Wet and blustry weather welcomed 337 competitors who had turned out for the 10th Harlech Triathlon. After signing on and try to stick my number to my bike as it was raining I took my bike into transistion and racked it up, along with sorting out my bike shoes, run shoes, race belt, helmet and my all important Oakleys I was ready to go. After a few sprints up the carpark it was time to go to the all important race brief. After a list as long as your arm of rules and regulations it was time to queue up and wait for my start. Whilst I was queuing I realised that I had forgotten my goggles in my bag. Luckily my dad was along side and he ran to fetch them for me. All too soon my time had come and I was called up. 400 metres of swimming went passed quickly ish and I managed to do it in a pb time of 6.55. Half way through I saw Bedwyr come in and that was it there was a race to try and catch him, unfortunatly for me though Beds was swimming strongly and I didn't manage to catch him.

30km of hilly cycling followed, and as I sprinted to transition I just told myself cool and fast over and over again. Quickly then I was sprinting towards the mounting point. 30seconds later the first of the cycling rules came into effect as we had to dismount run over the railway line and then remount again on the other side, straight into the St Davids hill. 1.5minutes later and I was on the top and down on my tri bars trying to avoid the wind. The next 49mins 55 secs through Dyffryn Ardudwy and Llanbedr to the Wayside and back again passed quickly with plenty of overtaking until I got passed myself, I tried to keep him within 10 meters of me but he was just to strong and quite quickly pulled away. ` mile to go an a car pulled out of their drive and stopped me in my tracks as they dawdled along at 20 mph annoying as I had been averaging a lot faster than that. Back down St Davids hill and we had to be very careful not to speed as there were police with speed guns ready to disqualify anyone who crept over 30mph.

A short sprint later and I was back in transition trying to get my run shoes on as quickly as possible ready for the 6.5km multi terrain run along the sand dunes  and down to the beach. At first my legs were like lead but after about 5 minutes they started to feel more natural and I started to open up the after burners and ran hard along the 2.5km straight along the beach. a short scramble up a dune later and I was looking at the finish, unfortunately there was another 1km of flat on tarmac before the long steep climb from the bottom of Harlech to the top, to finish next to the castle. A few more overtakes later and I was at the foot of the climb. Small fast steps and I was eating up the hill quite quickly and I was soon at the top, I knew I only had a couple of hundred meters left so I started out my sprint for the finish. I crossed the line in a run time of 25.07 which was good enough for 5th in the run. My overall time was 1.22.01 which was good enough for 2nd in my category which is 20-29 1st local and 7th overall. Obviously I am very happy with my result.

Also very happy were the team of Bedwyr Fychan Owain Fychan and Tom Jones who won the male team category and won the team event overall.