I followed Stephen and Trevor into the car park, set up transition next to Caroline, Alice was just a bit further along, then saw Louisa and Jane coming into transition, and before long we were 11. Ok, initially only 10 and a half as Anna was determined that she wouldn’t take part.
Despite the race briefing starting 10 minutes late the event started on time, and I sat in the spectator area at the end of the pool with everyone else cheering on MTC and taking photos. Main reason for taking photos is so that my camera can focus on stuff further than my nose and then I can bring camera to my nose to see what’s going on!
Anyway, having cheered Matt, Jane and Caroline on I got changed into my MTC tri suit. Alice seemed surprised that I hadn’t actually tried it out before today (other than to see it fits!). But it was fine. Swim went ok – thanks for the cheers! Transition was ok, but I did put on a long sleeved jersey and was glad I did.
The ride was tough. I found the first 5km hard work – legs weren’t interested in going uphill etc. But after some sugar things settled down a bit and I got into a bit more of a rhythm. Apart from a ‘stoppie’ when a car and I wanted the same bit of road (he did have priority) it was reasonably uneventful and the ride back from Thaxted went quite quickly. The only other event on the bike ride was Graham cheering me on as I got close to the leisure centre.
Then the run. I was one of the people that walked (a little) as soon as I was round the corner – but last year I walked up most of that hill and this year only a few steps. I then met Anna who just had the downhill left for the finish, and then after I turned round at the halfway point, Claire, Trevor and Chris. High fives with them all. And when I finally came down the hill again towards the finish a huge crowd of support greeted me from the already finished. It was uplifting and gave me a good finish – thank you.
Last year (without chip timing, so no transition times) I did 9:23 for the swim, 1h01:41 for the (shorter) bike and 35:29 for the run finishing in 1:46:33 and 108th out of 114. I was the only Meridian entry that year. This year 9:07 for the swim, 55:40 for the bike and 30:20 for the run, 1:38:50 in total, 145th / 189. FIVE minutes faster on the run! I think I’ll be happy with that – so much support helped and all the Wednesday evening runs too.
Thank you MTC – a great club.
