Dam 'Ard Triathlon 2015

27th Sept 2015 

This is my local event, a sort of mid-sprint/olympic distance tri. The distances are 502m swim, 38k ride and 7.5k run. The finish and HQ are at Rishworth School near Ripponden, and the pool and transition are a few hundred meters away at Heathfield School.

The bike route goes over the Pennines and back on the rugged but beautiful South Pennine Moors and the run is largely Off road in the hills around Ripponden.

On the day of the race I turned up nice and early for an 8:00am start only to find my front tyre completely flat.
Never having changed a tub tyre before I managed to put my start time back and went home for my training wheels. I have now practiced changing tyres so hopefully it won't be such an issue in future.

So I finally got to transition all tatooed up and ready to go and got one of the later start times. Heathfield pool turned out to be clean and modern but weirdly is 25yd long so we had 22 lengths to male 502m. I had a nice swim but having a later start time I was in with much slower swimmers, but they were very well mannered and let me past with no incident, Thanks Tim and the other guys in the lane.

The bike route is one I do regularly but not with so few clothes on in such cold conditions. Where the sun was out it was fine but most of the course was cloaked in heavy fog and I got very cold on the descents and I could not feel my toes when I got back for T2. I had a great ride though, although I hit one pot hole very hard and I was lucky not to do any damage. It really is a great though challenging ride
in the hills between Halifax and Rochdale and I would reccomend it any time.

T2 passed without incident although I have learnt from past experience to double check for gravel on my feet when I can't feel them. By the time your feet thaw out and you realise what's happened you can be in a bit of a mess. Anyway I set off on the run and it has some great features. the first few k are on steep tarmac and off road tracks with one killer off road descent before you cross Rochdale Road and make for Ryburn Dam Head. The run up the steps and across the Dam wall is very entertaining. After the Dam Head there's a couple of picturesque off road kms until you get back to the tarmac. The course is 7.5k and quite a challenging multi terrain effort.

I got back to the school and a massage and refreshments in just over an hour, a little bit slower than I'd been aiming for but to be honest that's been the story of my season.

The event is not hugely supported even at the finish, although I guess a lot of people had gone by the time I got back but I did have my son Sam with me who was parked at every lay-by on the bike route cheering me on.

This is great race and I would recommend it but Sam who races won't do it because of the steep off road descent which he says is too dangerous for road runners. I will do it again next year, it's a really nice race but bear in mind the nature of the run if you're thinking about signing up in 2016.


Garmin trace
Event website