Against all the odds, Jamie Saunders had a excellent result at his first Triathlon........

There seems to be a dearth of news on the site recently, so for those like me who enjoy reading about fellow club members exploits in the world of tri, I thought I’d write about my first ever triathlon last month at castle Howard, North Yorkshire.

I am very new to this sport, having only started training back in early June.

Even that was down to a casual chance encounter with a triathlon magazine to read on a long car journey to Scotland.

So on my way back, I had made a plan that I would find a club, train over the summer and see if I could get in shape for a late season sprint triathlon.

By mid July, it seemed the summer was slipping away and I wanted to do more than one this year, so I threw myself in and entered the castle Howard sprint for the following week and the Hever Olympic in September (Still not sure the last one was a wise move!)

After finding out just how far away castle Howard was, my alarm went off at 2.50am on race day and I jumped straight up, into the first transition of the day and I was on the road by 2.57am. I had had only 3 ½ hours sleep due to last minute checking and finally getting around to practising transitions in my living room till 11.30pm, but this would pay dividends later!

I arrived at 7.30am under beautiful clear blue skies and tried to get some sleep in the car before going up to register.

The already hot sun and the butterflies made it impossible and I soon gave this up. Making my way up to registration I felt a little bike conscious at first, my bianchi road bike did not look so good against all the shiny, clicky sounding TT bikes being wheeled about, but I soon spotted some others like mine and relaxed.

It was only as I was stood next to the water at the pre race briefing that I realised things might not go to plan.

Firstly, my logic when choosing my wave, was that I would rather be chasing faster people than overtaking slower people, so I opted for 1hr to 1.15. This turned out to be the fastest wave and had 90 people in it. Secondly, I realised my bike bottle was empty!

Never mind I thought, there was a drink station half way round.

Although swimming is my weakest discipline, I looked around, weighed up the competition and felt quite confident, some of them were getting on in years and some were carrying a bit of weight. I felt strong in the water, so I put my self right at the front.

Big mistake!

I was steamed over and by the half way mark I was probably in the back quarter of the pack.

I found a bit of space on the way back and made up a little ground but still exited in 61^st position.

Thankfully from here on in, (apart from a couple of schoolboy errors, of which more soon) it got better.

After a 300 yard dash uphill where I managed to overtake half a dozen people, I exited transition in 49 seconds.

As soon as I jumped on my bike though, my feet slipped off the rigid bike shoes I have and the bands broke, but as they swung under the pedal and I tried to push the tops, they hit the ground and started bucking my feet and I soon fell off.

Effing and blinding to myself as other bikes streamed past, I looked up to see a disgusted looking woman sitting on the grass holding her young childs ears.

I muttered an apology and managed to get myself going. Once I was up to speed, I overtook a bunch of people in the first k and as we approached the biggest hill of the course those in front were going up in a train in easy gears, so I decided to stand up and plough up the outside.

The first sign of trouble was a ‘tinking’ noise coming from the back wheel, but now was not the time to stop.

All of a sudden, it sounded and felt like my rear shifter had gone through the spokes as I was brought to a juddering halt.

I pulled my bike to the opposite side of the road and soon found the problem. The night before, I did not have any elastic bands to clip my shoes up in transition, so I had to make do with a couple of my daughters chunky hair bands, complete with brass closure, and this little bit of brass had somehow jammed up my chain! Lesson learned.

I thankfully managed to free it, and in my eagerness to get going again, jumped on, clipped in and pushed off but in such a high gear up a steep hill, it was not going to happen. I stood up to try and force it on, but only managed to flop back down in the road with a roar of frustration, still clipped in.

How embarrassing in front of this ‘slow’ train of people that I had just overtaken for the 2^nd time. They were very kind though and asked if I was OK.

Finally I got going and this time managed to sustain it around the very hilly course.

At the much longed for drink station, due to my empty bottle, I was breathing so hard that I ended up inhaling more water from the little cup than I drank, and my mouth was so dry I did not even attempt to eat the bar I had taped to the frame. Never mind I thought, onwards!

I was attacking every hill and overtaking more people than I could count, without anyone coming past me.

I was feeling good about this and it only occurred to me afterwards that many were probably doing two laps, but nonetheless it spurred me on at the time!

I got into T2 and out again in 58 seconds and the first k of the run was down hill, during which time I took a gel (Too late, I know now) and was overtaken by a tall red headed guy, my legs felt dead and I just tried to keep the gap as small as possible.

After the one k mark though, my legs were feeling stronger and as he slowed at the first hill, I strode past and continued like that around the hilly run course, overtaking people on every hill and I have to say it felt really good and kept me going at full revs.

After a wobbly moment on the last hill it was a 200 yard dash downhill to the finish line in 1:20:32.

I came in 22^nd place out of 220, which was much more than I ever hoped for, and strangely, it was my relatively fast transition times that stopped me being about 30th.

As I drove home that day, life felt good as I ran the race over and over in my mind with blue skies, good music and a satisfying tiredness that only comes when you have given your best.

Distances were 400m+300yd run/23k/4k and my times were 10:36/49s/49:43/58s/18:24

Thanks to everyone at the club who has made me so welcome,

I am now well and truly bitten by the tri bug so look out Neil Harris (Just kidding!)

Jamie