TriBourne Festival of Endurance / Club Champs – Race report
21 July 2025
TriBourne Festival of Endurance / Club Champs – Race report Ben Newman.
So it would have been soo much nicer if it happened on Saturday.
Flat sea, sunshine, peaceful & calm.. but it was a Sunday race. It started with this text at 4.30am: Due to the frequency and direction of waves, we will NOT be jumping off the pier. The swim will go ahead from the lifeguards beach. Middle distance will complete two laps of 950m and full distance athletes will complete 4 laps. There will be no Aussie Exit. Full briefing on the beach at 5:40am.
So come 6am, the sea was proper choppy. Easy 2ft waves & choppy.
So jumped in, as you do, not 100m in and I saw a good 1/2 dozen swimmers on the beach, already out, looking at me/ the sea with expressions of amazement/ shock/ horror (take your pick).
A wave then lifted me up then down on to a sea groin.. wasn’t expecting that. I thought a few choice thoughts and quickly swam deeper then up to the 1st turn then right into the waves.
It was really knarly. Everyone was stopping & taking bearings.. (weirdly) I quite enjoyed it! Getting out, my time was slower than expected. 41mins. But I was happy with that..
Shuffle up the rise to the bikes then out on the road.. in the rain. It was 19 C so not cold.
Got up to 47k and was going really well.. then that hiss that you dread.
Rear flat 😕.
But I’ve tubes and gas, so changed it out (mechanic in a van also stopped and whipped out a hand held compressor (genius!) but then said he didn’t have the right valve so couldn’t actually help 🙄.. so I used a gas).
Then 2k later.. hiss. Same wheel. I had forgotten to check the tyre 🤦🏻♂️.
So same again, found & removed the small flint, but this last gas only got my tyre 1/2 inflated so I nursed along for ~7-8k to the next drinks stop & they had a track pump. Off again, and the last 40k went without incident and I caught up some spaces but I was already ~30 mins from where I was.
Back to transition and the run.. there and back x2 10k runs. Running’s never been my strong point but on a positive, I got my nutrition right this time and my legs felt good.. so it was my best impression of a long winded grandad shuffle there n back and there and back to the finish ~2hrs later.
Done 👍🏻
Glad I did it.
Others may disagree but I found the swim fun and the best bit (although I’m told the coastguard went out at the end and did a sweep to make sure no one was still out there!)
Shame about the punctures as my time would have been better but sometimes these things happen
Well done everyone that did it 👏🏻👏🏻
Great organisation and it was great having really encouraging Marshalls all the way round saying your name (from your race number) on a very wet blustery knarly day 👍🏻
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