NCH Tri-ers Nantwich Sprint Relay Triathlon

Nantwich Sprint Relay Triathlon

When my great friend and challenge aficionado Beewell told me he had signed up through work to take part in the Nantwich Sprint Relay Triathlon, I knew I would be there to support. Having completed a couple of Tri's myself, I will always support anyone's decision to take part in the awesome event.

A couple of weeks before the event I received an email from Beewell asking if I could do him a favour.  Their swimmer had dropped from the team and he needed someone to step up.  Knowing that without the primary discipline, Beewell could actually miss out on his triathlon experience, I willingly took the position.

NCH had put together multiple teams of eager participants, each taking their strongest sport.  Our team, the NCH Tri-ers was compromised of myself on the swim, Soren on the cycle and Beewell on the run to finish.

With the Relay Triathlon, the swimmer wears a timing chip for the water event which is then passed to the cycler, who cannot touch their bike until they are in possession of the chip. This is then taken on a bike ride round Nantwich before being passed to the runner to loop the park 4 times to the finish.  As the substitute swimmer, I needed to meet our Cycler so I knew who to pass it to.  Soren, being a 6ft blonde Dane, was easy to spot as he was wearing a luminous green tshirt.  I asked him where his bike was racked so I knew where to head if the excitement of transition distracted me, "It's the one with the basket on" came the reply.  I laughed, until I saw the only bike in the transition area with a basket on the back.

The Nantwich Triathlon starts in a brine water pool with 4 lengths of each of the 4 lanes.  The water was salty and gluey.  I have never realised whilst swimming how much water makes it into my mouth, I definitely noticed during this swim.  Happy to amble out of the water after my 16 lengths I aimed for our Nordic Cycler, passing him our team chip he was off.  We just had to wait for him to come back and hoped that he didn't stop to do a big shop.

Whilst waiting we noticed the Beewell was becoming a little apprehensive.  Knowing that Soren would be returning soon, shopping or not, and that would put Beewell on his route home to the finish line.  I have known Beewell a fair few years now and consider him one of my greatest friends, I have done a few events with him and know that he often doubts his own abilities.  He always surprises himself on the completion of an event, but during the build up he winds himself up.  This was no different.  We all knew he would be awesome, but Beewell would not believe it.

Soren returned and seemingly refused to stop cycling, he enjoyed it that much he had decided to cycle an extra 5 miles round the streets of Nantwich after losing sight of the planned route and making his own up.  Luckily this didn't involve a stop off at Waitrose. The team chip was passed over and Beewell sprung into action.

With four loops of the park, we could be there to support Ian (Beewell) on his journey.  At the first checkpoint, he commented on the difficulty of the course knowing that he had three more loops to complete.  On the second loop he looked stronger, but we could see it in his eyes that the 5k was more difficult than he thought.  By lap three Beewell was feeling the burn, but his determination to finish was stronger than ever.  We had been told by the organisers that on the fourth and final lap we could join the runner and complete the Triathlon as a team.  So, Beewell, Soren and I joined forces once more for the final 100 meters and crossed the finish line.

Speaking to a few of the NCH teams it was great to see a vast diverse group taking part in such a fantastic event. With Soren who cycles to work most days using his bike with the basket being so comfortable, one lady who had come back off holiday only two days before whose only training had consisted of sitting on lilo's with cocktails, Victor with his monster wheeled mountain bike, all of these competitors took part in something they probably thought not possible a day earlier.  Sprint Triathlons are demanding events that scare off many athletes, yet here are a group of co-workers taking on this challenge together and supporting each other throughout.

I felt very privileged to be part of this team, and NCH should be very proud of them all too.