Kielder Off-Road Triathlon

14 Sept 2008, 1500m swim, 30 Km MTB, 11Km run

An end of the season event for me and I wanted a challenge: I wasn’t disappointed. I entered the event with Dickie Ginn (York and associate Tri-Anglian) for a head-to-head challenge. Race information suggested riding the “technical” part of the bike course on the Saturday. This was a purpose built trail for mountain biking with forest track climbs and through-forest descents with in-laid boulder drop offs. Dickie and I brushed up on our off-road bike skills and familiarized ourselves with the parts which were beyond our riding capabilities. All went well and we were riding back to our B&B on the road when a kid ran out in front of us. We both braked hard, but Dickie skidded off cracking his helmet and smashing his arm. I noticed a mountain rescue truck up the road and asked the parent (who was nearby) to look after him, but when I returned he’d done a runner – no doubt not willing to explain why he lets his kid play around in the road. The medics gave Dickie the once-over, but he was definitely out of the race.

The race had split transition sites with T1 at the waters edge and T2 and Kielder Castle about 8 miles away. The swim was to be out-and-back, but a morning mist gave poor visibility so the buoys were brought closer and made a 2-lap course. The water was cold and brown and as such, one competitor suited up and then refused to get in. My 26 minute swim went well except where a group of us couldn’t see the buoy and were given directions buy a boat of marshals – never had to do that before. The bikes where right next to the swim exit, but a bit more faffing than usual gave me a 4 minute transition before I was off cycling for at least 2 minutes before dismounting and pushing my bike up a steep hill. The first half of the bike which I hadn’t ridden the day before was fire tracks and a little single track, eventually leading to Kielder Castle where we picked up the technical bit. I was able to take this part more confidently this time and saw a few cyclists getting cramp or retiring from mechanical failure. Another rider also broke his collar bone. I lost about 6 places overall during the bike. The worst part was climbing to 1500 feet at Deadwater Fell which was about 20 minutes of pushing the bike, but lead to a blistering descent where I dared to go up to 30 mph. So after riding 19 miles in 2 and a half hours I was at T2. I changed my wet shoes and socks and was on the road for about a mile making up a couple of places. Then came the climb up through the woods, getting steeper forcing a walk, even for the established fell runners. It was wet and slippery (so a complete waste of time changing socks!) and eventually lead onto undulating trails of long grass or heather so I was never confident about what was under foot. The descent was particularly steep and scary where I was hanging onto a fence as a brake. I managed to take back 3-4 places during the run. The last 2 miles was on a rough road, but I had stitch by then, but I had enough to compose myself for the finish after a 1hr 22min 11K “run”. I was pleased with my finish time of 4 hours 22 mins and that I had survived intact.

Not so for Dickie, however who after an ever-swelling elbow, got it checked out to reveal a broken elbow so is now in a full cast with Berlin marathon in 2 weeks and Dublin end of the month.

Tri-Anglia Results

Official results

Official photos

Article by Mark Philo
Page created: 17th September 2008.