Blenheim Triathlon 2022: Race Report (+ Video)
In May 2022, I raced the Blenheim Palace Triathlon. I'd been mentally building up to it for months so in this blog, I'm going to talk about why it was a big deal and how I got on as well as talking you through the race in case you're thinking of doing it too.
If you'd rather watch the video version of this – head right to the bottom to see it.
The road to Blenheim
On the face of it, there was no reason why the Blenheim Triathlon should've been a huge deal for me. I'd done sprint distances before so it wasn't my first triathlon, and while I was in reasonable shape, I was nowhere near fit enough to treat it competitively. However, there was something about this triathlon that meant it loomed on the horizon. I think for two reasons:
Open water swim
The swim stage of Blenheim takes place in one of the palace's two lakes. At 750 m, it was the longest swim I've done in a triathlon and both the previous triathlons were pool-based; that means you get a nice wall to push off every 25 m. And a black line to follow. And you know where you're going.
In a lake? Not so much.
Because it's mighty hard to swim in any lakes where I live, I hadn't swum in any. I'd done some pool swimming, but not much as my local pool closes for winter. I'd also never practised sighting. I swam once in my wetsuit before the race, and that was in the pool. So, the idea of launching myself into an opaque lake and swimming without any rests for 750 m was adjacent to terrifying.
Does this one make me a triathlete?
The second reason is was a Big Deal was the pure investment in it. The triathlon itself was about £90, the Travelodge was another £90, I dread to think what the fuel cost for the 300-mile return drive, plus dedicating two whole days to the trip in total. That's a big investment.
The multi-sport events I'd done before were all minimal investment. They were a 20-minute drive, pretty low-cost entry for these types of events and could be ticked off in a morning. I could effectively sneak into the sport and out again. But Blenheim, that was a big step not in difficulty, but in concept. When you throw a cool 240-odd quid at a race, you're effectively saying, 'I Do This - better make the most of it'.
Suffice to say, it felt like a big deal.
Race training and prep
I found training for this one pretty difficult. For a start, through winter I was focused on running a tough trail race in March which I managed to injury myself training for. Then, I did a duathlon a fortnight after that which did buoy me a little for Blenheim but my lack of swimming due to a closed pool weighed heavily on my mind. A series of issues – achilles, IT band and shin splints – took over my entire spring training and I had to bow out of two running races in May so I would recover for Blenheim.
While I swam throughout May and Zwifted a bit, I didn't do nearly as much training as I would've liked. Blenheim always just seemed quite far away. Until it was here. I did swim the distance in a wetsuit though in the pool the week before the triathlon. This was largely to see what difference it made to my buoyancy (a lot) and see how tough it was on my shoulders due to the added resistance (also a lot).
As far as preparation went, having already done two triathlons was incredibly useful; practice really does help. While you need a metric ton of stuff to do triathlon, it hasn't taken me long to get the hang of it. This is what I needed for my literal triathlon (as opposed for before/after).
Wetsuit
Trisuit
Sports bra for under trisuit
Goggles
Nose clip for swim that I forgot to wear but still
Socks
Shoes
Sunglasses
Helmet
Bike
Towel
Race belt
Bike water bottle
Box
Watch
Because this was my first triathlon with a wetsuit, I had to sit down and picture what exactly was gonna go down with that. So, I worked out that my watch couldn't go underneath it and I wouldn't be able to get my wetsuit off while wearing the watch. As a result, I planned to take my watch off while running to T1, take my wetsuit off my top half, and put the watch back on before I even got to T1. With the timing chip, it was velcro so I took it off before I took my wetsuit off in T1, put it ON my shoes so I couldn't forget it, took my wetsuit off and immediately put my timing chip back on.
The box was advised by Blenheim Palace Triathlon and was used in transition to keep stuff in. This was super useful because I just whacked my soaking wetsuit in there with my goggles and didn't have to worry about losing/standing on any of it.
Race day
I stayed in the Travelodge in Witney, about a 20-minute drive from the palace. There are closer accommodation options but my partner's brother lives in Witney so we'd made plans to see him as well. The Travelodge was...well, a Travelodge. I kept my bike in my room which was a relief and got a reasonable night's sleep.
The Blenheim Palace Triathlon is a massive, full weekend event and I raced on the Sunday. I chose the Women Only wave, because I already had enough overwhelm on my plate without sharing the lake swim with a bunch of – in my head – beefy male Ironman athletes (I don't know why I had that impression). My wave time was 10:40, which you only find out about 5 days or so before the event. It meant I needed to be on site at 09:10 to pick up my race pack, work out what was going on, rack my bike, have seven wees – y'know, the usual.
We arrived bang on time and I soon found myself stood in the event village, marvelling at the scale of it all. There were about 10 food trucks and coffee stalls plus the sponsor tents, like HUUB, Pelotan and Wahoo. I headed over to transition which was in the enormous courtyard of the palace. There were already competitors on the course but because you rack according to your wave, it was pretty easy to avoid people running in and out.
I racked my bike and laid out my things, staring at them all for about five solid minutes in the hope that if I'd forgotten anything, it would make itself known to me.
I quite like transition before the event, because it's a nice place to meet the other people you'll be racing with and share the frenetic energy. By which I mean: you realise you're not the only one who feels like they have NO IDEA what they're doing.
Palatial transition
Race ready
The time absolutely flew by and before I knew it, I was hauling on my wetsuit and hopping up and down outside the portaloo near the swim start for a last minute wee. Of course my bladder would need emptying after I'd got into my wetsuit.
