Today I raced in this season’s second race in the Manchester Area XC League, at Sherdley Park near St Helens. Definitely the hardest ~10k I’ve ever ran, due to the muddy conditions etc. Great fun! Result: 9.3k in 44:27

National Team Relays

Mental! A day of total racing chaos but great fun. Rob started us off with a good swim, followed by Andy, Neil and then me - to provide the sprint finish on the run - haha!

Seaford Classoc

My first Olympic distance race. The sea swim was cut short due to the choppy conditions; I felt pretty sick getting out of the water. The run up the stony beach to T1 hurt like hell. Didn’t enjoy the bike much - 12 laps of an out and back loop, plus it was windy. The results show I didn’t move up the field at all on the bike which is unusual. The run went better.

Overall result: 02:22:35 (60th out of 169)

Swim (750m): 18:13 (71th, +T1)

Bike (40k): 01:18:47 (71th)

Run (10k): 45:35 (32nd, +T2)

Boundary Breeze

Manchester Triathlon Club’s annual race, a sprint tri centered on Boundary Water Park. My A-race for my first season and it went really well. After a good swim, I pushed as hard as poss on the bike. The run hurt but I finished strong. After the race, the heavens opened and everyone got totally soaked! Organization? Perfect, of course! :-)

Overall result: 01:16’:57 (35th out of 153)

Swim (750m): 15:12 (61st)

Bike (23k): 40:45 (30th, +T1)

Run (5k): 20:59 (38th, +T2)

Beaulieu

My first open water race, in the tidal Beaulieu river at Bucklers hard, organized by Race New Forest. A glorious day and a very well organized event - loved it! A theme is emerging, slow in the swim, better on the bike and even faster on the run. Happy with my transitions.

Overall result: 01:29:17 (37th out of 180 men)

Swim (650m): 15:07 (94th)

Bike (25k): 48:42 (54th, incl T1 and T2)

Run (6k): 25:27 (22nd)

Open water swimming

Having recently bought my first wet suit, a Zoot Zenith 2.0 from TriCentral, I thought I better start open water swimming. The sessions are on Thursday evenings throughout the summer, at Boundary Water Park, near Knutsford, organized by UberFit events. Quite social; swim a lap, have a chat, swim another lap, and so on!

Macclesfield Sprint

A pool-based sprint organized by Xtra-mile events. I took a wrong turn on the bike, adding ~3k to the 25k route. A slightly longer than usual run of 7.2 km, but I felt good, finishing strong on the second lap. Great weather and a good race.

Time: 01 hr 38 mins

Swim: 8:58; T1: 0:46

Bike: 56:41; T2: 0:39

Run: 30:57

Manchester 10k

My second Great Manchester Run. A good day out but a slow race due to so much congestion at the start. It took me 4 mins 24 sec to cover the first 1 km, when I was aiming for a pace of 4 min per k.

Happy with my final time of 41:22 as it was quite a bit faster than 2 years ago (45:41).

The winner? The great man himself, Haile Gerbrselassie in 27:39!

My first triathlon

The Kendal Sprint Triathlon, organized by the Kudu Bikes Tri Club. A pool swim followed by an out-and-back hilly bike ride and a 5 k run. My swim was pretty slow but I reeled quite a few in on the bike then finished with a decent run, easily beating my goal of 1.5 hours. A fantastic introduction to tri.

Overall: 01:25:26 (28^th of out 77)

Swim: 17:22 (63^rd)

Bike: 45:08 (23^rd)

Run: 23:28 (22^nd)