City of Lancaster Triathlon
"The only limits we have are those we set ourselves"
COLT Triathlon Experiences
Race reports from members of COLT, giving a personal insight into what it takes to complete a triathlon.
You may also like to read how COLT athletes felt after racing an Ironman race here
From Olympic to Half:My Perfect Day with a little help from COLT - Sarah Patterson
So on nearing 50 – end of this year – I decided I needed another challenge, having plucked up the courage to step up from Sprint to Olympic distance in 2009 the obvious thing was to attempt a “half”. Scary thought – I’d only ever run one half marathon and cycled 56 miles once on a C2C leg which had taken me all day with various coffee stops. So here’s how it went including the training because without that you don’t get to the start line.
November 2010: Training starts, new regime under the instruction of Mr Inspired/Captain Mason/little brother, including turbo sessions in the garage, longer runs, brick sessions and a new toy - heart rate monitor. The new training schedule was great BUT the most unnerving thing was having to believe your little brother when he says “trust me” I’ll get you through this!
December: Coach gives me Christmas Day off to eat turkey & chocolate and drink cava – but have to train on my birthday on 29th – no rest for big sisters!
January 2011: Event choice – had to be flatish and early season so didn’t clash with family hols in Mallorca. TriGrandPrix near Northampton selected – Sunday 22 May. Finally pluck up courage to enter in late January – training going well, everything holding together.
February: Christmas Cracker Sportif – 56 miler – very enjoyable but daunting to think that I’m going to have to go a lot faster in May and won’t be able to stop half way round for ham sandwiches and gingerbread.
March: Develop a problem with right heel after running – consult doctor, Plantar Fasciitis diagnosed. Mr Inspired training weekend, swim technique analysed.
April: Go skiing and manage to come home in one piece. COLT Spring Training weekend in the Lakes – cycle over Honister, Newlands, Whinlatter, Kirkstone, Matterdale (with a bit of pushing thrown in), swim in Derwenter water at 7.30 am each morning. Lovely! Would recommend it as a real confidence builder.
Saturday 21 May: Arrive in Emberton to register – drive the bike course – definitely worth doing – no hills in sight (well not by Cumbrian standards anyway).
Sunday 22 May: Race day
5.00 am Wake up, pouring down and blowing a gale.
7.00 am I’m treading water in the Lake at Emberton waiting to start, lake a balmly 16 degrees. Rain stopped, sun out, still windy.
Swim Have usual Open Water Swim wobble - don’t think I can do this. See a bloke being hauled into the Safety Motor Boat and various swimmers hanging on to the canoeists. Tell myself to keep swimming, it’s only 1.9 km and if you get tired you can walk along the bottom because the lake is so shallow in places.
Bike 3 laps – 2 large and 1 small. Really windy, makes it hard going in places. Keep turning the pedals.
Run Lap 1 Want to die and cry – legs won’t obey brain. They want to sit down and eat cake which is what they did last time they had cycled 56 miles. No cake on offer just another gel and some water. Promise legs they can walk on Lap 2. Keep running.
Run Lap 2 First part of the lap – still want to cry – how am I going to run another 2 laps? Keep running. Second part of the lap, legs come to – oh joy – start to think I might not have to walk any of this.
Run Lap 3 Good – legs obeying brain. Keep running.
Run Lap 4 Well, it’s the last one so it’s a breeze.
So that was it – my perfect day – everything went to plan – race completed in 7 hours 1 minute and 47 seconds with a pb in the half marathon in sub 2hours. Not fast by most people’s standards but I did it and I finished with a BIG smile on my face at the same time as my wonderful training partner Christine. We weren’t last, we were second to last, I think the chap behind us had got lost on the bike leg! BUT would I have been able to do that if I hadn’t been a member of COLT – possibly - but it wouldn’t have been half as much fun.
COLT has been in existence since 19 September 2008 when 7 of us sat round the kitchen table at Richard’s house and COLT was born. 2011 is the third year of membership and it’s very interesting to see how it’s developing and growing as an entity. Friendship and training groups have formed. I have my own set of COLTs who have helped me along the way to my “half”. I know that those of you who just completed your first Ironman journey in Bolton will have had the same experience. I’m not going to personally name my set of COLTs but they know who they are.
I must give a special thanks though to IronHolgs and the IronHobbit who when I told them my choice of race in Milton Keynes had me convinced that there were hills down there the size of Kirkstone Pass. They wound me up so much that I printed off the bike profile and took it to my trusted coach who reassured me in his own unique style that there were no ******* hills in Milton Keynes, there were merely bumps in the road. Captain Mason also gave me the best bit of advice to use on the day. He rang me up when I was driving the bike course and he told me to focus on what was in front of me, happening there and then. He was right, if you think about the whole thing it is daunting but if you just deal with the bit you are doing it somehow makes it all manageable.
I would never have entertained the thought that I could complete a “half” when I did my first Sprint Triathlon in Cockermouth in 2003 but I did just that this year with a little help from COLT. So, come on COLTs, if you are contemplating tackling your first Sprint Triathlon or taking that step up Sprint to Olympic or from Olympic to Half – give it a go. We all have doubts about our ability to do something for the first time – into the unknown as they say – but if you don’t make that leap you’ll never know if you could have done it. You don’t have to be the fastest, if you did I would have hung up my trainers long ago, just get out there and enjoy it!
Sarah
My first complete Triathlon - Jane Patel
This season I’ve moved on. What I hear you say, to half ironman/full ironman/marathon de sables??
Sorry to disappoint but no – to FULL sprint tris!!
Let me explain- having turned 50 in Feb I have decided to join the “sod it” brigade. With knee arthritis from 20, being told at 40 that I would never run again, and having both knee joints replaced at 47, I have only ‘dabbled’ in tri-doing the swim/bike relay sections and cajoling friends to travel miles to run measly 5ks for me!
