Hi

I crawled out of bed at 3am Sunday for my second trip to Milton Keynes in 3 weeks. This was for the next race in the Big Cow sprint series over the same course and distance as my previous disaster at the National age group championships.

The swim was in two waves first all males with the all female wave next. I got off to a better start this time but was soon bogged down with swimmers all around me and receiving the usual kicks to head and body. At one time there was so little room the only stroke i could manage was doggy paddle, but i pushed on and made up a lot of places in the second half of the swim. Although i am not very confident when there are a lot of swimmers around me i seem to be good at swimming in a straight line, i was amazed at how some people were zig zagging around the course. I eventually hauled out of the swim leg in 14.02 mins which was 1.23 faster than my previous effort. Transition 1 was pretty good and again i was better by 28secs here.

The bike section was pretty fast today and i overtook several riders before being overtaken by one rider on the long hill.( i'm rubbish at hills) I eventually finished in 35.48 which was 2.26 faster than before. Transition 2 was okay, i managed to get my helmet off this time and shaved 56 secs off here.

Into the run i felt really good and overtook runners on both laps to finish with a run time of 23.07 which was 2.18 faster than last time. I really enjoyed this race, it shows what good race conditions can do for you. I finished in 46th position in a field of 253 with a time of 1.15.27 which was a pb by 7mins 34 secs.

Regards

Dave Ransom

Update on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 02:42PM by David Ardley

We had a couple of missed STC members:

Noticed from your website (nice site by the way) that there is a report on the Big Cow sprint event. Did you know there were also 2 Southampton Tri club members, Sally Gilbert and Jo Kitley doing the Cowman middle distance event on the same day. There were entered as Team Southampton rather than STC as we had a group doing the race. Sally Gilbert Joanna Kitley