Brecon Tri - 14 June 2008

Report by Davis Astins

This was my 7th attempt at Brecon Triathlon, and yet again it failed to disappoint.  For those that haven’t done it, it’s an 800m swim in Brecon pool, then 33k on largely flat or mildly undulating roads (one fairly long climb near the end) and an 8.5k run which is downhill / flat to start, but then tackles the same fairly long climb as the bike.

It’s fair to say that for me Brecon has been a happy hunting ground:  following a 58th place in 1999 (2:07:05) I returned in 2003, somewhat faster (1:40:47) and with that came a victory, a nice trophy, and a bottle of bubbly.  Sweet.  From 2004 to 2007 I managed to record another win, a 3rd, 4th and 9th place.  Even better than that, for these last four years Pembrokeshire Tri won the team prize, based on the lowest combined times of your fastest three athletes.  The trophies have continued to stay first class, and the bubbly equally so!

Conditions in 2008 were probably as good as I’ve seen them, with a breeze in places on the bike course, and sunny but not too hot conditions on the run (that hill is still long and relentless though…).  Because of the staggered start times throughout the day you don’t get a feel for how you’ve done, other than comparing your times with previous years, until the results are announced.

As Ellie & I arrived, Val was blatting up and down the bike course in her usual dogged manner – head down and powering through the pedals!  We’d brought quite a support team with us, in the shape of Emily, Alex, Ian, Jo & Steven, but even I was taken aback as I came out of the pool to possibly the loudest cacophony this side of Delhi – noisy doesn’t come close!  Now I know that you can buy hooters and rattles on E-bay.

When the dust had settled, and the results finally calculated, we were pleased to find that Ellie had won the female event (for the second time) and I’d come 2nd overall.  Gareth looked to have had a very strong race and continues to go from strength to strength, and Val now seems to have sussed the course out good and proper and managed to avoid the wrong turn and traffic lights that affected her a few years back!  Rhiannon struggled on the run with her calf injury, but it proved academic anyway as she’d managed to miss a lap of the bypass on the bike course so was disqualified.  The major disappointment was that we’d failed to win the team prize for the 5th consecutive time, conceding to Celtic Tri by quite some distance by the looks of it…..

All in all a great race, and finished off nicely with a barbeque and drinks at Bishop’s Meadow after the race – a major bonus of a Saturday race.  I’ll definitely be back next year.

Results for club members below