Windsor Tri - Tri Wannabe

And so to Windsor, home of the Nokia Windsor Triathlon. You can keep your London Tri with it's biking up and down a dual carriageway and your run around the docks. Give me scenic Windsor every time. Windsor is always a fantastic event, always attracts a good crowd and always attracts good weather.

Mrs H was doing the sprint event which meant a 06:12 start in the water. It was my turn to pay back so I was team bitch for the first hour or two helping my lovely get into her rubber gear and try to keep her calm. The river looked to be flowing fast. This was confirmed by Mrs H when she exited the water and announced at the top of her voice "The current's f**king sh*t". Lovely turn of phrase Mrs H. She made mincemeat of the bike before the run got it's own back. All told, a solid performance and one to be proud of.

Swim: Now there's something quite liberating about meeting rubber-clad, like-minded individuals on the banks of the River Thames at dawn but that was simply the hardest swim I've ever done. Progress was slow and you'd keep seeing the same boat/tree etc as you breathed to the side. Strong currents indeed.

Bike: Blitzed the bike..... as always but had I ridden too hard to produce a good run? Hopefully my lucky comb in transition would put me in good stead. The comb always make its into transition but does generate some funny looks from other athletes.

Run: I came out of T2 at a speed. The cadence felt good but I told myself to ease slightly for the first hill. My run speed feels like it's still some way off as i build for the World Champs but I felt as if I was moving fast out on the course. In the end I was disappointed to have run 40:19 as it felt like a sub-40 run. On the plus side, I ran well off the bike without much run speed in my legs.

So that was the race. Always feels good to be part of something big like Windsor. However, my splits point out that I am clearly a duathlete.

• Swim: 595th
• Bike: 19th
• Run: 56th
• Overall: 83rd out of 1624

Once the worlds are out of the way I think it's time to become a triathlete. I know that as far as pools go the water tastes the same and the tiles look the same but Windsor really did make me realise that Tri is where it's at and that Du's may be a bit of a cop out. I predict a lot of "pool-time" post September.

I have two things in common with Jenson Button - We both drive Honda's and both competed at Windsor. Always nice to stick it to an international playboy though.

Job done - time for lunch by the castle then a few days over near Longleat with my folks. Maybe I could learn a thing about swimming from the Sea Lions.

Results

Photos