So I did it! I had a time of 2:47:35, which was 160th out of 250 entries, and 13th in my class (females up to 40). I didn't really know how fast to take it, especially as I had a lot of people saying Perranporth was the hardest one in the South West and 'a bit tough' for my first one! I had various advice such as powder in my socks, sweets and energy bars taped to my bike, how to take my wetsuit off as I ran (which really didn't work as I was wearing an overhead zip surf suit-which would probably explain my 'lunch break' long transition time!) and don't start the swim at the front or you will get swum over!
I heeded the advice, and I took the swim easy, however what was meant to be an 800-1000m swim surf dependant, was announced to be 1500m as the surf was so big it was breaking too far out! We swam out, round a buoy, across to another buoy and back to the beach, running about 500m to the transition area. The swim was my strong point, and I was fairly comfortable with the surf, though it was a lot harder with everyone kicking around you and being out of breath whilst being held down or body surfing on the way in. 40-50 people dropped out on the swim straight away and were rescued thanks to the RNLI.
The 38km cycle was better than I thought it would be despite my really tasty energy sweets falling off my bike before I had any! Ha ha! There was one big killer hill at the beginning then the rest was up and down, big downhill into Perranporth and then another lap. My chain came of twice in the bike due to the bumpy roads and changing gear.
The 7.5km beach run was the worst. I started with a double stich and immediately was put off by the rough sand. We had to run up over the cliffs, back down and then to the end of the beach and back, which was luckily a lot harder flatter sand. I took a bit long on this due to my double stitch but ran it off towards the end!
Overall, an amazingly organised event and I was pretty proud to have finished in the time I did with about a week's training. Next time I will train harder, as I have to say the Triathlon bug has bitten!!
Nervous grin!
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