St Neots Triathlon, 13 Aug 2023

Mark Easton

My only goal for this triathlon was to complete it after my first DNF at Sunderland recently due to a bad swim experience. I had already done this race in July as it is local to me so it was the perfect home race to get rid of any nerves I had.

The water here was much warmer than at Sunderland so it was already off to a better start! My swim was good, being over a minute faster than when I last raced at St Neots. There was also a lot less reeds and lily pads attacking me whilst swimming so that was a bonus.

I had a pretty fast T1 and was straight onto the bike.

The bike was much faster than last time as it was less windy, but I also knew where I could put more power in and when to ease off on the course. This helped me do the bike course nearly 3mins quicker than before! I came into T2 as 2nd woman.

Mark Easton

T2 was also very speedy and then it was onto the run, which I was quite excited for as recently I’ve been running really well. However, just after a kilometre I started to get a pretty bad stitch, but I saw a woman behind me and knew I was in 2nd so kept going for a bit. It soon became clear this stitch was not going away so I ran/walked for a while and stopped thinking about where I was going to place. I managed to get into a rhythm and the time wasn’t as bad as I expected - the run was only a minute and a half slower than last time when I had no issues whatsoever.

Overall I finished 4 minutes faster than in July so a good improvement! Also I didn’t freak out in the swim so I’m very happy with myself :)

Jess Barratt-Drylie