad.

The Triathlon consisted of 1,500 metres in the River Dee, 40K cycle and a 10K run. Athletes walked from the transition area to the start which was about 800 metres bare foot over pebbles some with flip flops and some without. I unfortunately was in the latter. Waves of around 100 entered the River Dee every ten minutes.

Paul is the one in the black suit and the yellow hat.

I was in a huge minority who were attempting their first “Olympic” Triathlon and lacked any real experience in open water swimming. To make matters worse, due my age and gender I was placed in the first wave of seemingly “elite”, male under 35’s, upon entering the River Dee.

Due to the strong current this year, the River route had been changed to consist of 375 metres upstream to a red buoy in the middle of the river and 1,125 metres downstream. From this, I thought I’d go all out at the start to get to the red and then ease off on my way back downstream. It wasn’t until I got into the River though that you could really tell how fast the current was. I, along with all the other Triathletes, had to swim at the start line just to maintain my position and stop myself drifting downstream before the gun.

And they're off!

I kept to my plan and went out strong in the first 375 metres upstream in what really was, as expected, every man for them self.  Feet and elbows were flying everywhere and I’m sure one swimmer tried to swim over me at the start. I eased off on my way downstream and had no idea of what time I’d done, but was absolutely knackered. Unbeknown to me I had actually swum the swim stage in 22:38; a time I thought impossible before the race.

I had a slow transition getting out of my wetsuit and suffered on the 40K bike route. The first 20K or so were uphill, against the wind, and after giving it everything in the swim my time for the bike was a disappointing 1:23:31. It was very demoralising as the cyclists, albeit elite women on much better bikes than me, from the second wave started to overtake me after only 10K or so of the cycle.

The second transition point

My second transition was much quicker in just over a minute and was onto the final 10K run. The run was two laps around the Meadows Park and took runners over the suspension bridge into Chester City Centre. After the cycle, I anticipated getting cramp and really struggling so I did the first 5K of the run very cautiously. After the first lap I had much more energy and my legs were feeling strong so pushed on in the second lap. The run is very confusing due to the two lap nature; you are always unsure who you are overtaking or lapping and vice versa. I finished with a run time of 47:36. In a normal 10K I would have been disappointed with this, but knowing I overtook so many people on the run section and after looking at the results I’m very pleased with that.

Throughout the whole race, I felt as though it was uphill struggle against some of the best Triathletes in the country. There was never a moment when I felt my heart rate dropped and always felt as though I was giving everything so needless to say it was quite demoralising being overtaken by a constant stream of cyclists who started ten minutes behind me as my legs faded. Although I was very happy to finish, I was not expecting my swim time to be 22:38 (roughly ten minutes quicker than I expected), and therefore delighted to find out my finish time was 2:38:30.

Lap #2 of the 10k course

I’m not sure I ‘enjoyed’ it, ‘hated’ is probably a better word, but definitely felt good after achieving something new. Would I do it again? I don’t fully understand why, but I definitely would!! To know that I can improve on my first transition, cycle and to an extent the first part of my run, I am desperate to give it another go and get near the 2:30 mark. In addition, putting myself in such a competitive environment was a challenge in itself. I didn’t get in the top 100, I wasn’t even in top half; I finished 391^st out of 587 finishers, but just knowing I could compete in such a competitive field was a big confidence boost.

Enjoying a cheeky pint afterwards

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Paul Barnett