Tavistock Sprint Triathlon, 10 Jul 2022
I competed in the Tavistock sprint triathlon, an event I had competed in twice before! A fantastic opportunity to compare myself with my past performance after a year of training with Catenary Coaching. Tavistock triathlon is an event on home turf, beautifully set on the edge of Dartmoor offering a challenging hilly bike and run route.
I had a surprising good start. I had low expectations for my swim performance after focusing heavily on bike and run in the lead up to the duathlon world champs only three weeks before. However I managed to shave a minute off my 750m swim time!
I felt strong coming out of the pool and thoroughly enjoyed the bike leg. I was able to achieve a very similar time to last year - possibly some minor alterations in the course and wind speed may well have masked the gains in cycling I have experienced in other areas of my training and race performance. I picked up some PRs along the route, including one favourite climb that I have ridden 48 times over the past couple of years.
Finally, the 6.5km run was pretty comfortable but with few straight, flat sections it was by no means a fast course. I’m delighted that I shaved off just short of a minute on this leg too, despite some issues with chest cramp during the uphill start which initially held me back.
On reflection, I was definitely too lax in taking fluids on the bike - I managed to keep relatively cool on this leg due to the fresh breeze and long downhill stretch to finish. It was an extremely hot day so it was hardly a surprise that I would suffer the consequences of dehydration if I didn’t keep on top of the fluids during the race.
I was delighted to win 2nd place female overall in the sprint race. Whilst I have loved entering new events which have pushed me outside my comfort zone, races like the Tavistock Triathlon give me some familiar grounds with which I can compare myself to past performances and see how much progress I am making with Catenary Coaching. I can’t wait for my next race in September which is the same event where I qualified for the World Champs last year!
Lucy Hoade