Race Review - Scottish Sprint Triathlon Champs, Monikie

What a fucking terrible race. And I don't mean I had a terrible race, I mean a terrible venue, and a terrible course. How that got awarded the Scottish Championships absolutely astounds me. The venue is completely inadequate for a race of that size. 

I should have sussed there was a problem when I was asked to park on a verge and the car behind me was turned away because the car park was full, an hour before registration was due to close. 

I should really have figured it out when racking my bike and not being able to get it on and off the rack without hitting other bikes, even in a relatively empty transition area. There was going to be even less room with 300 people trying to transition.

Having to queue for 20 minutes to use the single toilet in the changing rooms should have been another clue that the venue wasn't suitable for a field that large. 

It didn't even register with me when the heat in front of us were stood three-deep on the bank waiting to start their swim. In hindsight, the range of age-groups in that heat meant a lot of he younger kids and weaker swimmers just stepped back to avoid the charge at the start.

The second heat was Vets upwards and they had no such manners. 100-ish of us and no-one wanting to be sensible about it. The charge in to the water started with shoving and progressed to punching and kicking. At the first turn that devolved into swimmers actively throwing elbows and trying to drown each other and after taking a solid elbow to the nose I was physically forced under the water by a swimmer trying to plough straight over me. 

After a lot more kicking and punching along the back straight and the next turn was worse. A couple of swimmers ahead of me switched to breast stroke to avoid clashes and I had to tread water to avoid going in to the back of them. The swimmers behind me were less patient and I got ducked again as someone tried to swim over me. After I resurfaced I got kicked, pushed and punched some more. 

Then on to the final straight and one swimmer cut straight across me almost at right angles. He went way off to the side, heading straight for a kayak and about 200m later came charging in from that side at another ridiculous angle and cut straight across my back, shoving me under again. 

I had given up trying to swim fast somewhere before the first turn but this was getting beyond stupid and I took the widest line out to the side that I could find to avoid all the idiots and just get myself to the end of the swim safely. 

I reached the exit only to find it is a ridiculous slime-covered rock surface that you can't actually stand up on. There is a carpet at the exit for traction, but it is only for the last couple of feet of the water. Even with that they need to have two marshals at the waterline to help everyone out of the water single-file so when a group arrives you have to just wait your turn. 

It was by far the worst swim I have ever been in. I have been in plenty of 'washing machine' swims but this was way beyond that. The behaviour of some of the athletes involved was beyond unacceptable and well towards intentional endangerment of fellow competitors.