Helvellyn Triathlon, 3 Sep 2023

What a race!! I entered this one just for ‘fun’, my first and only race of the year that wasn’t either a championship or a qualifier. The Lake District is my happy place, so doing a triathlon there was certainly high on my list of things I wanted to tick off.

The 1,500m swim was in Ulswater, which was crystal clear and delightful. It was the first mass start swim I’ve done in a few years alongside men, and the first 300m could only be described as a bit of a wrestle! I felt I swam it well and concentrated on technique, but I was still slightly disappointed with my time. Anyway, onto the bike…

Leaving transition I was reliably informed I was 4 minutes off the first female. The chase was on.

One of the advantages of being a good but not outstanding swimmer is that there are people ahead of me to pick off on the bike. I hadn’t had time to do a proper recce of the bike, but I kind of knew it roughly in my head.

The course was tremendous, some long sections where you could really pick up speed, and then…the Struggle. For this section I was pleased I hadn’t done a recce as I’d have terrified myself and probably talked myself out of it! Struggle was definitely an appropriate name. Visibility at the top was minimal so I couldn’t even see the pub at the summit and had to rely on the lovely supporters telling me!

And onto the descent. The organisers had warned participants about the dangers of the descent so I took it probably more cautiously than I could have done, but I got down in one piece and back to transition. Fastest bike leg of the day, by nearly 10 minutes, job done!

Onto the ‘run’. Getting my (borrowed) running pack on was smoother than when I’d been practising at home, so I was off.

The first km was delightfully flat, but then the incline started. Kilometre no. 3 took me 17 minutes and had nearly 300m of elevation. In my ignorance I thought I could still ‘run’, but I was quickly brought down to earth! Mental struggles with myself and the frustration that I was walking during a triathlon run ensued… The weather was glorious and the views all the way up Helvellyn were sensational. Up and over Squirrel’s edge to the top was a brilliant route, and had just enough challenge to make it interesting! I’d decided to only have HR showing on my watch rather than pace, and even when walking, my watch showed 170bpm!

Onto the descent which I’d, again ignorantly, thought would be easy! I couldn’t have been more wrong. Every step was a brake, and I could feel my quads burning on every step. Some male fell runners flew (literally) past me, which was both impressive and terrifying in equal measures. But I got my own back when, with about 3km to go, the underfoot conditions returned to tarmac and I could actually ‘run’! Overtaking men who commented on my running pace was hilarious, because none of the previous 12km had been running! So my running legs were remarkably fresh! Finishing off with a 3:45/km pace was very pleasing.

Crossing the line as first female was awesome, as I knew I’d worked for that one. However, the euphoria was shattered 36 hours later when I couldn’t walk or touch my leg muscles for the DOMS! I thoroughly enjoyed the whole day, in a very masochistic way, but I’m happy leaving fell running to fell runners from now on!

Sarah Harding