Southampton Fast Twitch Triathlon – Sunday 22nd August
The lead up to this triathlon didn’t give me much confidence about the organisation, the cycle route was completely changed two weeks before the event for safety reasons, which was fair enough (the Littledown Tri in Bournemouth had been cancelled for similar reasons) but the run route description was at odds with the map provided and my emailed queries went unanswered. The chip timing promised didn’t appear either.
So after dragging Gill out of bed at 5.30am after she had only two hours sleep we set off for The Applemore Leisure Centre with a few nerves not knowing what to expect.
In the end it turned out to be a very well organised event with extremely friendly and helpful marshalls and as always with triathlons very friendly competition.
Six of us Stubbies were competing and apparently a few ex Stubbies were there too. The 400m swim was for me the usual cross between front crawl and drowning and I had to swim the last two lengths on my own as everyone else in my wave had lied about their predicted swim time.
The very scenic New Forest bike route was now only 13miles so it was a pretty fast effort, I managed to pass several people and with no one going past me I had made up several places on my swimming wave friends.
The run was just over 3 miles around the residential roads of Applemore and finishing along the old Roman Road back to the Leisure Centre. Again I passed several people including a couple of Hampshire Police Triathletes, who certainly weren’t speeding. One Hants Police competitor was given a two minute penalty on the bike for dangerous cycling.
My fellow Stubbies all seemed to be pleased with their results, Lucy “The Fish” May was happy the cycle route had been shortened as it was her weakest event. Susie had a few issues in transition when she got a little lost and couldn’t find where to rack her bike, but she was pleased to have again beaten the Lady who had been one place behind her at the Fareham Tri earlier in the year.
259 competitors started the race and most finished.
Richard Snell
| Stubbies | Swim | Bike | Run | Overall | Position | Category | Result |
| Susie MacGregor | 00:08:32 | 00:45:14 | 00:21:21 | 01:15:07 | 95 | 3 | |
| Richard Snell | 00:10:43 | 00:44:12 | 00:21:38 | 01:16:33 | 107 | 18 | |
| Gill Rose | 00:09:41 | 00:49:06 | 00:22:11 | 01:20:58 | 161 | 6 | |
| Annie Tomlinson | 00:08:49 | 00:49:44 | 00:22:59 | 01:21:32 | 168 | 7 | |
| Lucy May | 00:06:51 | 00:52:17 | 00:24:15 | 01:23:23 | 178 | 1 | 1st Lady 20-24 |
| Chris Gallagher | 00:07:25 | 00:49:18 | 00:28:09 | 01:24:52 | 188 | 34 | |
| Winners | |||||||
| Mark Westlake | 00:05:08 | 00:33:05 | 00:18:18 | 00:56:31 | 1 | 1 | 1st Man |
| Tracy Cook | 00:05:57 | 00:37:02 | 00:19:20 | 01:02:19 | 12 | 1 | 1st Lady |
Photos here.