I turned up to registration and bike racking about two hours before the start and had to twice pick my helmet up as it was blown off the bike. Not a good start! After laying out everything, including a warm bike jacket and gloves (for a sprint????) I headed indoors into the warm for the start of the pool swim.
Swim
250m pool swim. Started in time trial format every 30secs. Basically 5 lanes, up and down each then duck under rope, making your way to the other side of the pool. Then about another 25m to exit up sloping "beach". Uneventful swim as you'd expect over such a short distance.
T1
Out of the door, around the building and into racking area. This was where it got interesting. Everything had blown off the top of the bike and it took me ages to put on jacket and gloves. Pleased I bothered though as bike leg was absolutely freezing.
Bike
Left out of the marina, quarter of a mile to dead turn, back along sea front to theatre, around outside of building then left at sea front to out and back loop which was done 3 times before heading back to transition. A bit of a nightmare first mile due to very heavy Saturday afternoon traffic. First mile took me 3:40 which wasn't in the plan. Once clear onto looped section I put the hammer down. The headwind made it tough going North but the return with the tailwind was brilliant. The deciding factor in my bike leg was a car cut me up at the theatre end dead turn. He stopped me going back round roundabout so I went all the way round the theatre again into the heavy traffic. It cost me 1:15 looking at the Garmin trace and probably 3 places overall. I would have been better stopping and u-turning in road but didn't think that would have been particularly safe! Bike complete I headed back to T2.
T2
Bike racked, helmet off, shoes on. 35secs - done.
Run
Out and back along sea front. Bit of calf cramp at first which I ran off. Otherwise okay
Conclusion
Decent well organised sprint. Traffic made the course a bit rubbish but I enjoyed it. Not a patch on Waveney and if I had to recommend to a beginner I would say be wary of the traffic on a Saturday afternoon, or enter the Sunday morning one instead. Wish I had entered Sunday as it was warmer and not as windy. Not putting arctic layers on would have saved a bucket load of time!!
