At the weekend, Newport & District Running Club’s Chas Bickford-Smith took part in the Olympic-distance triathlon at Belvoir Castle. After a fantastic performance in challenging weather conditions, he sent us this report about how he got on:
On Sunday 20th July, I raced in an Olympic-distance triathlon at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire – part of the Castle series of races. These are all held within the beautiful grounds of stately homes, swim in the on-site lake, and run around the private grounds; they allow camping on site which makes it easy for competitors and supporters. I have competed in a number of the Castle events in the past.
We arrived late on Saturday afternoon and set up camp on the edge of a massive field. We were told at check-in that there had been a lot of no shows, as the weather forecast was dreadful for Sunday. Our camping spot was about 2 minutes away from the swim start, so no great rush in the morning. After setting up, we ventured down to the lake to see a lot of weed which I would swim through the next day, and then the realisation that there was a 500-metre uphill run to transition, which looked a long way!
After a very peaceful night in the Leicestershire countryside, the usual process of triathlon began. It was very pleasant that my start was not until 9:45am, so no early wake-up. Leisurely breakfast, then up the hill to check-in and bike racking which seemed to take a long time, queuing at different points before gaining access to rack my bike. I had reviewed the course and decided to ride my road bike and not my TT bike; also I had not trained on my TT aero bars so racing in that position would have been uncomfortable and potentially slower.
Racking the bike takes a while as it is not just “rack and leave”. There is the set up of equipment to make it easy within the race, then the rigorous checking of locations: “bike out”, “bike in”, “run out” each time walking from entry/exit to where my bike is located. The reason: to know where my bike is when I am rushing and tired – in this race I was about to get my bike and a man was running around saying “Where’s my ******* bike?!”, and this was a small race.
The bike racked, back to camp and no rush to get into my wetsuit and then down to the lake. After the briefing at the lakeside, we got into the water for a mass start, a few minutes’ wait, and off we went. As is normal, it was a bun fight: pushing, shoving, slow progress for about the first 100 metres of the 1500metre swim course. Three laps of a rather convoluted course round multiple buoys with the usual contact with other swimmers at each turn, the weed was not an issue, just an annoyance.
Out of the water and then the run up the hill to transition, not as bad as it looked the evening before. Bike collected, run out to mount point and away, uphill. The bike course was fairly flat except for a 2km climb at about 30Km. The weather was awful, a headwind most of the way round and a lot of heavy rain, but not cold. Drafting on the bike is disallowed, so no tucking in behind someone else, just pedal and ignore the weather. I later heard that there had been a number of crashes due to people slipping on the wet roads.
The bike was just under 47km, and ended coming into the castle grounds and then back into transition. Bike racked, socks and shoes on and out onto the run. Then the sudden realisation that I was wearing the wrong shoes, I should have worn fell shoes, but too late. The briefing at lake side had said the run was on good tracks and tarmac which was not the reality. As soon as I left transition I was slipping and this continued for most of the hilly 11km off-road run around the grounds. Downhills were interesting, and I did see a number of competitors slip and fall.
I felt I had a reasonable race, but on getting a printout of my results, I found out that I had come 2nd in my age group, which was a surprise. I completed the triathlon in 3 hours and 11 minutes, just 2 minutes behind first place in my age group.
Newport & District Running Club 