First Triathlon of the Season ? not quite

Saturday was the Big Day ,it should have been the first Triathlon of the Season and more importantly a Sprint Triathlon with a Open Water Swim , my first ever competitive  Open Water Swim. I was nervous in fact I was a Nervous wreck, I arrived on Friday evening and looked at the Sea and amazingly the Water was quite calm, so I told myself I can do this, had to tell myself this very often.

I knew I could expect bad Weather , forecast was not very pretty.

But I told myself that I don't mind the Rain as long as the Sea would be calm enough. So Saturday morning arrived and I had to force myself to eat breakfast, very unlike me I usually like my Food but on Saturday morning I actually had to force every bite down. The Weather at this time was not too bad  and by the time I left the Hotel to get to the Race area I had calmed down a bit and thought "OK the first 20-25 minutes of this are the though part, after that it's cycling and running". With that in mind I really calmed down and then I arrived at the Race and was informed : Due to the Weather Condition we had to cancel the Swim , we will do a Duathlon instead.

Part of me was delighted, the other part bitterly disappointed , no Swim and that after I had fought with myself so badly.

So we started with a 3km Flat run, where I gave everything, I was not completely last when I arrived back in Transition  but nearly last, got onto the Bike and this was a rather steep climb from the beginning, a uphill climb for the first 4-5km and then the Rain came and the Wind, the Race organizer had warned us upfront that on the other site of the Island that there would be a fierce Wind, I had not really believed them but wow that was scary I slowed down nearly to a crawl but I didn't want to take any risks. Triathletes with Disk Wheels on their Bike had actually to give up , they were not able to control the Bikes.

Anyway I managed to finish the Cycle, put my Bike back into transition and the next run started, however this time uphill , the first 2.5km followed the Cycle Route steep uphill , I had to walk for most of that stretch only on the way home the downhill section I was able to run.

I was pretty much out of steam by then, showed very clearly my lack of proper training, but I finished it  and that's the important part.I finished pretty much at the back of the pack but that's something I'm used too and the encouragement I did get from my fellow Competitors was just amazing.

I know I will be more ready for the next Triathlon, and I will be very ready for my First open Water Triathlon which is very likely now only in June.

 I will try to find a Aquathon before that so that I can get rid of my fear of open Water swim and I also would like to get rid of this constant cough but that is something I just have to be patient about