I finally headed down to the swim start, collected my bright green swim cap and and began limbering up, remembering that I was about to swim the longest distance in open water I'd ever swum without fins. By this point, I wasn't particularly nervous – perhaps because I was already past the point of no return but also because everyone around me was also in that anticipatory mood, exchanging thrilled smiles and tapping fingers against thighs. Challenging experiences are best when shared, that's for sure.
We had our swim briefing and then the music pumped up and we headed down onto the floating pontoon. It wasn't a mass start in the sense that everyone jumped in at once and instead we all headed into the water in a queue, like a gaggle of ducklings inelegantly plopping into the water largely using the tactic of hope alone.
The only pink wetsuit wearer in a sea of blue
The swim
The sun was miraculously out and since I'd been standing around in a 3/5 wetsuit for 20 minutes, I was nicely warm when I got into the water. The lake itself was 18 degrees and it felt surprisingly refreshing. I began swimming front crawl and just focused on relaxing into it rather than aiming for any particular time.
There were a few times during the swim where I reverted to breast stroke, mainly so I could adjust the direction I was swimming in, something I found increasingly difficult when it came to rounding the buoys and heading to the swim finish. I have no idea why, but it was as though I was swimming in a straight line in the lake, and kept deviating off that line once the main straight was over. I'd had no trouble staying on course at first, but when the turn came after about 500 m, I was trying really hard to stay on course as if battling an invisible current.
The ramp to get out of the water was really grippy and sunk beneath the surface, so I could swim onto it, get hold of the railings and walk out with extra support, a great thing because it always takes a few moments to regain my balance after swimming.
T1 – swim to bike
Blenheim has a 400 m uphill connection between the swim finish and transition. It's pretty savage, really, but it did give me time to orientate myself, adjust to being upright, take the top half of my wetsuit off and swap my watch from being over my wetsuit to on my wrist again.
By the time I got to transition, all I had to do was take off the lower half of my wetsuit, put on my helmet, socks, shoes, racebelt and sunglasses and head off. The wetsuit was a little tricky, but I managed to get it off in reasonable time and put it, my swim cap and my goggles into my box – something which I was very glad I did later.
The route out of transition was simple and I'd memorised where the Bike Out was before I went to the swim. This, I've discovered, is fairly mission critical because big transitions are so visually confusing – bikes, wetsuits, towels, carpets, boxes, signs, ropes etc everywhere – that you don't want to be searching the borders for Bike Out.
Colder than I look here
The bike
I hopped on my bike and immediately felt the chill of the wind rob me of all my heat. Because my trisuit was wet, it was even colder and within a minute my hands and feet were utterly numb. And they stayed like that until halfway through the run. This isn't to say that'd happen to everyone – I have good ol' Raynaud's Syndrome. Frankly, the fact I didn't have numb hands during the swim was an absolute miracle.
Blenheim's bike course is surprisingly hilly, some of them pretty steep. There was a hill near the start, which I actually liked a lot because I'm warmer on hills. The downhills were wicked, but froze me every time.
The course is quite twisty and because there were a lot of competitors, I'd often have to overtake four at a time to ensure I wasn't in danger of drafting. I mainly overtook on the ascents or immediately after. I find ascents relatively easy, presumably because I'm super lightweight. This is great for uphills but makes me easy prey on flats or descents.
The bike course was hard, much harder than the swim. Which, on the face of it, seems odd. After all, I only learnt front crawl last year although I've always been happy swimming, but I'm a lifelong cyclist and train a reasonable amount. When I thought about it, it was because of these things that the bike leg was so hard for me. I was absolutely gunning it on the bike because I knew I could. I had little idea of what the swim would be like, so I just took it slowly and aimed to finish it alive.
The run
I was pretty ecstatic to finish the bike even though the run is always the hardest part for me. I love running and a 5k is a very comfortable distance for me, but my god, the transition between cycling as fast as you can and then starting to run fills me with literal pain. I get stitches, I struggle to breathe, I have no ability to tell my pace...it's a nightmare.
A nightmare one could presumably lessen with brick training (practising running after cycling or cycling after swimming), but I wasn't organised enough for that.
Still, I wore running shoes on the bike because I get major toe overlap on my road bike and as much as I love SPDs, I just wasn't ready to use them in a race. So that made my T2 ultra fast. I just ran in, racked my bike, took off my helmet and was away.
The run was, predictably, phenomenally difficult. The course was undulating with no particularly difficult spots but my body was just not playing ball. My legs felt heavy and my lungs were cramping. My main method of dealing with this is to remind myself to simply relax – somewhat aided here by the numerous goslings that were busily munching a foot away from the trail.
The run was two laps, always a difficult situation because you can see the finish line but must turn away from it to complete the second lap. Brutal. Nevertheless, I did finally cross the line!
My skill is smiling through the pain
Post-race
Post-race is, let's face it, one of the best parts of triathlon. The discomfort disappears pretty much immediately, you get handed a load of stuff (at Blenheim: a medal, alcohol-free beer, bananas, and canned water), and you can exchange grins with everyone else you see wearing a medal because you've just shared an incredibly challenging experience. It's glorious.
I found my partner and his brother milling about and stood around drinking coffee, doing some half-hearted lunges and generally soaking up the atmosphere. And let me tell you, the atmosphere is immense. It's such a cool event.
Results
I'm very happy with my overall results, especially as the course was much hillier than I'd imagined. If you're interested, here's the chart! It's worth remembering that T1 includes a 400 m uphill run!
Blenheim Palace Triathlon Results
Here's my rambling video of the race!
https://youtu.be/x1Up-WdPWCI