The best inspiration is not to outdo others, but to outdo ourselves

Photographs

Run to Transition	Run out with the Bike
The Bike	Hard Going
The Bike	Back to Transition
Running

Today saw April take on her second triathlon.  She was somewhat nervous going into it, so was I on her behalf - it's almost worse than doing it yourself!  She hasn't had much time for training as we seem to have been very busy and then her bike spent most of the last week at the repair shop after she fell off it on Monday and managed to snap the brake lever off it - not good (she didn't half cry!).  Anyway, this was a good race for us in many ways as it was local and organised by people that April knows, a lot of the kids that she knows from the tri club were taking part although they were mostly older than her.

She didn't get what you'd call August weather for it, the rain began as we came out of the race briefing.  It was pretty chilly and it made the course wet and tricky.  April had a trial ride around the cycle route before the race, just as well as it didn't go at all well.  She isn't used to cycling on grass and still hasn't sussed out what to do with her gears!  She struggled around it in 4th and came back looking decidedly downhearted about it all.  I changed it into 2nd gear and reassured her that she'd be fine.  Poor lass wasn't looking all that confident by that point.

The swim was 4 lengths of a 15m pool, a total of 60m.  Longer than her pevious race but it should have been easier for her as it was in a pool rather than a lake.  Unfortunately we slowed her down by attaching her race number to her tri suit, it wasn't waterproof so they took it off then she had to have it pinned back on before she came out to continue the race.  We don't know how she did with the swim as no spectators were allowed in the pool, so we had to wait nervously outside for her to appear.  They swam their 4 lengths, dried their feet off a little and then put on their trainers at the poolside.

There were 6 girls in the Tristart group, 4 came out a long way ahead of her (no doubt helped by number issues - we won't make that mistake again).  April and the other little girl came out pretty much together.  She ran really determinedly into transition, made a good transition and came out quite some way ahead of the other competitor.

The gear change had obviously helped as she was keeping going and managing a better speed than in her practise run.  They all seemed to be finding it hard going on such a wet and slippy surface.  April kept a pretty steady pace, nearly missed her second lap but was yelled back on course.  She completed the 1000m  with a smile despite clearly finding it very hard going.  She had managed to maintain and even pull ahead a little more.

Again she managed a pretty smooth transition and headed out for her 2 lap, 600m run.  She was running really well and faster than some of the girls in front of her but was far too far behind to have any chance of catching them.  However she ran really well, looked happy when she'd finished it and said she felt proud of herseelf.  We are certainly proud of her again.  Well done April!