Ashford Triathlon 17/7/2005

Five SLHTri Club competitors eventually started and finished the National Age Group Champs on Sunday. This was after a two hour delay due to poor visibility on the lake. Because of this, the swim was cut short - very short, to less than 400m as time was also running short on the road closure licence from the Police.

The race finally kicked off at 08.15 with Steve S in the Open race (he'd been there since 05.00ish as he was meant to be off at 06.15!). The BT age group races started 10 minutes later with Chris and Ruth and I set off at 08.35. The men then set off, Phil followed by Nigel about 9.00 (I think).

The swim was not really worth the effort as it was so short and a crazy scramble in very weedy, warm water (euh!). Bike course was good, well marshalled and flowing but as the swim was so short there were still bunches of athletes together, hence the official line of no drafting was hard to enforce - i.e., there was lots of cheating going on! (Ruth and I can say that we were not assisted by drafting - she was too far out the front, having lead the bike course most of the way and as for me, I was too far behind!!). The run was a 'nice' course open country lanes and by mid morning it was very warm.

Ruth was placed 10th lady over all and she was pipped in the home straight on the track into second place in her age group. She picked up a very nice shiny silver medal so congratulations to her. Steve S also put in a very good performance for his first 'intended to be' Olympic distance event, being placed first in his age group in the open race.