Big Lime Weekend (Swim/Aquathlon/Triathlon), 16-18 August 2019
So my great idea to enter the “Triple Lime”, came after returning from the European Championships in Romania (30°C average) and looking for my next challenge. Six weeks later I’m stood waiting to get into the North Sea for the start of the first of three races that weekend, in 15°C, slightly regretting it.
The first event of the weekend was on the Friday night, a 750m all-out open water swim. Conditions weren’t too bad, raining as usual but not windy enough to create too much of a chop on the marina. This turned out to be my best of the three races of the weekend, coming out of the water as 2nd female and 9th overall. I was very happy with the result. Now it was time to go home and work out how to get my wetsuit dry before the next race in less than 12 hours time.
The next morning it was time to add another discipline into the mix with the Aquathlon (750m Swim, 5km Run). Standing on the waters edge, in a just-dry wetsuit, I was trying to forget how cold I knew the water was and went for it. The swim had changed slightly from the night before and was made slightly longer, my shoulders definitely felt the 100m extra and were tired from the day before – which was something I hadn’t expected as it was “just a swim”. With the wind picking up slightly for the run I was thankful it was an out and back route, as had a tail-wind finish! In the end I came 6th female overall and first junior (U20), which meant good points for the overall competition!
Finally, the Sunday morning brought the last race of the weekend with the Sprint Triathlon, which turned out to be my worst performance of the three. Starting off with an awful swim, getting swam over and dunked at the first two buoys I knew I had time to make up on the bike. I really liked the bike course, which was 4 laps of a flat, closed road, circuit along the seafront. With a hard headwind on the way out I struggled to get into a rhythm at first but soon started to pick up pace on the way back. I ended up having one of the fastest female bike splits of the day, which I was very pleased about! Then came the run, which didn’t go well at all. I had forgotten my aero bike bottle on the morning, which meant that I couldn’t have a drink on the bike, only having a sip from a bottle in transition. Unfortunately I cramped up as soon as started running due to lack of salts and only got going properly in the last mile after losing a lot of time having to stop and stretch my calves out. In addition to this, in the race the previous day I hadn’t worn socks on the run (saving time in transition), resulting in serious blisters on both feet. This meant I had to stop and put socks on in the triathlon, which lost time, and also made for a very painful 5km run at the end.
Despite the events of the triathlon, I had a great weekend of racing and was a good challenge for the end of the season. Overall, I came First Lady and top 10 in the whole competition, over the three events, which was worth getting bad cramp and blisters for!
Paige McLeod
