BUCS Sprint Triathlon, 2 May 2021

I was so delighted to race at the BUCS sprint triathlon this year at Lake 32 in the Cotswolds. There was a good group of ten of us from the Exeter University Triathlon Club, many of whom I haven’t been able to see for months with the pandemic having put our club training on hold. It was great to relay some nervous excitement with Catenary team mate Eleanor at the start of the event too!

In particular, I was slightly apprehensive about the cold open water swim start which would be my first OW since last summer, and only my second swim this year! Swimming has and probably always will be my weakest discipline, but once I hit the water I found my own rhythm and the nerves soon melted away. Plus the rolling start meant that I could start further back in the field which made it easier to pace myself consistently,

Then the conditions for the bike leg were idyllic - bright sunshine, no wind and a fairly flat two lap course. This did mean that there were plenty of opportunities to be passed by some of the top athletes in the field - tight aero positioning, tailed helmets and TT bikes galore. Although I was overall happy with my bike performance, I’m now even more looking forward to working with Tim on my positioning and pacing with performance metrics to take my racing game to the next level.

Finally, the run was a flat, 2-lap trail course around the lake. My legs were still relatively happy by this point, although I had a persistent stitch which was rather uncomfortable. I felt that without this I could have pushed harder and I was bitterly disappointed that this is now the third event where I have experienced this problem during the run leg. I rarely suffer from stitches or muscle cramps during training but we are going to experiment with my nutrition and hydration over the coming weeks which I am hopeful will remedy the situation!

Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable event and it meant a great deal to me that I could race for the last time with my university triathlon club as I am soon to graduate. I am also really chuffed with some great take aways from this event that I have reflected on with Tim to apply in training and future events in the coming weeks.

Lucy Hoade