Hartlepool Sprint Triathlon 2025

The key, where do I put the car key? I couldn't decide whether to hide it in the car or attempt to stuff it into my already full saddle bag with a broken zip. I cursed keyless start and decided the latter was the less worse idea.

After dumping the rest of my gear in the car, I jogged over to transition with a minute left before it closed and hurriedly walked up to my bike, ignoring the glare of the official who was asking everyone to leave. I still don't fully understand how I ended up being so rushed, I thought we left the house with plenty of time. Stuffing the key into my saddle bag best I could, I hoped it wouldn't pop out somewhere during the bike leg.

Giving a meek nod to the official on the way out of transition, I walked over to the changing tent, then realised as I got there it was specifically for Redcar Triathlon Club. OK let's just walk straight through here and out the other side. I picked a spot and pulled the rest of my wetsuit over me, then wondered what to do for 15 minutes, nervously wandering around.

Whilst gazing off into the distance I unexpectedly spotted my sister, Sarah, appear with our dog, Bagel. I walked over and Bagel added a few more micro tears to my wetsuit with his excited paws, as he probably wondered why I was dressed so weirdly. It was a nice way to take my mind off things for 10 minutes.

A few minutes before the briefing I wandered down towards the water and flung my arms around a bit. I don't usually warm up before a swim, but I don't usually throw myself into the sea at 7am, so I attempted my best Michael Phelps impression, not really sure what I was doing.

The announcer announced the route, it's generally what they do; "swim to the first buoy over there", he announced, and pointed towards the rising ball of fire. Yup, I can definitely see that. He announced the rest of the route, I managed to take it almost none of it.

Briefing over, the nerves picked up as I slowly walked into the water, taking some deep breaths and contemplating my life choices. I could be in bed right now, what the hell am I doing? For some reason most people weren't lining up anywhere near the start line, so I found myself near the front, which isn't where I wanted to be, but I wasn't placing myself 25m back.

As the whistle went, I started swimming towards the big ball of fire, attempting to do it fast, succeeding only in making my arms immediately hurt and realising I couldn't do this for the entire swim, so I slowed a little (or at least stopped moving my arms so erratically). Then I started getting hit by those who insisted on doing a little extra distance. One guy on my right seemed particularly insistent on swimming over me, so I slowed to let him past, and got hit from the other side. I hate swimming. I managed to find some space and tried to get back into a rhythm. Every time I passed a buoy the next one looked about a mile away.

Eventually I got to the final buoy, did another weird manoeuvrer to change direction, and hit the home straight. I started moving my arms more erratically again in an attempt at a fast finish, as another guy side swiped me as if he was attempting to shoulder barge me out of the way in the penalty area as a corner came in. I finally reached the ramp and attempted to stand up.

As I stumbled up, I whipped my goggles and swimming cap off, then had an internal argument with myself as I struggled to lose my sea legs after 17 minutes in the marina on a calm summer morning. OK run and take wetsuit off. No, can't do that. OK walk and take wetsuit off. Nope, can't do that either. OK well just run then. Nope, not even that. So I swiftly stumbled into transition looking for my bike like I was looking for a kebab shop after a big night out.

I managed to regain some muscle memory as the fuzziness in my head reduced, got rid of my wetsuit and grabbed my bike without any further issues, then jogged out into the bike leg. I wasn't confident enough to attempt a quick mount so slowly hopped onto my bike, as I watched the guy ahead of me increase the gap. Need to practice this for next time.

I planned to churn out 250 watts for the bike leg, when I told Heather this she basically laughed at me. I began to understand why as my legs screamed at me, wondering why we were doing this instead of driving home for a big bowl of chilli, like we did after the last open water swim a few days ago.

The first half of the bike leg was me having another internal argument with myself about how many watts to attempt, whether or not to use my tri bars, (which were fresh on yesterday for the first time in 6 years and made my arms go numb after 5 mins), how sick I felt, and whether or not I'd missed the turnaround point and was now on the Olympic course instead of the sprint. The Olympic was 2 laps and the sprint was 1, so it was practically impossible to go wrong at this point, which is an indication of how I was feeling.

Around 10 mins in the most horrific smell hit me. I found out later the route went close by a landfill. Lovely. The initial scenic seaside route on a closed road had quickly turned into a slog through the nearby industrial estate on an open road, which got a bit dicey at times with the amount of cyclists. I can't help but feel Hartlepool didn't really welcome this event, which is a shame as cycling through the town might've helped take some pain away.

At the actual turnaround point I'd began to feel better and decided on a much lower 190 watt aim, which I could actually hit. The headwind turned into a tailwind and my morale improved some more. For the rest of the cycle I switched between tri bars and drops to attempt to keep hold of feeling in my arms, and tried to reel people in.

The course was full of people doing both the sprint and the Olympic, which had started 45 minutes earlier, so it was difficult to tell who I was racing. I know I'm supposed to do my own race but it does help to have a carrot.

Towards the end of the course the route got more technical as it twisted around the seaside. I pushed past a couple of people as I attempted to sustain the same power output.

Squeezing the last out of my quads (definitely don't need these for the run, right?), I accelerated towards transition, nailed the fast dismount, and almost sprinted in and out of T2 in forty odd seconds. I looked down at my watch after a few hundred metres and I was doing 4 minute kilometres. That was probably a mistake. I slowed a little as I threw a gel all over myself that I forgot to have on the bike. The heat began to rise and hit me as I then struggled to retain 4:50 pace once the adrenaline of going through transition with the noise of the crowd wore off.

The 5km run had 2 turnaround points as it curved around the coast. The first after 4km and the second after 7km, or at least that's how it felt. As difficult as it was, the run was mostly uneventful.

Around halfway in I passed Heather going the other way and had flashbacks to the Ironman. Even though she was in a different race I didn't want to be overtaken again. She was far enough back though, and I even attempted to shout some words of encouragement, but all that came out was a quiet "go.. goj.."

I'd hoped to catch someone on the run in, or even someone attempt to pass me so a had a bit of adrenaline for a fast finish, but I was alone. I tried to pick up the pace as I came into the noisy bit again, but I was cooked. I crossed the line and basically collapsed for a good minute.

As I regained my breath I stuttered over to my family, completely missing the finish booth and then wondered why there wasn't a medal. I did another collapse as Bagel attacked me and I asked with immense hope if anyone had brought any sugar. Jack whipped out a bag of Greggs and my eyes lit up. I've never tasted a nicer fudge doughnut.

As much as my Mam thinks I'm angry during these events, I do appreciate the support, I just don't have any spare energy to acknowledge it in the moment, so thanks everyone!

Yet again it wasn't the time I wanted (I think I need to stop being so ambitious), but I'm happy I managed to push myself so hard for 80odd minutes, something I wasn't sure I was ever going to be able to do again in the last few years.

My swim was 17 minutes, 2 minutes slower than I'd hoped, but I'm not too unhappy with that considering the extra metres I did wandering off course and back, plus attempting to keep out of everyone's way. Not that my file could tell me that as it recorded 3 meters, I must've forgot to press start. The bike was 40 minutes, I'd aimed at sub 40 but I should probably do an FTP test before I throw out wattage aims. The run was a little long according to my watch, measuring 5.2km, which meant I was just over 25 minutes. Again slower than my target of 23, turns out it's harder to run a 5k after a hard swim and bike than on a hangover. Overall 1:25 and annoyingly slightly slower than my time here in 2018, so I'm gonna have to do it again next year.

I think I have the bug again...