#TeamDassi athlete Hannah Kitchen travelled to Mallorca to take on her first Triathlon of the season. After a successful 4th place finish in the Britsh Duathlon Championships, at Windsor in April. We caught up with her to find out how it went.
"It's come around already - the start of the triathlon season. It always seems so far away in the middle of winter training, and then the next thing you know it's time to get the wetsuit and race flats out. My first race of the year was the British Duathlon Championships, where I was pleased to finish 4th, I then decided to head to Mallorca to get my first Triathlon done and dusted" said Hannah
"It was my first time visiting the Spanish Island and I headed out the Thursday before the race. I had a couple of days to swim in the sea, run along the beautiful coastline and 'sus out' the bike course. Race day came with a leisurely start time of 10am, everything was pretty chilled out with gorgeous sunshine and blue skies.
The race kicked off with a 1500m beach start open water sea swim, we started a few minutes behind the men which meant it became a little chaotic as we caught them. Approx 750m out we hit the choppy water as we were out of the sheltered bay. The turquoise water was clear and warm with plenty of fish to spot!
I didn’t have one of my best swims as I just felt a little flat, unable to go with Hannah Lord as she came past. I exited the swim in second place – apparently, I had no idea where I was having been caught up with the men.
I had a good transition, however had to navigate around a lot of men to exit transition. I was caught by Emma Pallant about 5k into the ride and we worked well together for the remainder of the bike, trying to work out whether we were in the lead or not – we discovered when the motorbike that had been with us most of the ride suddenly disappeared, that we were not!
Time to crack on!
It was a windy bike course with long straights and great roads and my Dassi bike was a dream to ride, we rode an honest ride making sure we weren’t drafting and men and staying clear of them. I made sure I was well hydrated and headed into T2 with Emma about a minute down on Hannah Lord (part of a relay team) and Michelle Flipo.
The run was a 3 lap course taking in the main streets of Colonia de Sant Jordi and the coastline. It was getting pretty hot and I didn’t feel great on the first lap, this gradually eased off over the second and final lap. I held my position and crossed the line in third place just sneaking onto the podium behind two quality athletes.
Overall it was a great day out and I was pleased with the race – and we were finished by lunch time, BONUS.
I spent the rest of the day enjoying whitebait, ice cream, a swim in the sea and a few bears with paella!
I wanted to make the most of my time in Mallorca so the following day headed out on a 67 mile bike ride taking in the beautiful climb of Sant Salvador and made the most of getting in a last sea swim. I headed back to the UK on the Monday to recover and get going with more training ready for my next race in Dunkirk in three weeks".