So last night was the second race of my triathlon "career" and the signs were good, after another crap nights sleep (which was a surprise) loading the car up first thing in the morning, working for the day.... it was time to head out to Dorney Lake for my second sprint race.

The weather was good unlike last time, and the number of racers was around three times the number... "fair weather racers"

During the safety / race briefing I was baking quite nicely in the warm sun, and was looking forward to cooling off in the lake. With the sunny evening I even contemplated changing the lenses in my goggles so they were tinted, but figured this would be a bad time to start tinkering with my gear... we strolled off to the lake and I over heard one of my favorite things about this new world I'm playing in summarised thus:

"We're all friends in the church of triathlon"

As someone helped another racer zip up into her wetsuit.

Into the lake for the start and the water was nice and cooling and with the sunlight nice and clear as well, no fish to be seen as 150+ idiots lined up for the start, I stayed nicely at the back and got chatting to a fellow competitor as we wanted for the foghorn blast that signaled the mass thrash down to the turn point, swim felt all right, managed to avoid getting bashed / swum over / goggles kicked off and bar the odd stroke did freestyle the whole way.... saw a few fishes on the way around, but most of them seemed to be hiding (sensible)

Staggered out of the lake, told them my race number (17) so they could log my time, and started the fight out of my wet suit as I padded up to transition, finding "my" bike was again pretty easy as most of the other people had already completed T1, out of wetsuit, on with crash helmet, socks, shoes, watch, sun glasses (any excuse) stuff gel packs into the tri suit and head out for the bike leg....

bike leg was almost as before, nice tail wind on the way out, nasty head wind on the way back, five laps

*joy*

Had decided that last time I'd taken it too easy on the bike and run legs (the swim I'm happy to survive) so I made a conscious to ensure I made the most of the tail wind, and pushed hard into the head wind, really wishing I had some tri-bars to help me go faster (of course they help, they cost money so they must work) five laps, one bottle of carbohydrate drink and two gel packs passed in the twinkling of an eye (well almost) and before I knew it was time to slow down and head into transition for T2...

Rack the bike, change the shoes, curse forgetting my runners water bottle and head out for the run.

With the sun at my back I set out for the first of my two laps, going past the now empty water station and trying to ensure I keep my pace as fast as I can, my aim is simple, keep it under a 5:30Km pace throughout and take it from there, first lap went well, but the number of runners on the course was dropping as people finished, second lap was again pretty good, seemed odd to be running without music, but I guess that's something I'll get used to as I race....

Crossed the line, not last, but certainly no where near the front, my body was telling me I'd worked harder than last time, I enjoyed it more than last and within 5 / 10 minutes I was feeling pretty good, on reflection I could've pushed a bit more on the swim, but I'm still not that confident in my crawl but it's getting there....

Loving triathlon's though.... ;-)

Results / Time
Swim was 15:54 Minutes
Cycle was 46:52
Run was 26:11

Total time was 1:28:57

There were no transition times and I placed 103 out of 114

Update:
So with a bit of thinking whilst running I actually have enough data to do my transition times for this race so:

Swim : 15:54
T1 : 3:11
Cycle : 43:41
T2 : 0:46
Run : 26:11

Not bothered to check if it all adds up.... ;-)