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Hever Castle Weekend

This weekend I descended on Hever Castle to compete in the Sprint Triathlon on the Saturday and then return on Sunday to do the Olympic Team relay with the help of my brother. Hever Castle Triathlon is the concluding event in the Castle Triathon Series, the other races have been at Cholmondeley Castle, Castle Howard and Chateau de Chantilly in France. The idea being that all races are done in the beautiful castle grounds. The grounds were beautiful but the race organisation was not! Luckily we were using this weekend as preparation for the Barcelona Triathlon we are doing in three weeks time so we weren’t too concerned with our results.

Saturday – Individual Sprint 400m/20km/4km

The first of the early starts! I left Southsea at 5.30am to get to Hever for the wave start at 8.20. After registering and racking our bikes, I got changed into my wetsuit and headed down to the Lake. The air temperature at this point was only 7 degrees so we were starting to question what I had let myself in for! After a very surreal race briefing from Henry the VIII himself we got into the water and waited for a canon to start us off! The swim was a simple out and back loop followed by a 100m sprint up a steep slippery hill to T1, watching the few waves before reminded me of that TV programme Total Wipeout! I had a great swim leading from the start and came out the water 1st. The Bike leg was very undulating and on open public roads. I took a while finding my rhythm and getting stuck behind a tractor at 11km didn’t help! The air Temperature was still fresh and my feet had gone numb towards the end of the bike. T2 went smoothly until I tried to find the run out exit, there were no signs showing were to go! I eventually found the exit after forming a search party with a few other competitors! The run was round the lake and castle grounds to be fair it was very picturesque. After the 3km sign my feet had thawed out and I was feeling good. I finished in 01:12:10, considering the hilly cycle and run course I was happy. I headed home to rest and eat as much as possible in preparation for the next day.

Sunday – Team Relay 800m/40km/8km

After an extra hour in bed on Saturday’s start I headed once again to Hever, questioning my sanity once more! I had calculated our optimum team order based on our previous triathlon splits. Sam drew the short straw, having to brave the cold water for the second day in a row. I was doing the bike leg and Jimbro was leading us home on the run. We got registered, warmed up and headed to the water along with the 50 other teams we were up against. Sam had a great swim and came out the water 13th. After a quick swap of the timing chip I headed out on my Focus Izalco to tackle the 40km bike leg. I soon got into a good rhythm and was picking off other cyclists. It definitely helped having done the course the day before as I was able to anticipate the hills and avoid the tractors! As I came into T2 we had moved up to 9th place and it was now Jimbro’s turn on the Run. Jim did a great job, he ran the 3rd fastest run time in our wave. We ended up 6th overall which we were all really please with.

Overall it was an exhausting weekend but great preparation for Barcelona. Big Thanks to my Team mates and Mummy & Daddy Bird for providing support and most importantly Lunch!

Thanks for Reading

Big Bird