Saturday 9th April 2011

Lynn and I went for a walk into town where Lynn managed to get an appointment to have her hair cut later that morning. Whilst walking down to the promenade we noticed advertising for the European Triathlon to be held here today, we continued to the prom and found it all roped off in readiness. So whilst Lynn had her hair done I went back for Sarah.

We met Lynn on the way back and reached the beach just in time to see the start of the women’s race. They had a lot of the top competitors here and three women from GB for us to cheer on! When we looked at the size of the waves coming in we wondered how they were going to get through them let alone swim all the way out and round the course! It was impressive watching them and they completed the course not once but twice, some being literally thrown up onto the beach by the waves. We waited by the cycles to watch them leave and then cheered them on in the running, they did quite well, with one girl being in second place after the cycling but dropped back during the running. Sarah had her photo taken with one of them afterwards as she was chatting to her mum about being hit in the face during the race! Next it was the men’s turn or should I say boys, they looked so young, but according to Lynn and Sarah very fit! They were stronger in the swim and managed to hold their line better which must have helped as the women were  carried off course by the current. We cheered the boys on; Sarah got really into it, to the point where the Portuguese women standing next to her joined in and cheered for GB too!

By the time they had finished it was early evening and we were shattered as we’d been standing around for over 6 hrs in the sun. But we saw lots of competitors walking about as if they’d just got up, the girls who had been racing for over two hours were wandering around in shorts and bikini tops looking fresh and ready for a night out! Oh to be that young and fit (I had put “again”, but Lynn said I’d only ever been that young!).