Culford Tri

Gentlemen,

I awoke to darkening rain clouds and immediately thought of the tyre shredding flints at last year's "Suffolk Sunrise"!

I decided to treat the whole event as a kind of treasure hunt and thoroughly enjoyed the build up with the registration and the bike parking. I think I may have one a special spot prize for the most neatly laid out transition area but I don't think that counted towards the race timings.

The swim was very well managed, I went in at number 27 with an estimated time of 8 minutes and at no time did I feel like I wasn't in control. I managed to hit Geoff Buchanan on the head twice (he was no.30) but he deserved it for overtaking me on length 7.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately) I had no excuse for a slow bike time. I actually thought I was moving along quite nicely, but as you can see from the results this was not the case.

My run was OK and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself when Geoff finally managed to overtake me, just at the end of the first lap. It was funny that I didn't remember overtaking him on the bike ride. It wasn't until I looked at the times that I realised that he was on his second running lap when he overtook me, on my first!

So I came 163rd out of 185 which is a pretty poor effort in anyones book.

Still, I consoled myself with these thoughts:

1) I had last entered a triathlon in 2009 and then never took the place up because a friend of mine in Redbourn was 50 the night before and the lure of the party was too great. So 6 years on I have "ticked the box".

2) I had not given up alcohol prior to the event, as I had in previous times and managed to consume 2 Crimean cocktails, 2 Peronis and a small port with a rather nice evening meal at Fiona and Alok's the night before.

3) I met Sue Hargadon and her husband Simon who said as it was my first one I should just concentrate on enjoying myself, which I did by conserving energy and making sure I got round without injury.

4) There's always next year!

If you want to have a laugh go onto www.ipswich-tri.org/culford

Hope to see you on Thursday wearing my new T-shirt.

Cheers.

Clark