Rother Valley, Saturday 6th June 2009
British Triathlon are working hard on making triathlon more accessible and trying to raise the profile of the sport with a view to getting it introduced at London 2012 as an exhibition sport. The second running of the National Disabled Triathlon Championships at the Rother Valley Triathlon Festival attracted a lot of interest from various officials who were looking at the logistics of supporting such an event.
Iain Dawson was our man at the event, and having responded to his request on our forum for a guide (Iain being registered with a visual impairment), my job was to swim him round the 750m open water swim course, ride on the front of his tandem over the four lap 20km course and then run him round the single lap 5k run. We'd been able to get a trial run at the Waveney Triathlon and had completed a open water swims, but we've still got some things to work on.
On the swim we are tethered together. We've found that a 2 meter length of bungy cord attached to an ankle works well. It gives us enough freedom to swim, doesn't get in ours or anyone else's way and we know where the other is.
There were a number of events during the weekend in addition to the Disabled race including an Olympic, Sprint, Ladies only Super Super Sprint (200m swim), a Junior Tri and a Scootathon for the really young kids. The Scootathon was basically a Duathlon but with a scooter rather than a bike.
There were 30 competitors in Iain's race with a mix of genders, ages and disabilities. Triathlon's are generally pretty friendly events and this one was without doubt the most social transition setup I've experienced. Competitors were keen to chat with one another to discover how they'd overcome their disabilities to be able to compete. There were wheel chairs, hand bikes, tandems, standard sols and modified solos. Some of us were tethered at the ankles, some at the knees and some at the waist whilst others were on their own and yet others needing to race as a relay with someone doing the swim for them.
Iain and I exited the water towards the back of the field and had some learning opportunities in transition. The leash that worked well in the water seemed to get round our feed as we made our way from water to bike. I should just have scooped it up to get it off the ground. When we got to our bike Iain removed the timing chip from his ankle rather than the leash. Lesson here is that despite the organisers wanting him to wear the chip on his left ankle we should have put it on his right so that it wasn't on the same ankle as the tether. We wanted the tether on Iain's left and my right because that was how we'd worked out to swim together. As the weather had been shocking the previous couple of days and the air still cold, in fact air temperature was lower than water temperature we'd planned to put on arm warmers and gillets in t1, come the moment of truth we found out that Iain was trying to put leg warmers onto his arms. So a few little errors there that delayed us some what, but nothing that can't be sorted next time.
We were out onto the bike course with a bit of a deficit. To keep everyone off the main roads the bike course involved four laps of a 5k circuit around the Rother Valley Lakes. I can see the organisers desire to keep handbikes off the open highway and if some of the competitors are on a particular course then all really need to be on the same course. The heavy rain over the preceeding 48 hours had made the course rather trecherous. Two thirds of the course was on unmade sandstone track which with standing water was soft and squidgy. No worries about punctures as it was so soft, the concern was with the tracks being left causing ruts that made handling difficult, not getting enough traction on the surface to help propulsion or handling. Plus it was narrow and twisty in places which made overtaking awkward. The third that was made up had speed bumps. Fortunately the bolt on rubber ones had been removed for the day. So Not an ideal course, though the same for all the competitors, but I did feel very sorry for those riding one handed.
Despite the hinderance from the course we made good progress and were up into what we thought was 3rd place when we started the run. Turns out it was 4th. In a previous report from Windsor Triathlon, Zoe Catchpole refers to "the revenge of the runner is as sure as it is swift". Iain was about to learn this rule for himself the hard way.
Generally we did alright for a first National Championships appearance finishing 5th over all and 4th in class, only 6 seconds off a class bronze. With a bit more work on our transitions, swim and bike and I'm sure we could get Ian to be a podium finisher (though of course, he could always just recruit the help of a faster partner).
Susequent to the race Iain has been invited to represent GB at a Invitational
Paratriathlon International Supersprint in Hyde Park on 15th August that is part
of the ITU World Championships taking place that day. Organisers are
expecting 250,000 spectators.
Article by
Rob Lines