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| Steve and Paul before the race start |
At the point of signing up my entire swim experience involved a 500m swim (breast stroke, head above water the whole way) in an outdoor pool. With this in mind I’d spent months learning front crawl and was more than capable than swimming 2km in a pool, I was aware that swimming in open water would be totally different, but told myself that there was no better way to gain experience than jumping in at the deep end, literally!
We’d had a number of downpours during the morning, but now, fortunately the weather seemed to be turning in our favour. And so it was it was I found myself stood on the shores of Llyn Padarn admitting to my fellow Strider Paul that I’m terrified of swimming, it’s taken me months to build up the courage to swim properly in a pool, let alone a freezing cold lake where you can’t see a thing and with nowhere to stop if needed! After some words of advice and reassurance from Paul we set off, I started off doing breastroke, occasionally breaking into a brief front crawl, but my nerves got the better of me and I ended up doing a breaststroke the whole way round. I was so slow that the 2 waves behind overtook me. By the time I reached the end of the swim I’d gone off course to avoid the crowd and was out on my own, panicking and struggling to breathe properly! Finally I dragged myself out of the lake and made my way to transition, I’d later find out that I’d exited the swim 27th……….from last, in position 812!
My first transition went much better than I could of hoped, taking just less than 5 minutes to get out of my wetsuit and into my cycling shoes and I found myself much happier, on the bike, and ready to go. After a few minutes I was overtaking other cyclists on the approach to the Pen Y Pass, a massive climb which I’ve run previously during Snowdonia Marathon. I was really shocked to find myself picking off cyclists the whole way up. After a wet and slippy descent from the Pen Y Pass the rest of my cycle leg would continue in the same way. I was aware of the fantastic scenery I was passing through, but due to the wet conditions (we had more showers and even hail during the bike leg) I was concentrating on the road.
I arrived back in transition having really enjoyed the ride and feeling ready for the run, my transition went surprisingly well again! The run leg would take us up the slate quarry which overlooks Llanberis and has some fantastic views, unfortunately it also has some brutal climbs, hitting around 30% in some places! I can happily say, only one person overtook me on the run and I would spend the rest of the run passing people.
After reading the results in the evening I’d discover that I’d exited the swim 812th (out of 839) but had finished 622nd, meaning that I’d overtaken 190 people on the bike and run legs! Needless to say I plan to continue working on my swimming for future races!
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Steve F