Craggy Island Triathlon 2017 - Race Report

Post date: Oct 12, 2017 2:54:16 PM

By Robert Semple

My Third and almost final Triathlon! What an experience! Bearing in mind I had not really swam in the sea and was used to turning round every 25 meters this was always going to be different .

The two day event sees over 500 competitors per day swim across the sound of Kerrera ,then mountain Bike a round the island on rough tracks followed by a “hill race “ over the top of the island and back to the Pier and not any of it was easy!

I hired a wet suit and boots from Pete the surfer dude at Westport , got there got set up went back to the mainland for the start , tested the boots were not going to fill with water and drown me ,,,all was good . Time ticked by as we waited and waited in our wetsuits for the guy from Durty events to come and give us the race brief .

His opening words were you will all be familiar with the smell of pee and neoprene by now so we had better get on with it . Next set back was when the Scottish Triathlon official said “ its 13.5 degrees so no boots or gloves! That was £5 wasted ! Brendan Ohara was the starter for the Saturday and away we went “Not that far” I thought and away I went . After a several minutes of being clobbered by arms and feet I plucked up the courage to see where I was and was dismayed to be less than half way! Front crawl ,back stroke and any other way of propelling myself was used to get me over . The cycle was better than I had thought but was proper mountain bike stuff and the run was proper hill running , hands and feet scramble stuff at points with no track just open hill .

My back was giving me trouble by then so I could only walk up and run the downhill and flat parts but did enough to finish 163rd out of 207, In 2 hrs 31 mins .

Great event, well organised , and challenging at times . Do it again? Hell yes