The ladies that compete were out in force last weekend, and now with a report from Alan Lewis on his debut

Age group Sprints  took place on Saturday morning before the Elite Women's race and the Age group Olympic Distance was on Sunday before the Elite men.
Myself, Val Place and Jo Stephens- Smith went up on Saturday to collect our race packs. Lovely sunny day and bumped into James Bulley after he had finished. James did well, but reported that he did not enjoy pulling through a weedy Serpentine, goggles obscured by green stringy bits made it more challenging than pool sets!

Sunday morning arrived and after finding my racking place (which was not easy with more than a thousand bikes jammed back to back in a huge transition area- don't be fooled by what you see on the TV - whilst the Elites were at The Ritz - age groupers were with the tents and camper vans ! )

Sunday morning arrives and so does some rain. I start to feel apprehensive about a possible greasy bike course. God was good - by 10.30 when I was on the bike, rain had dried up so all I needed was to worry about was the hairpin turns! After one close encounter with a straw bale I began to get the feel of the course and completed the five laps without further incident!
It was a technical bike course, lots of disc wheels flying past, however I was quite pleased with my time and unlike my last event at least, I counted the laps correctly, so progress there!

T2 was a challenge, all the bikes racked before me had left no space for mine. I had to shove a couple of bikes out of the way before mine would fit on the rack! Well if women can't park, men certainly can't rack bikes straight! (I would not recommend this event to anyone who is sensitive about the handling of  their bike!)

On to the run which was 4 laps, fairly flat but all hard surface (this was not nice for my torn knee cartilage). I was ready to give up on the first lap but knowing that Gill Sanders, who was heading the support team would have pushed me back on it, definitely helped; I decided to hobble around.
Mike and Katrina were giving out the lap bands and I am indebted to them too, for their enthusiastic support, cheering me on each lap.

Needless to say my run time made my total slower than I'd hoped for, but it was a good day out and fun competing with lots of good atmosphere.
Weeds, sub standard transition area and knee pain aside, I'd definitely do this race again.
I know some other 7oaks members competed, however the event was so big I didn't see anyone else there or haven't spoken to them so don't know how they did. So forgive me for not mentioning the others.

I do know, Val and Jo posted superb times (you can find details on The Dexto Energy Tri Website)
Val won her AG and Jo took 3rd in hers. It was an ITU World qualifier so they should both be off to Bejing in 2011.
They'll have to write their own race report - unfortunately I won't be there.

Alethea Lowles

Report from Alan Lewis

A little late with my results from the triathlon last weekend - my first
Olympic distance event. I finished 11th in my age group - MVET1.

Swim 0:24:53 T1 4:28 Bike 1:02:45 T2 2:15 Run 0:40:18 Total 02:14:37

I was a bit slow on the transition. Good advice from Val - don't put socks on
for the bike and run!! Just trying to avoid getting blisters! Thanks to
Katrina and Mike for the support as they handed out the wrist bands.