First Olympic Distance Triathlon

Marlow Triathlon was my first Olympic Triathlon, I anticipated on what I was going to expect after watching the start to the Marlow River Swim on a wet Saturday afternoon. Feeling a little nervous about the swim and not feeling confident about my bike I was eager just to get going. Like all starts the first 4 minutes in the river was manic, not relaxing and quite frustrating, the memories of entering the boxing ring came flooding back! Alex describes it well in his previous post. Once I settled into my stroke I felt comfortable and thought I was passing people, which always provide you with confidence. However there is lots of work to still do on the swimming front!! Happy to get out of the water I entered the transition zone and wrestled my wetsuit off. The T1 process will hopefully only get faster the biggest thing is to remember everything… cycle helmet clipped, nutrition etc. Cycling out was great as the course included elements of the Challenge Henley route. Cycling up to Nettlebed was taxing but coming back down the hill was exhilarating. I tried to stay strong on the bike and not thinking too much about the run, going into T2 was a relief as I have recently had a large number of issues with my bike, which results in low confidence about the technology and whether I have the right bike for this event. My aim for the run was to clock as close to 40 minutes as possible and to attack the fellow competitors, knowing that the run is my strongest discipline I really wanted to make an impact on the field. Shaking off tired legs I clocked 20.45 for my first 5 km, motivation and support from my wife instilled a fast 2nd lap, as the aim was to close the gap on all the triathletes in front. Relatively pleased with my run and overall time, with nothing to compare it to have included the results from fellow competitor and GB triathlete Mark Yeomen. Out of the 215 competitors that finished I came 26th overall. An analysis of my performance indicates time lost throughout my swim, as indicated before this is an area that requires more work! Area for improvement in T1, Mark’s time here is ridiculously fast! I think I’ll get the baby gel ready for the next event. I’m fairly surprised with my bike but I know I can improve here too! In general if I aim to take this serious I need to work on all element but my focus will lie both in the swim and the bike, with such a short time frame to Challenge Henley. The results from the race can be found following the link: http://www.f3events.co.uk/ additional action shots can be found on the following link, http://www.sussexsportphotography.com/ using the hyper link Marlow Tri, you can filter using my race number 351.

Mark Yeomen Philip Hindley


Swim Time 00:20:59(5) Swim Time 00:28:29(87)
T1 00:00:32 T1 00:01:10
Bike Time 01:04:21(4) Bike Time 01:10:30(53)
T2 00:00:32 T2 00:00:36
Run Time 00:40:00(15) Run Time 00:39:02(10)
Overall Time02:06:27 Overall Time 02:19:49

Previous training update: I have really enjoyed embracing the triathlon community in doing so I built a great relationship with an outstanding athlete who is on the top of his game for his age category, Jules. Jules has recently won the Windsor Triathlon and smashed under 5 hours for a half distance Iron Man in Milton Keynes, a true inspiration and a great motivator, it’s great to have Jules down at the lake.

Previous lake training distance have included 4.5km, Aquathlon with Harrison (3.8km swim & 7 mile run), my previous two swims have been 3km. After buying a new pair of goggles for the triathlon my last swim has felt like my strongest, visibility certainly aids swimming performance! Prior to the Triathlon I had a great ride out on my bike with another excellent triathlete who will be alongside us on the starting line on the 18th of September for Challenge Henley, Laurence Miles. Laurence is a GB long distance triathlete, who achieved 10th overall position on Marlow Triathlon at the weekend, 2nd in his age group, a frustrating 15 seconds behind the winner who has also represented GB for triathlons. Laurence and I cycled a loop of the challenge Henley Course, clocking 70 miles in total.