DGTri Athlete Report - Samantha Anderson

2nd May 2011

Mallory Park Triathlon

After some aquathlons and duathlons it was time for my first full triathlon of the season at Mallory Park. It was a 750m swim, a very windy 20k bike and a slightly longer 5k run. I wasn’t well prepared for this race.....I’d forgotten talc, baby oil, food....clothes and so I have written a list of stuff to take next time  but I had myself, wetsuit, bike, trainers, helmet and the determination to do well.

I hated the swim here last year so I got on the very outside away from everyone and when the hooter went I tried to keep my distance from the pack. As I was swimming I was surprised to see everyone to my right still at the same level as me; they normally speed past and leave me panicking. I enjoyed the feeling of “hey Sam, you’re doing OK” during the swim as I’ve never had that before! I was the 5th girl out of the water in 12:23 – a minute and a half faster than last year.

In T1, I struggled to get my wetsuit off but once I did and I was out on the bike I caught the girl ahead of me within the first few minutes. The bike course was 10 laps and it was the windiest bike route I have ever done. With every gust of wind I thought I was going to come off the bike; I’d start off on the inside of the lap and would be forced to the outside by gale force winds. Half the time I closed my eyes and clung on to my tri bars for dear life. I really hated the bike and felt frustrated that I wasn’t catching the other girls. I had a slow time of 38:33 but had still improved slightly from last year. Oh and they ran a ‘King of the Hill’ and ‘Fastest Lap’ bike challenge – I came 2nd on both of those.

The run consisted of 3 laps. I felt fairly strong on the run and overtook quite a lot of the guys who had been stronger than me on the bike. The girls ahead though were too far ahead for me to see, so I tried to just relax and stride out (I had some really nice new yellow trainers on so I wanted to look the part, haha!). The run was slightly over 5k so my time of 21 minutes was OK but not great.

I crossed the line as the 3rd female senior athlete in a time of 1:15:23. This was nearly 3 minutes faster than last year but I still think I have a much better performance in me for future races. I treated myself to a burger from the burger van at the finish, lol, happy days.

Sam