To warm up before the tri I was to complete Steve’s three peak challenge of climbing the 3 highest mountains in each UK country.
I had already climbed Ben Nevis in Scotland in 2009 and Snowdon in Wales last month so it was only Scarfell pike left in the Lake District at a slight lower height of 980m.
As expected the day wasn’t very nice and fortunately the rain mainly held off as we attempted to climb up an exposed ridge only find the wind stronger than anticipated. This forced us to retreat down and take a more sheltered gully in which we passed search and rescue on our way to the top. There was a view from the top, at times but it was quite windy. The round trip took about 4 hours and coming back down we got some sunshine as we took the alternate route down a scree gully which proved to be a bit more interesting.
We camped out at Coniston the day before the tri also and Dave and I pre-rode the bike course which proved to be very useful as it was extremely technical. Then Dave and Stephanie (his wife) climbed Old Man Coniston via the run route (half way up of the mountain, yikes).
My friend Dave (from Zimbabwe) was doing the tri with me. I had talked him into it about 4 weeks ago so he didn’t have much time to train. (However he’s fitter than me and an excellent runner).
It rains a freakn lot in the Lakes! Fortunately most of it was at night. The day of the tri was cold and misty as we walked down to the water with the 100+ other athletes, all looking nervously at the cold Coniston water.
Then after milling around for a bit we were in and off!
The swim leg was long! But my open water coaching had helped in a huge way and I had no breath loss problems this time and powered the swim, finishing in the middle of the field instead of near the back. This was pretty handy as it means you come out and can really attack on the bike to get into a good position. There was a 500m run up the road while stripping off your wetsuit to transition.
The bike course started with a brutal 3k climb up to Grizdale forest which then it leads you onto the slippery technical single track with fireroads in-between to break up the white knuckle adrenaline. The conditions were so challenging and all the north shore (raised wooden ledge which you ride on) was like riding on ice as the wood was wet.
Still I felt super
confident on the bike course and passed a lot of participants, emerging near the front of the field after the 3k descent back down to transition.
I immediately gained another place on the run but then the rocky constant climb of old man made me give way to walking until it levelled out and we were running along a bridleway in the beautiful meadows of the mountains. It was the most spectacular run course I have ever done besides being the most brutal also!!
Then the run dropped so steeply down back to the finish you couldn’t run at full speed or your legs would end up going so fast you'd end up probably taking off and landing in a heap somewhere!
I finished the race and waited for Dave who appeared 15 minutes after me and looking a little weary. But he had done amazingly well for his first ever tri and I ran with him to the line.
I’d completed the tri in 2:46 minutes which was around my target time. Surprisingly I had finished 23 out of a field of 81 solo entries.
We celebrated with some Coniston fudge then spent the rest of the afternoon putting the tent down!
Results:
| First Name | Last Name | Gender | Age | Number | Swim&T1 | Bike | Swim&T1&Bike | Run | Finish | Position |
| Steve | Bilton | Male | 31 | 8 | 0:37:39 | 1:26:55 | 2:04:34 | 0:41:21 | 2:45:55 | 23 |
