Harwich Triathlon

24^th June 2007

This year there were only three of us from Tri-Anglia who made the short-ish journey down to Dovercourt for the Harwich triathlon.

I entered the first event last year as a bit of a nostalgic journey as the pool was where I learned to swim and spent many a happy day as a child. At least now it is an indoor pool unlike the shivering open air of yesteryear.

I entered with my training partner Paul Kemp and his wife Julie as we made a decision early on that we were not going to do Norwich this year, and needed another build up to our quest for a good performance at Salford next month.

This year Dennis the race organiser had taken note of the feedback from last years first ever event and the swim was an under the rope 300m, the bike a hard 15 miles and the run a full 5k along the seafront.

I watched the weather forecast from Friday with growing trepidation as the news of biblical floods and mud at Glastonbury filled the headlines.

The race was not due to begin until 16:15 so I had plenty of time to watch the rain beat down upon my lounge window thinking how my beautifully cleaned bike would fair on the roof rack. So it was plastic bags on the saddle and tri bars and hope for the best.

Paul and Julie arrived and we crammed all our bikes and gear into the car and set off. The downpour continued all the way to Colchester where it began to ease off a little, but arriving at the car park, we were greeted by huge pools of water in both the car park and transition.

Mercifully the rain had reduced to a trickle by the time we were due to start, but there was a strong SE wind to make the bike and run interesting.

I did not really enjoy the swim with the duck under the rope right at the point where the blowers circulate the water but managed a creditable 4:34 out of the door and the run down the slippery mats to transition, being wary of the point where I had seen one of the marshals say be careful to another competitor who ignored her and nearly skidded into a rack of bikes.

Then onto the bike where I got into the groove straight away and started catching those in front of me. The course is very sporting (the cyclists word for quite a lot of hills) including one very steep one at Ramsay where I got into completely the wrong gear last year. No mistakes this time and into the small front ring to spin up to the top and then change up again at the top. It was a great ride and I really enjoyed my duel with the Ips Tri Club athlete who had started 30 secs after me. As we approached the final roundabout we were joined by eventual race winner Richard Haynes and we went three abreast across and down the hill. Then it was into transition and a quick change into my runners. Then off onto the run and mercifully with the wind for the first 3k then a turn and up through Dovercourt park with my legs telling me that I had pushed the bike pretty hard. Down the slope at the other side and onto the last mile. A good run to stop the clock in 1:09:38.

Dennis and his team worked wonders to get the results out 5 mins after the last finisher and onto the web site by 9.30pm.

Our final results out of 142 finishers were:

Article by Jim Keeble
Page created: 30th June 2007..