BUCS Standard Triathlon, 25 Jun 2023

This was the third of the three triathlon events put on by the British Universities and Colleges Sport this year (the others being the Duathlon and Sprint Triathlon). Initially I planned for this to be my best BUCS event of the year given it is longer than the others, but my ankle injury had other plans. As a result, the race plan morphed into a solid swim and bike then drop out on the run. The awkward timing at the end of term meant athlete numbers were low but the race village was still lively and it was great to see BUCS taking steps towards their environmental impact, such as reimbursing travel made on public transport.

The start was pretty relaxed and after a few minutes to acclimatise in the lake the females set off a few minutes behind the open category. I took a pretty direct line to the first turning buoy unlike many others that followed the sighting buoys, but I missed being able to get in a swim pack. This is something I want to work on as I often underestimate how fast I can go at the beginning and end up wasting time & energy overtaking others. Apart from an annoying piece of weed that tangled around my ankle, I stayed focussed to put in two main surges to overtake (or try!) other athletes- I didn't realise until I saw the post-race photos that one of the people that had spurred me onwards was fellow Catenary teammate Emilia!

T1 was uneventful but I lost some time so another aspect to work on. The bike was a shady rolling course, my main complaint (and that of others) was having to stop multiple times in traffic on busy roads. Nevertheless, I tried to put in a good stint and seeing Tim cheering on & taking photos at different points on the course gave me a few more (much needed) watts. The statistics didn't reflect how hard I felt I was working but I think this is due to fatigue from poor tapering as I went into this race seeing it more as training than a chance for optimum performance.

The last bit was T2 which, given I wasn't going to do the run, I aimed to smash. Despite feeling like I was flying through, even in cleats & helmet, I sadly did not achieve the fastest T2 of the day. A spectacular slip around the last corner before the exit rounded up the race and at least a few teammates who had DNFed from a broken chain and injury enjoyed it.

Ophelia Vesely