Daf'sDiary: Woking Sprint Triathlon

We had such an early start today with the alarm going off at 5am. We didn’t waste any time at throwing a cup of coffee down our throats to get on the road to support our newest triathlete Christine Holyoake, she was competing for the first time at Woking Triathlon. Having dipped her toes into multi sport at the Frosty Aquathlon swim run, a few weeks ago.

The first impression we had when we arrived with 45 minutes to go to the start of the event was; what a lovely base for a novice triathlon. There was plenty of free parking and good signage, a nicely laid out transition area. All this held at a very smart branch of Freedom Leisure that has a lovely park setting. The officials were doing a good job of shepherding a group of people many of whom looked like beginners, as was the lady that we have been helping along the slippery slope into triathlon from a running background. Christine had her husband Roy and daughter Emily who is in her early teens and had come along to cheer on the brave lady facing a new sport to raise money for the Chestnut Tree Children’s Home in memory of a recently deceased dear friend.

The event was very well organized by Fullstream Events with the support of Freedom Leisure staff which is the same group that operates our home pool in Littlehampton. The waves started on time and having watched Christine on the first few lengths of her swim and seeing that she looked comfortable, we trundled round to watch our friend exit from the pool and into Transition 1.

Christine, having been chased through some transition practice with us did so much better than on young man in a very smart Royal Welsh tri suit with Prince of Wales feathers emblazoned over him and bearing the motto Ich Dien. He had not had the same training as our girl evidently, since he jogged out of the pool and into T1 where he dried his hair with his towel and took the top of his tri suit down to his waist. I was a bit worried momentarily. Then he rummaged through his bag and found his heart monitor and did that up around his chest. Then he struggled to get the wet tri suit back on over the top. He put on his shoes and socks and number. Then he rummaged through the bag again and found a bottle of water that he drank from. Then he found an energy bar which he ate whilst he stood there. Then at last he put on his bike helmet and lastly he found his gloves and took ages getting them on. He had not, I swear to you, been told by anybody that his transition time would be included in his total time for the event. He was enjoying himself though, but a little too casually.

The bike ride was well signed and well marshaled and went out through pretty woodland and common ground roads. The run was all within the parkland at the rear of the leisure centre.

Christine had the biggest grin on her face throughout the two lap 23km bike course and then as I had told her before hand, found her legs felt like they belonged to somebody else at the start of the run but pushed on regardless of the pain and discomfort that was evident in the photos that I have deleted!

She was almost in tears with the sheer joy of reaching the finish line and is now I think sucked totally into the heart and spirit of her new sport of Triathlon. She looked a very happy woman afterwards and has spent the afternoon going around collecting all the pledges from those who signed up to sponsor her in memory of her friend.