Race Preview - Turriff Triathlon

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2015 Race Report
2016 Race Report

Turriff is going to be my first triathlon again this season. And potentially my only one until June. Peterhead is only two days before I fly out to Bratislava so I doubt I will race it. That means this is the only chance I will get to try out my GB tri-suit in a race. 

I am going in to it in great swim shape and actually in pretty great shape all round. The official results for Turriff always need to come with a chunk of interpretation as there is a long run from the pool down to transition that is included in the official swim times. Also the pool itself is 20m so the race is 760m rather than 750m. My garmin swim time from last year was 12:36. I want to be out of the water under that. My target time for a 750m swim this year is 12:00. I would like to be somewhere in the 12:15 sort of range for Turriff, given the unusual pool length but as always with triathlon pool swims my time will depend as much on who else is in my lane as how I swim myself. 

On the bike the times for this course are hugely influenced by the weather. I have done 40:00 and 42:47 in consecutive years whilst in similar condition. I don't like this bike course. It starts with a climb, and goes pretty consistently uphill to half way. Then the downhill has some pretty sketchy corners and more traffic on the way back in. 

I have no idea what bike shape I am in this year. Aboyne duathlon suggests I might go quite well but I haven't done anywhere near enough real training on the bike so I can't really tell. I will take whatever I get on the bike. 

The run I am not a huge fan of either. It goes uphill to a cone, turns round and comes back. This means it is tough but also boring. I am running almost exactly the same as I was last year if you believe my Moray 10k result. But I think the weather had an effect there and I am actually running slightly faster. If I can go under 20 minutes for the run I will be pleased.

The bike is so much of an effect on the overall time that I can't even set an overall target. Somewhere in the 1:15 to 1:18 range would be good. 35 minutes plus the bike time. Last year I factored that out by aiming for a time within 120% of the overall winner.