London calling! #TeamTCUK athlete, Anna Best, chose the London Triathlon as her 'A' race for 2018. It turned out to be a great choice as Anna placed first in her age group and bagged a place at the 2019 'Escape Alcatraz' triathlon in San Francisco!

Pre-race

I decided to race London Triathlon as my main race this year as I thought the chance to ride a flat course on closed roads to Westminster would be great fun and a change from hilly races.

In respect of pre-race preparations, I’d followed coach James’ plan as closely as possible for about 8 months and the gradual increments in terms of the programme were brilliant – challenging but never hard enough to make you give up and choose a different sport. Unfortunately, I had a foot injury for 12 weeks in the final months which meant I was feeling nervous about the run section leading up to the race (and bizarrely was still worrying about it even during the cycle leg).

Having trained consistently over the preceding months, one of the absolute hardest parts pre-race was tapering. I did nothing on the Friday or Saturday which felt very strange and it’s hard not to let the anxiety convince you that you’ll be deconditioned and won’t fit into your wetsuit come race morning.

The race transition is located in the enormous exhibition centre Excel over at London Docklands. Once you manage to navigate your way there through race road closures, it’s really well suited to both athletes and spectators. There is an enormous car park and then the centre itself has lots of toilets, coffee shops, restaurants and space. The race weekend was during this year’s heatwave and daytime temperatures had regularly exceeded 30 degrees, which made being indoors in the Excel centre nice and cool. Conversely, if it was a normal English summer, being away from wet and muddy fields in transition would be a welcome change – oh, and no Portaloos…

The transition zone is within an enormous hall so it’s worth allowing a decent amount of time to rack and work out transition routes. The walls of the transition area have large letters and numbers so I felt it was easier then other races to find your row.

The race is very well organised and the pre-race information pack in the race website covers most questions. The LivetoTri team is also very responsive in answering questions in the lead up to the race. During the weekend, there is a helpdesk at the expo which is constantly manned.

Swim

Time: 25m 36s

Prior to the swim there was a huge question mark over whether it would be a wetsuit-free race. If the water had reached over 25 degrees then there would have been no wetsuits but all competitors would have had to swim with a tow-buoy. This was communicated in an email late on the Friday night. This resulted in 36 hours wondering about the logistics of hundreds of competitors trying to avoid being tangled in one another’s tow-buoy cords. Happily, it never came to this and the water hovered around 24 degrees and wetsuits were compulsory.

The swim starts in the water so, once your wave has been gathered, it’s a quick jump into the water off the pontoon on the edge and then a floating start in the water. They divided my wave into two as it was an enormous group. This meant that the start didn’t feel too crowded, however, once we began within a hundred metres or so we ended up swimming into the back end of the first part of the wave which was frustrating as it meant swimming around breaststrokers and less confident swimmers.

I didn’t have a great swim mainly because I couldn’t see a thing in terms of sighting the first buoy so spent quite a few strokes looking up like meerkat still not able to locate the first turn. In the end I just followed the splashing feet in front of me. It was 8am and the sun was still low and directly in front of us as well as the marker buoys being red which I think is harder to spot than the fluorescent ones. Also, our swim caps were white which blended into the wash/reflections whereas normally you can see brightly coloured caps ahead.

On the positive side, the swim was one lap so despite not swimming very fast or feeling confident in my direction, it wasn’t too complicated.

The swim out is on to a submerged pontoon and there are lifeguards to help you if you struggle. You are then handed a plastic bag on exit, which you need to get your wetsuit in before heading up some steps into the transition hall. This is, I assume to stop the transition area of polished concrete becoming dangerously slippery.

T1

Time: 3m 11s

Transition was slightly slippery so my run to the bike was quite cautious. Found my bike easily but again, the run with the bike to the mount area was slightly tottery as the risk of sliding was quite high.

Bike

Time: 1hr 3m

The bike course is pretty flat and fast. This year’s Sunday Olympic route was a lap out towards Westminster turning just before Big Ben, back past transition / Excel to a turn point, then out again on a smaller lap turning at Billingsgate Market.

It was all reasonably well signed but it’s worth knowing where the Billingsgate turn is since if you overshoot it, you will struggle to get back against the flow of competitors to get back on the course.

It is also worth being prepared for a few sweeping up and downs as you enter Limehouse Tunnel, and other ramps en route which pass over roads. You will also loose GPS signal in the Limehouse Tunnel for a couple of minutes. The other ‘ramp’ to be aware of is a steep incline back up to transition in Excel.

Generally my bike section felt good, the route was fairly quiet on the longer lap and the closed roads meant there was a large width in which to avoid other competitors. There is a real squeeze of the course around the back of Excel and there are a few steep corners and roundabouts where you need to be aware of slower cyclists meandering across the whole width.

Unfortunately, the gels that I opened on the bike had turned to lumpy jelly so were unusable, the heat in our home kitchen where they had been stored had got so high in the heatwave that they had been literally cooked!

T2

Time: 2m 12s

This transition was the easiest as no one else was back in my row so I could easily see my pink towel!

Running after the bike felt horrid but nothing out of the ordinary and the run out signs were well placed.

Run

Time: 48m 52s

Having worried about my foot injury for weeks before the race and even during the cycle leg, it was absolutely fine on the day. The run course for the Olympic was four laps of an out and back circuit, running away from Excel alongside the docklands and then back indoors for a little wriggle up and down before outside again for the next lap.

There were both gels and water twice on the route so there were numerous opportunities to refuel or just throw water over your head to stay cool in my case.

There were speakers playing music most of the way around the route and spectators half of the way along so it’s a really buoyant atmosphere. The frustration was the overcrowding and I spent a lot of time weaving in and out and then being blocked at the bridge crossings.

Going back indoors on each lap was slightly surreal as you need to adjust to the gloom when wearing sunglasses. On the positive side, it was some welcome shade as the rest of the lap is very exposed and the temperature was already close to 24 degrees.

Overall I felt good and not too shattered when running so was disappointed to see the slowest run time I’ve ever posted. However, one of the organisers told me afterwards that the course distance was measuring closer to 11.5-12km. Frustrating for anyone trying to get a PB on a generally fast course overall.

Post-race

We recovered (my husband also raced) by heading off on holiday for a week of drinking and eating as unhealthily as possible. It was blissful not having a worry every day how to fit in a training sessions around daily life.

Obviously after a few days of triathlon-free life, its back to planning the next challenge. As a result of my age group placing I may have earned myself the right to enter the 2019 ‘Escape Alcatraz’ triathlon over in San Francisco. A slightly scary opportunity to be dropped by boat and swim in supposedly shark infested waters back to land. One to ponder over a cocktail or two…