So no more-yesterday armed with my COLT t-shirt adorned with an extra sign ‘CANT RUN NOT WONT RUN! ‘ on the back I did the full Northwich Sprint Triathlon by powerwalking the 5k.
I recommend Northwich sprint if you are just starting out-cos it does what it says on the tin! Pool swim very pleasant, then a 3 lap bike ride with a naughty hill in it that you are cursing by the third-didn’t know they had hills in Cheshire!! With a nice grass 5k.Lovely weather too!!
Okay my swim(long way from the pool to the timing mat!) and my bike times can and will improve as three years on from my op I still feel I can be fitter. And no I will always have to do other distances as relays but hey- I feel so chuffed!!
Sprints are great and ideal for starting out- or sticking too. After all whatever the distance we are all triathletes-just like Chrissie!!
From Sprint to Olympic - Sarah Patterson
The COLT committee are always going on about making sure that COLT doesn’t become a triathlon club focussed solely on long distance & endurance triathlons but that is quite difficult in practice given that only 3 of the committee are not Ironmen and two of the three look likely to become so in the near future.
So that leaves me to fly the flag for the sprinters and wanna be Olympians. I’ve been competing at Sprint distance since 2003, I love it, I don’t do it fast but I do it and I enjoy it. So after 6 seasons of sprints I decided to take on my first Olympic distance triathlon, I signed up for Chester Devas two weeks before the event. I was just back from a week’s holiday in the Lake District, alot of it spent cycling, managed 150 miles in that week (OK so you Ironmen could do that in a day) and most of it seemed to be up hill so my fitness level felt good. My aim was to finish the race in under 3 hours 30 minutes and not to be last.
Anyway, race day dawned, up at 4.30 am – like Captain Mason thought about feigning illness but decided as I had dragged my lovely husband David from his bed at such an unsociable hour on Sunday morning I better get on with it. Got to Chester, first stop, toilet queue , talked to a very nice lady who thought she’d seen me before, she gave me words of encouragement when I said it was my first Olympic distance event. Got bike racked and headed to the river. The swim, the run and some of the bike course were familiar to me because Chester Diva Devas used to be run on the same day as the Chester Olympic distance and I’d been doing that ladies only triathlon since 2004.
Into the water, it was 8.15 am and it was freezing. Very civilized ladies only wave but surrounded by some 40 women who all looked either at least 20 years younger than me with proper wide swimmers shoulders or that type of lady who could run up Coniston Old Man and back before I’d put my trainers. Began to question what on earth I was doing in the River Dee at such a ridiculous time on a Sunday morning. Anyway, usual Mexican wave drill from the organiser and off we went. Well, 38 women went, me and another woman I could see out of the corner of my eye decided this was not good idea and gingerly began to breast stroke forward.
I love swimming, Sam our Masters swim coach at the Uni told me I had a neat stroke, I can swim 60 lengths front crawl in the Uni pool effortlessly but put me in a wetsuit and panic breast stroke ensues! I could see David on the bank, I decided I’d swim over and tell him I couldn’t do it but the thought of telling Captain Mason I’d pulled out after 100 metres made me get a grip. I needed a distraction from thinking about the cold, I decided to count strokes, 12345678, 12345678. It worked, I got to the big red buoy at half way and I knew I could do it. Got passed by the two fastest blokes from the next wave just after the turn round point, decided they would probably be rubbish on the bike and I’d catch them up later (ever the optimist)! Out of the water helped by a 2 very nice men and on to the bike. Saw David he yelled at me 51 minutes, I was devastated, how long! I wanted to be out of the water in under 40 minutes, things weren’t going to plan. (I later learned he got the timing wrong and he should have shouted 41 minutes!) Might be better to take Captain Mason’s advice and buy myself a watch.
Bike course was pretty good, I’d had a bit of a wobble the night before the event, consulted Captain Mason about the bike course because it looked complicated. He gave me the benefit of his infinite wisdom, “You aren’t going to be in front are you, so just follow the bloke in front of you” – thanks Captain. Saw Dave Worthington from COLT and he shouted words of encouragement. I kept following the bloke in front, there were lots of them, they kept passing me! Off bike, David waiting by transition shouting time again, this time he got it right, things looking good, I think I might manage to finish this is under 3 hours 30 minutes.
Next up the run, can’t say I like running that much, I’m not very good at it, if I manage to do a 5k in under half an hour I’m having a very good day. I run a couple of times a week with a mate at work for 5k so 10k is a pretty long way to me.
Anyway, set off at usual pace, plod speed, lots of support and encouragement out on run course from spectators, marshals and other competitors. Had a chat to No157 who was walking, he was muttering about never doing this ever again, should have learned his lesson last year he said and not signed up for it again, anyway encouraged him to get going and he did, saw him on the second lap and he was looking good. Lovely woman on the bridge across the river yelled to me “Looking good girl” – well, it’s along time since I could be thought of as a girl but she put a smile on my face and spring in my step.
Before I knew it lap 2 was done and I was running down the chute to the finish line, “We are the Champions” was playing and I’d done it - my first Olympic distance triathlon in 3 hours and 22 minutes.
I wasn’t last – I was 10th from last and I loved every minute of it apart from the first 10 minutes in the River Dee.
So those of you in COLT who are just starting out on the whole triathlon thing, take heart, if I can do it, 47 year old, mother of 3 with knees that sometimes hurt when I walk upstairs, you can do it and probably do it an awful lot faster. So have a go, believe in yourself and I’m sure you’ll be successful.
For those of you who have made it all the way to Ironman it would be very interesting to hear your stories of your first triathlon it would reassure us lesser mortals that Ironmen are human too…..