29/01/2010 - Ladies Try a Tri - Race Report
A Race Report by Tracey Sample
In an evening when 14 frightened ladies stood on the poolside at the Willowburn Sports Centre, quiet and round eyed (yes I did say quiet which shows the level of nerves). No amount of talking was going to put their minds at rest so we got them going as soon as possible. The first 3 competitors started off with breast stroke and there was an audible sigh of relief from the remaining 11 on poolside.
The 200m swim had times ranging from 3.30min to 6.30min with some surprising results such as Sam Embleton, who is still in the beginner lane at Alnwick Tri Club swim posted a 3:48, doing a very nice front crawl the whole way, despite almost all the entry forms claiming 200m swim times from “I don’t know” to “slow” to 20 min!
Out of the water Sonya McDonough was ahead of Louisa Stewart by 1 sec with Rachel Oxley a further 16 sec behind.
The clock stopped for transitions in this event so that everyone could get dry before going up to the gym to use the gym bikes and tread mill in a safe manner.
There was much more a sense of determination now as the bulk of people had got the “hard” bit out of the way only for most of them to realise that the work starts on the bike. With bike times ranging from 8 min to 12.30 min for the 5k bike, the lead changed hands again. Allison Smeaton put in the 2nd fastest bike split to put her into the lead by 18 sec over Jaqui Moscrop who put in a excellent 8 min 11 sec despite not realising she could go quicker by turning the resistance up!
Sam Embleton moved up into 3rd place, half a minute behind her mum (Jaqui – Ooo, can you feel the tension?) Louisa Stewart, who was a returning lady from last year and who was absolutely determined to beat her time was now in 4th a further 16 sec back.
As with most races, it was the run that proved decisive. Jaqui had chosen not to run as she is returning from injury so took the victory in the mother-daughter aquabike but had to be just about held back from getting on the tread mill anyway just to see if she could beat Sam. Louisa Stewart set out on the run like a woman on a mission but unfortunately her cold got the better of her and she had to pull out of what looked like a race winning performance.
Allison Smeaton faded a little on the run but hung on for 2nd place overall but the Alnwick Harriers came through to show their strength as Anne Allan ran from 9th to 3rd place and Mairi Campbell ran from 10th to 4th. The run of the day came from Sam Embleton who ran the 2k over 1 min quicker than the next nearest competitor to finish as winner by a margin of 3 min.
All competitors put in a huge amount of effort and feedback afterwards was that there could be a lot more effort put into training, that you can hurt more and survive a session. That sounds like we are going to have 14 fitter ladies out there now.
Prizes on the night went to:
Sam Embleton – overall winner
Christine McAllister – Goggle issues – lost the goggles half way through so neatly converted to head up breast stroke
Jaqui Moscrop – Leg Spinner – posting the fastest bike split even though she didn’t realise she could turn up the resistance to go faster
Liz Rycroft – Keep Going - Accidentally hit the stop button on the tread mill so had to start her 2k run over again
Some of these ladies hooked, there are at least 2 who are going on the compete in their first real triathlon later this year at Alnwick Tri in May. Lets hope the others follow suit.
Full results can be seen here: http://www.alnwicktriathlon.co.uk/news.php?readmore=421