Triathlon Club make a splash at Aquathlon

The first event of the tri club racing calendar brought nine athletes to London Fields, competing in the swim-run combo known as an aquathlon. This early season competition was an opportunity to blow away some of the summer cobwebs for returning members, whilst for a couple of others it was an opportunity to get a first taste of the multi-discipline action. Myself in the latter category, I was so full of enthusiasm when signing up, that little things like start times didn’t really seem important enough to check. Surely it can’t be too early, they do realise we were students right? Wrong. Alarms set for between 4.30 and 5 o’clock, we made our way bright eyed and bushy tailed (okay that was a slight lie) to catch the first of our two buses to get to the venue. Now normally bus journeys don’t make it into match reports, but ours makes a brief appearance for two reasons; firstly in memory of the much missed Jean Claude, the ‘porridge-in-a-pot’ made several appearances and secondly for the adventures of Sophie Kirk. Normally the most organised of people, we found it slightly surprising when she missed our arranged meeting time and thus the 211. Fear not, she will get the next bus and catch the subsequent one to London Fields? Wrong again. Due to the Royal Parks half marathon taking place that morning (shout out to Harriet, a Tri member competing) diversions were beginning to take operation and time was beginning to get short. Having pulled a sprint out the bag that Bolt would have been proud of, Sophie just missed catching us in the walk between stops and was now in danger of missing the event. At this point she hailed down a cab and uttered the line in true film fashion – ‘follow that bus!’ To cut to the chase; one cab driver doing a good Lewis Hamilton impersonation, a quick-fire bit of transition practise between cab and bus at one of the stops and a round of applause later and the team was finally complete. Drama over, for now at least, we progressed to the venue and completed the registration process. The swim went off in a staggered start, with the first of the 200 competitors taking to water just after 8 AM with swimmers entering at 20 second intervals. Done on a ‘fastest-first’ basis, Sophie was the premier member of TriIC attacking the 400m outdoor pool swim. She was swiftly followed by Charlie Houston before the trio of Vicki Solly, Marcel Admiraal and Fran Capel all in one after another. With the cluster demonstrating some smooth technique, a bit of intra-club rivalry helped to spur them on to excellent performances. Dropping down the order a bit to our slightly less gifted swimmers - I can write this as I’m very much a fish out of water in the pool (that sounded better in my head) – Ed Hallett, American newbie Alejandro Baez and myself were underway. By this point Sophie was coming to the completion of her 5 x 1km loops, all of which was able to be caught on camera by Mike Kaye who was timetabled to enter the water 135/200 of the competitors. At this point the starting order system should be explained; during the online registration process you had to give your estimated time for a 400m swim and everyone was then ranking accordingly. Not knowing his 400m time, Mike – a PhD student – scaled down a time from his 750m swim at the BUCS sprint triathlon. Slightly surprised at his position on arrive Mike rechecked his estimate and realised the 10mins should actually have been more like 6mins 20 which would have him right at the front of the race. Thank goodness Imperial isn’t a university which relies on numerical competency… It should be pointed out Mike did give a masterclass when he eventually entered the water! Moving onto the run section and different strengths of the athletes began to show through, with some much better runners than swimmers. This, combined with the five lap nature of the course, meant everyone gets well and truly mixed up making it hard to know your true position in the race. Thus it was simply a matter of grinding it out and making the most of a crisp Sunday morning. Everyone showed remarkable grit and determination, with the likes of Charlie seeming to get round looking relatively (or you could say annoyingly) untroubled. I’d like to say I joined him in this, however I took a liking to the pool water and managed to swallow quite a lot of it, which then made the run rather challenging! Ultimately we all crossed the line in various states of disrepair, managed to grab a handful of complementary cake and stumble over to join the rest of the TriIC crew. Marcel even managed to grab a free massage at the finish too, which appeared to go down a treat, before we all did the mandatory club photo. Whilst staring into the sun caused a few eyes to be forced open, the smiles were not, due to the satisfaction of completion and the legendry Tri club atmosphere. Still not complete with our day, we headed off to the pub where the prize giving was to take place – and no we did not have a tipple, we’re elite athletes – with Sophie in particular in the running for medals. Alas it didn’t turn out to be the case, although some hiccups had already surfaced with the results, which as of writing have not been released outside the current top three. So I think this should really go down as a TBC. Everyone is eagerly awaiting the results so we can analyse our times in each section (we’re Imperial students after all, what else would we do with a load of data?), but either way I can safely say on behalf of everyone it was a fun event to be part of. As a Tri club first-timer I was more than welcomed into the team (ignoring the blatant segregation on the bus) and we are very grateful to London Fields Tri Club for organising what was a very successful event. Appetite suitably whetted for the year, I for one can’t wait to kick on with training and throw myself into more races over the coming term – as such, anyone who has ever thought about triathlon, come and try some of the sessions out! The club is a very welcoming one, Ed as chairman is doing a wonderful job developing it and ultimately it’s a great laugh with a great bunch of people. Email triath@imperial.ac.uk to find out more!