London T100 Triathlon – Race report
10 August 2025
London T100 Triathlon – Race report by Andy George.
So some of you know I did the adur 5km swim on Saturday, that event is always so well organised and well attended and it was a nice precursor to today’s event, however one point of note is that with the tide I attained a 1:17 per 100 which is nice however it’s still not as quick as Will Grace in the pool! So apart from that and the swirly bit after the A27 bridge it was a good event.
So still stinking of seaweed and salty sea stuff I jumped into my car and drove to the excel centre in London to rack my bike for the T100 on Sunday. After about 30 minutes I finally found the entrance to the centre and I entered the main hall, which is vast, it is very well organised and with 100’s of bikes already racked I picked up the necessary T100 transition bag put stickers on everything I could and racked my bike myself.
I then wandered off and bought myself some stuff from the expo I didn’t know I needed and went out side to get food and ended up having a pizza in an old double decker bus, which had been converted into an Italian pizzeria which was nice. However, I thought the waitress was Italian and wanting to use my new found knowledge of the language I ordered my meal drink and asked how she was in the beautiful language but it was a bit lost on her as she was Ukrainian !!! Oh well! She was still impressed though.
After a fitful night of sleep which included a bizarre dream of Neil Bradfield swimming and shouting at the same time ‘I hate long distance’ I got up at 0430 and walked the mile to the excel.
The swim was two laps in the Docklands – the water was 19 and very pleasant, but some of you know, I do suffer from a reoccurring injury in my forearm and after about 300m it went fearing the worst I grabbed hold of a kayak and sort of bobbed in the water for about two minutes, shaking my arm under the water, which upon reflection may have looked a bit odd however, being the idiot I am I decided to carry on, determined not to have another DNF.
With an Aussie exit after the first lap everything was going quite well until around the last set of red buoys when some grade ‘A’ muppet decided to swim over me and in the process ripped my googles off and while they sank to the bottom of the dock he quite happily swam on. So after about 500m of no Googles swimming I exited with quite salty and sore eyes.
The bike was three loops off about 27.6 km it was a lovely route and with closed road it’s was fast and you could do some sightseeing going past the Tower of London and all the way up to Scotland Yard and back. So apart from the one puncture and the chain deciding to derail itself twice, I entered transition with a large amount of black chain oil on my hands and face giving my a passing resemblance to Adam Ant(look it up!) or an American football player!
Onto the run, 5 laps of about 3.6 km and pretty flat the support from the crowd was amazing as was the volunteers and apart from me being so slow that I got overtaken by a man with one leg I quite enjoyed it, but the temperature did hit 30 degrees and I took advantage of every aid station, however, good things come to an end and I sprinted (in my head it was a sprint) onto the finisher carpet and crossed the line.
So in true Neil Bradfield style (I know two mentioned in one post) what did I learn:
1. Get a hotel less than 1.2 miles from the start otherwise you have to get up really early to walk there.
2. You can never plan for idiots who can’t swim in a straight line.
3. Try not to eat pizza and beer the night before a race, but it was very nice.
4. Moped drivers (there are loads of them) in London are utter !&?!£?’s
5. I wouldn’t do it again I have now ticked that box
6. Don’t do a 5km swim before another race it’s very silly to do that
7. Always double check your bike before going to a race never #andygeorgewingit
8. Don’t leave your wetsuit in your car overnight as the following morning it smells like crusty salty fishy wet weedy crutchpong !
However, saying all of that THIS IS WHY WE DO IT!
To find out more about joining Chi Tri click here!