Wet wet wet at The Vitruvian!

12 September 2016 - By James Montgomery

The award-winning Vitruvian Triathon is becoming something of an annual pilgrimage for me. Held in The county of Rutland, England’s smallest and on this occasion the rain started as we got out the car at 4:50am at Rutland Water and didn’t stop all day until I had a pint in my hand about 10 hours later.

I was off in the last wave at around 7:15 am, so there was plenty of time to get soaked and cold before jumping into the lake for the 1.9kms swim. Thankfully, the water was a bit warmer than the air temperature, but that was of little comfort as the wind had whipped up quite a swell, making the swim rather choppy. It has been worse but I still couldn’t believe my time of 46 minutes as it had seemed a lot longer. But if I thought the wettest bit was over… ha! I should’ve kept my wetsuit on for the bike!!

The 84kms bike leg was simply horrendous. Foul weather with rain of biblical proportions turning the roads into rivers. Amazingly the wind wasn’t as bad as it might have been – Rutland is known for the windy conditions at the best of times – but my hands and feet and legs all got cold making the going very tough. Up and down the infamous “Rutland Ripple”, with my wheels slipping in the river of water cycling up and then the rain coming at us like needles on the way down. It didn’t look as though I was having as hard time as some, as I did my usual trick of moving up through the field and catching my first “victim” within the first few miles, if a little disappointed to just miss out on 3 hours. Many had already called it a day but I was still in a fit state to continue on to the run…

But only just. My hands were frozen so T2 became a trial in itself and I lost some more time here. It took me most of the first lap of the 21kms run and some of the second to properly get into it and warmed up, but then the wet and cooler conditions played into my hands and I was able to set a better pace for the last part and on to the finish in my best Vit run split yet.

Big thanks to Theresa who, doing a great job in supporting me on the day, also got a total drenching.

Splits:
Swim:              46mins 52secs
Bike:        3hrs 01mins 28secs
Run:          1hr  55mins 30secs
Overall:   5hrs 57mins 55secs

James