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

This race was organised by the people behind many of the triathlons that I've done and enjoyed over the past couple of years. It comes under the 'fun2tri' umbrella. So, when I saw they were running this race series over the winter, I jumped at the chance to encourage myself to do some off-season training. I do train over the winter anyway, but it's always a different matter if you have something to aim for. They were running the race over three possible distances: the short distance, which was a 250m swim followed by a 2.5K run; the middle distance, which was a 500m swim followed by a 5K run and the long distance, which was a 750m swim followed by a 7.5K run. All of this was to be achieved by different numbers of lengths and laps on the same course. I chose the middle distance as it contained the race distance for many of the sprint races I compete in, simply without the bike leg.

The race took place in Nantwich, kicking off at the same sports centre as the Cheshire Triathlon had earlier in the year. Thankfully we weren't in the same pool! We were safely ensconced in the indoor pool. As I've come to expect from this company the race was well organised and there was a good atmosphere, and that this time despite a very small field. The swim progressed across the lanes, with 4 lengths being swum in each lane before progressing to the next one. I had estimated my finish time at 10 minutes and turned out to be fairly accurate. I had completed my swim in 10:08.

Then it was outside and onto the run. I quickly donned my shoes and a T-shirt and headed out along the river bank, quite a pleasant place for a Sunday morning run. It was a gently undulating course and Daniel and the kids were there cheering me on. Ryan was trying take pictures of the athletes and April was yelling them all forwards. I had hoped to be able to hold my run time under 30 minutes, sadly I didn't quite achieve this, coming home in 30:29.

This gave a total race time of 40:37. Ok, but not brilliant. Oh well, it's something to aim for when I do the next one. I'm not doing the December one, but there's another in January, so the aim has to be to better my time. I don't really know what happened on the day, I'd been feeling very tired in the week leading up to the race. When it came to race day I felt worn out, the swim was hard work and the run even harder. This can't be blamed on the course, so it must have been me. I felt like I was coming down with something that never quite materialised. Well, whatever the reason, it was a battle, and I hope the next one goes considerably better!

The race itself was well run, in a nice setting and we were individually called out as we crossed the finish line - a nice touch possible due to the small field. My only minor complaint would be that it'd be nice to have some sort of 'something' to say you'd done it. It was some people's first foray into multi-sports racing and they had nothing to show for it, to tell people about their event. I've done planty of running races where the entry fee was considerably less and there was still a T-shirt at the end of it all. So, while I appreciate there are costs involved in organisation and pool hire and what have you, something would still have been nice. Nevertheless, that's a minor issue and I'm looking forwared to beating myself next time.