An early start was needed to make the two-hour drive down to Sokołów Małopolski for the II Triathlon Sokoła registration. So an early start it was. Having completed all the packing late on Friday night, most of the morning stress was already taken care of. Thankfully I took a photo from the last triathlon, luckily it wasn’t missing a thing so it was the perfect checklist.

In the car on the way down and the clouds were threatening some rain, maybe the storms that were forecast. By the time we got to Sokołów, however, that had passed. The sun came out and with the Triathlon’s location being down in a valley, the air was pretty still. It made for nice warm conditions and ready for setting up the transition.

As with last time, the swim was the fear-inducing part, this time however I got to wear a wetsuit. All that buoyancy should make things better right? (spoiler alert, wrong).

Race start arrived and happily for me it was a rolling start. Three people at a time, ten seconds between waves. It completely took the pressure and stress out of the swim (from a being surrounded by people perspective). The start was the highlight of the swim. A quick dash and a beautiful dive saw me take the first buoy plenty ahead of my fellow wave buddies. Rounding the corner and heading on to the next one everything felt good.

Then the tightness of the surfing wetsuit started to take its toll. I tried changing strokes but still, I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. The lack of flexibility was pushing me towards a panic. Then my goggles started to steam up. So now I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t see. Not great.

On to the return leg of the swim and I stopped for a second, cleared my goggles and tried to take a few really deep, controlled breaths. Luckily this seemed to clear out the panic. Some steady swimming mixing between crawl and breast stroke saw me through the rest of the swim. I was slow but 2 minutes faster than last time. Happy days. Final time was 20:30 which put me 104th out of 11.

Finally out of the water and, eventually, out of the wetsuit and it was a quick dash through transition one. After a moment of not being able to clip into the bike, everything was fine and I was on my way up the first climb (there were five). Once I’d managed to shake the water out of my ears and get some drink on board I was all good.

It was then I set about catching the folk in front of me and trying to make amends for the swim. Remember, this is all relative. It was as close to an all-out effort as I dared to go and soon I started catching and passing people moving back up through the back of the field. There was one person who overtook me on the first half of the ride, he then proceeded to sit just too far away from me to be able to draft but just enough to keep the legs spinning (thanks to Piotr). As we headed down to the turn around point there was a big group of riders coming back the other way.

After the turnaround and with the added incentive of having seen the group in front of me I tried to put a little more in. This saw me overtake the next rider on the first hill after the turn. Then on a sharp 90-degree corner I finally caught back up with Piotr, who had by this part become less of an incentive, more of (in my tired cycling brain) my arch-nemesis. After a little climb, it was all downhill. I got the bike in the biggest gear and pushed as hard as I could. Overall time 39:27 and 88th speed-wise, slow but improving my standing.

A fruitful strategy as I was able to pass quite a number more people on the way into Transition 2. Talking of which, it was a super quick change, bike shoes off, running shoes on, cap on, leg it!

The first 400metres were alongside the lake and I felt like I was flying. Everything was good. Then, well, we headed into the forest. Again, this is where things took a little turn for the challenging. What I thought would be nice firm forest tracks turned out to be soft, sandy forest tracks.

Still, I pushed on as best I could and was soon back overtaking people. There’s not a huge amount to write about the run, it was tough, people were saying it was tough. It was fun. Luckily my run speed is a little better than my overall time at this point so I’m still passing people to the final bend. The final turn comes and then it’s a straight run into the line. I tried to finish with a sprint, but there was nothing left. Run time 25:33 (60th fastest).

Overall time: 1:28:39 (84th overall). I’m really happy with a near 6 minute PB on a tougher course.

The race was amazingly well organised, the medal lovely and the people fantastic. It’s a definite must-do again. See you next year Sokołow!

Next up for both of us is going to be a trail race in Kazimierz. Should be many ups and downs in that one too!