Adventures in long distance triathlon

In 2024 I did my first middle distance triathlon at Cotswold 113 (AKA 1.9km swim, 55 mile bike, 13.1 mile run), which was a bit of a triumphant return to sport following several fallow years as a result of a pandemic, several fibroids, and a torn calf muscle. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done so of course I immediately signed up to do the exact same event in 2025. This is the way when you're a triathlete...

The main reason for signing up again was that I'd be racing with a group of women from a charity I support called Women in Tri UK. Founded by the indomitable Bianca Fernandez-Clarke, WIT UK aims to support more women to get into the sport of triathlon and increase diversity, inclusion, and gender balance in the sport. As a woman who's been in triathlon for a decade (!), I could have sorely done with this kind of support when I was first setting out on my triathlon journey and the community that Bianca and the team have built is like nothing else I've ever experienced before. When I heard that one of the goals for this year was to get more women into long distance triathlon racing, I had to get involved! My experience at Cotswold 113 in 2024 was so great that I wanted to share that with others and help support other women to the start (and finish) line. I also wanted to see if I could get any faster - because of course I did...

Despite a lot of life drama, including an ongoing and very ineptly managed programme of job cuts at work and a poorly dog, I had a really great training block. I'd finally got myself a coach and it immediately made a huge difference - I'm swimming faster than I ever have in my life and I'd made it through twelve plus weeks of training without any injuries. Knowing that I'd done the race distance last year meant that I wasn't paralysed with nerves on the day before the race - I was relaxed and excited to see what I could do! I was also so thrilled to meet loads of the fantastic WIT UK team for the first time at registration on Saturday - we'd been chatting over WhatsApp for months and now we were all here ready to race together!

Race morning started as expected: very little sleep, a ludicrously early alarm time (4am!), yet another check of my race kit list before we drove to the race start. I managed to beat the carpark queues and was in transistion racking my bike, putting on my wetsuit, and slathering myself with body glide by 5.30. Most of the WIT UK team were racked together and we also managed to get a photo of us together before the swim started - so far so good!

The race begins - and goes wrong almost immediately

Then it was go time! I'd chosen to go off in the wave start which meant going into the water one at a time so it wasn't too congested (in comparison with mass starts which can be a bit rough). Often with open water swimming, you can get a shock going from the warm air into the cold water but at 6.40ish on Sunday morning the water was actually warmer than the air so I was able to get into my stroke almost immediately without too much need for acclimatisation. The water in the lake was crystal clear and the sun was rising in the distance - it was a beautiful morning for a swim. I was making steady progress for the first half of the lap, rounding the first few buoys easily and feeling really comfortable in the water. Whilst there were obviously other people around, the fact that we'd all set off individually meant that it was quite easy to get into some space in the water and concentrate on my own swim.

And then about 15 minutes in, a man swam into me out of nowhere punching me across the face. I stopped dead in shock - you do get a little bit of jostling in open water swimming but people swimming into you at full speed isn't normal - and then yelled at the man who'd carried on swimming like nothing had happened. He did mumble an apology but was soon out of sight. I tried to collect myself but then realised that the noseclip I normally swim with had been dislodged by said punch to the face and was nowhere to be seen. I can (and do) swim without it but I prefer to have it for open water swimming - so not ideal for it to vanish without trace but I thought I could probably adjust. I swam breaststroke for a few minutes, trying to get myself back into the flow of things, then switched back to front crawl only to realise I couldn't get my breathing under control. This cycle continued for a few more minutes as I got more and more stressed, realising that I still had probably about a kilometer still to go of the swim.

I'm no stranger to panicking in open water. Swimming was for a very long time my weakest triathlon discipline - I'd basically had to learn to swim front crawl from scratch when I started out in the sport and open water swimming was a new and often terrifying barrier to me doing longer distances. In fact, I DNF'd my first ever olympic distance triathlon in 2017 because the rough water at Bala Triathlon ended up giving me a bit of panic attack. However, I've spent a lot of time swimming in open water since 2020 - the pandemic meant I either swam in a lake or not at all - and I'm usually pretty comfortable in most conditions. However on Sunday, despite the calm clear lake, I could not seem to talk myself down. I limped onwards in the swim, swimming breaststroke and just trying to make it from buoy to buoy. At one point I stopped to have a mini-breakdown on the nose of a very friendly, if somewhat bewildered, race support kayaker and was about 30 seconds away from being rescued from the water. Somehow I kept going to the swim exit, digging as deep as I could to keep moving forward and trying not to worry about my time. I had the vague idea that I'd have a little cry in transistion then see how I felt about heading out on the bike once I was out of the water. My body had other ideas - both my legs cramped up when I got out of the water, probably because I don't train to swim long distances doing breaststroke, and I knew that my race was over. All the planning, training and preparation was in vain because someone didn't look where they were going.

I have to shout out the 113 Events team here - they pulled me out of the water, a marshal sat with me whilst I cried my eyes out then walked me into transistion, and I had every option to carry on onto the bike or even to come back later and do the run. Not many races offer this kind of support or the opportunity for athletes to salvage something from a race that goes badly wrong. My WIT UK teammates were also incredible - Bianca and Nay were in transistion when I came back and took time to hug me, comfort me and offer me pep talks. My day would have been immeasurably more miserable without them.

I handed in my timing chip, got out of my wetsuit, collected my bike, had another good cry (this time on Andy) and went back to our holiday cottage for a shower and a cup of tea. I was devastated but I knew I wanted to go back to the race and cheer everyone else on. So we packed up my parents, two dogs, a load of camp chairs and headed back to the race venue to watch the final section of the race - the run.

Turning devastation to joy

One of my favourite things to do is to cheer on other people's races. You get all of the joy of the race atmosphere without any of the pain of running/biking/swimming it! It's the reason I prefer to marshal at parkrun and why I never begrudge a couple of hours helping out with running club races - it's lovely to be able to contribute in a small way to making other people's race or run experience a bit better. On Sunday, cheering for the rest of the team also made my race disaster feel a bit less painful.

If you've never done a triathlon, the run is often the hardest bit - you're tired, your legs are wobbly from the bike, and distances you've covered before can feel insurmountable. Triathlon events also love a lapped course as well so you're often running past the finish line multiple times before finally getting to cross it. Our WIT UK gazebo and some of the other supporters were right by the finish line and lap/start end so I parked myself here and started cheering everyone who went past as loudly as I could manage. We got particularly excited every time a WIT UK team member came past and it was so great to be able to hype everyone up, particularly if they were finding it hard. I cannot describe the joy I felt at being able to cheer multiple women who'd never done a middle distance triathlon before across the line - it made everything better somehow.

Final thoughts

There can be a lot of shame and stigma around not finishing a race, particularly if you technically could have carried on, but it happens a lot. Sometimes it's just not your day and there should be absolutely no shame in prioritising your physical and mental health. I'm an amateur athlete, I don't get paid to do any of this stuff and ultimately it should be a fun experience (type 2 fun admittedly...). I knew that I had exhausted my mental reserves less than an hour into the day and with 55 miles of cycling and 13.1 miles of running over about 6 hours still to come, I took the decision to stop. I'm really disappointed that things didn't go to plan but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I made the right call. There will be other days and other races.

My original aim in entering this race was to support other women, particularly those doing a long distance triathlon for the first time, and I absolutely got to do that - possibly even much better than I would have managed otherwise. I am so unbelievably, heart-burstingly proud of every member of the WIT UK team at Cotswold 113 - you all rock and I'm honoured to know you <3