Report from Howard Jeffrey

My last report was on the Mallory Park Sprint Triathlon which was a qualifier for next year’s European age group championships in Istanbul. Got official notice that I had qualified although I was pretty sure I had, so pleased with that.

There are no qualification races, as such, for the European and World Aquathlon championships, both in different parts of Spain next year. You have to have done one in the UK in a reasonable time. Easier said than done because there are not many around and those that are, are pretty low key. I chose the Belvoir Castle Multisport weekend where they have two days of all sorts of different competitions. The weather was great and the venue was terrific. The Middle distance triathletes set off swimming at 6.15 in the morning! My start time was 9.30 which was far more civilised. No time to acclimatise to the water which I always feel is a bit suspect but in this case the water was 19 degrees, so any fear I had, was unwarranted. It was not a mass start but was individually staggered which helped and I was soon into a steady stroke. Felt great in the water and was pleased with a solid 1500m swim in 34 ish minutes.

Exiting the water it was an 800m run up a grassy hill to transition which was novel. This gave me a bit of time to get out of most of my wetsuit which has been a struggle of late. Before the swim, one competitor had not understood the run route which, to be honest neither had I and I had thought it would be ‘well signposted’, as the race information had claimed. An official actually had a route plan marked with the run which was out of transition towards the castle, down across the river, up to the top of the hill, twice, for two laps. I had had to rest my sore hamstring after Mallory Park, so apart from a couple of warm up jogs in the of days prior, it was my first 10k for several weeks. I set off steadily and overtook a couple of people who had swum faster. Up towards the castle and a descent towards the river. Straight down to the bottom of the hill and I catch another aquathlete struggling up the hill. At the drinks station halfway up the hill was where it all went a bit pear shaped. The signage was clear, turn here for the triathlon, straight on for the 10k and half marathon, no specific mention of the Aquathlon. The distance in the Aquathlon is 10k so up I went to the top of the hill. I had seen one of the guys who had overtaken me previously come down the descent and I thought although he was quick there was no way he had got to the top of the hill and come back down in that time. Something amiss. I knew long before the top of the hill that two laps of this course would be more like 13K. I turned at the top and when I got past the drinks station, another competitor, the eventual winner of the aquathlon, overtook me on her second lap and I still had to finish that lap and go round again! The one I had followed halfway up the hill had disappeared and I overtook, for the second time, one I had passed earlier.  As a pretty good judge of distance and pace I decided that for me to do 10k I needed to go up towards the castle again then turn off towards the finish. My ’10K’ time was 49.54 which is about what I would have expected in my current state of fitness for a hilly 10k.

Can’t blame the volunteers for not being able to know all the different combinations of run routes but the signage was poor. Many people in different races had done longer distances. The guy who I mentioned coming down the hill, he finished second, he had gone past the drinks station towards the top but decided to turn back before the top. I came third in the aquathlon and annoyingly the hamstring had started to tighten in the last 2k. I think most people enjoyed what they did but too many different races on the day led to confusion.

There was a ‘massage’ at the finish by a very competent Hungarian lady training to be a physiotherapist. She was ‘old school’ and was not afraid to get deep into the tissue to break down old scar tissue. Pretty much on the absolute limit of the discomfort I can tolerate but I am sure she did a lot of good to help me recover. 

Results at titaniumresults.co.uk