Thankfully the rain held off over Dorney Lake for the inaugural 220 Triathlon Evening Series race. The wind, however, took advantage of the open course and battered the 157 athletes who had entered to rack up some mid-week racing action, or, as in some cases, try their hand at their first tri.
Aside from the unseasonal weather, which made the swim and the bike particularly challenging, the organisation of the event was applauded by everyone we spoke to. Here's what else they had to say…
"That was windy, which made the swim difficult, but yeah, good." Ben Pierce
"The wind was a bit of a killer on the bike. The swim was a little bit disorientating but I think that was just because it was the first race of the season, but it was good fun. Really good." James Bidwell
"Really enjoyable. I found it harder than the Super Sprints a couple of weeks ago… because of the weather!" Luke Lloyd-Davies
"I hadn’t done enough open-water practice. But overall I thought it was a really good event." Peter Foulkes
"It was my first one for 19 years. The swim was awful, but the bike and run were fine. Yeah, I enjoyed that." John Risby
"Pretty tiring, it was my first one ever. I’m doing an Ironman in a couple of months so it was a steep learning curve." John Disson
"That was a really, really good event. I’ll definitely do the other three. But it was really nice. One of the reasons I did it was to get some open-water practice. Whilst it [the swim] wasn’t very nice, it wasn’t as cold as I was expecting." Philippa Davies
"Very good, very windy. Good race. The bike was great in one direction, you could get 40kmph plus on the way out but only 20 on the way back." Phil Doyle
"It was very well organised, the swim was good – very flat, as in no big waves. We just wanted to get a bit of race practice. We’ll do another one if we can but we’re training for an Ironman. We’ll have to come back when there’s no wind." Catherine Benger
"It’s great to be able to do this mid-week." Peter Eggleston
Look out for more on the 220 Triathlon Evening Series in the next issue of 220, on sale 30 June