Rounding up the Troops at Roundhay - Leeds 2018 Part 1

Back on 25 September last year, after completing the Kendal Triathlon the previous day, I was really depressed because the season was over and apart from stealing a Parkrun win at Widnes I hadn’t really had a season to remember. As such I was thrilled when one of my St Helens Tri teammates posted a link to the AJ Bell Leeds Triathlon featuring the ITU World Championships in Roundhay Park just north of the city centre. I jumped on it as a way of getting me out of the house and doing more winter training, not easy when I was increasingly sick from my ongoing balance condition. Difficulties in taking in lots of new information quickly would also play a role in the outcome of said race, but for now we begin with Part 1: the Long Trip East.

I left the house for Leeds at 3pm on the Saturday oblivious to the England rugby capitulation in South Africa and certainly not expecting a teammate to have a similar disaster en route. As I was approaching Hartshead Moor Services (the one blown up by the IRA over 40 years ago) I was alerted to a problem affecting his Propel, whereby the rear wheel had run out of tubeless sealant and now he had no workable bike to race on. Luckily his brother’s Specialized could be pressed into service for race day but maybe next time he’ll buy some of my favourites, the Challenge Criterium 320? They’re certainly less trouble than tubeless if you ask me. While I was on the phone to him trying to thrash out a solution I went into Starbucks for a coconut strawberry cooler (see, no dairy here) and then high-tailed it through Leeds City Centre en route to Roundhay Park, where the first assignment was to drop off our bikes and helmets in the pit lane and see who else was at the venue. It turned out that Steve Williams, who also knows which two clubs to be a member of (he hasn’t joined Penny Lane Striders yet though) was checking out the course including the mount/dismount lines and the swim circuit for the following morning. It was all so exciting that in the middle of the hype I accidentally put my swim cap in the baggage to be sent to the finish line and now had no headgear for use in the lake the following day. Lucky for me there was always going to be spare supplies at such a well-organised event, so with the Jaguar parked in the pitlane and the Limar 007 nestling nicely on the aerobars we could begin the long trek back up the hill to get the cars and make our way to our hotels. In Steve’s case he was staying in the city centre but I was at the Ava Residence, a building which looks like it was once a school or maybe even a young offender’s institute, together with teammates Myka, Oscar and Che Heard plus Mark Turner. While Team Heard found a local chippy, Mark suggested visiting Pizza Hut and the two of us went in his Airborne Bathroom Services van with Emma Timson, who is absolutely the best when it comes to taking in-race photos (we still remember her shots on the grassy knoll at Heaton Park last October). He was thrilled to hear that my next house has a modern, but very strangely painted bright BLUE bathroom and no doubt he’s already pricing up replacement parts as I write this but for now we jumped out of his van Black Hawk Down stylee and went into Pizza Hut for some pre race grub.

20 years ago, which is probably the last time I visited this long-running restaurant chain, no-one would have got anything for special diets, but hooray for common sense because they now offer vegan options! So while Mark went to fill our glasses with sensible (non-alcoholic) options and Emma posted all about the pre-race prep to social media I filled a salad bowl with beetroot, couscous and jalapeno peppers before tucking into a vegan pizza featuring Violife cheese, which is fairly typical of what you might find in Switzerland or Austria albeit made with coconut oil. Talking points included me trying to complete 750m in open water for the first time, bathroom fitting and the state of hit 40 UK - not that it’s bad, it’s perfectly fine - but where are the bands? And the good guys? For every George Ezra there’s half a dozen Paloma Faiths…………

We left the restaurant just after 8pm and returned to base. I took everything out of the car as I was a bit worried about the area it was situated in and sure enough, one look out of my window confirmed what I suspected: the kids in the back garden of the terraced house opposite were smoking weed! With this in mind I did the prudent thing and shut the curtains for fear of getting disqualified the next day for traces of substance abuse and checked out the very neat and modern bathroom, which was certainly something of a saving grace for the venue as a whole. After one Deliciously Ella snack (Woodward not Eyre, an answerphone would have been a good idea though because I’d forgotten to bring my charger and the phone was down to 25%) I switched all lights off at 9:30pm in a desperate attempt to get sufficient shut eye before the race the following day.

Now for the first page of results, in association with Mark’s company, Airborne Bathroom Services:

Distance: around 85 miles

Time taken: around 2:30

Starbucks Stops: 1

Bag Drops: One at the venue plus another five in my room

Fast Food Scorecard: 3-3 (Three for fish and chips, three for pizza)

Number of Spliffs: don’t ask

And so ended the first part of the great St Helens Tri/HMCC social. Turn to part 2 to learn how not to navigate your way around a lake, and also why a bit of Focus and Limar helmets always comes in handy………