Race report by Jon – What a Weekend That Was
Warning -long race report.
On Friday afternoon I travelled down to Box End Park, Bedford for TriDog, mine and Huxley’s first ever go at a doggy triathlon.
I’d booked a hotel in Bedford on the last minute and my slight feeling of nervousness about this turned out to be justified. When we got there, I was told that they’d sent me an email that I’d missed saying they didn’t accept dogs and that the dogs would have to stay in the car on their car park. I hold my hands up – it was my mistake I missed the email, but the utter unhelpfulness from them that followed was unreal. They even suggested that I vacate my room, without refund, so they could re-sell it! The end result was that I slept two nights in the car with the dogs, whilst using the room for showers, as a bike store and for phone charging!
Waking bleary eyed, I got myself down to Box End Water Park for a 7:20am race briefing and an 8am race start. As with the majority of canicross type events, the race format was time trial style, with racers going off on 45 second intervals.
Straight into the water with a lead tied from Huxley’s harness to my right hand, we initially made good progress across the 80m swim, but then the lead wrapped round Huxley’s legs and very briefly dunked him. That was enough to spook him and he headed for the bank. There were time penalties imposed for dogs that got out early, but also with all racing, it’s a DQ if you force your dog to do something they don’t want to. Its meant to be fun for both of you and dog welfare is paramount. Fortunately, we were close enough to the exit for me to steer him to the correct point.
Entering first transition, you first attached your dog to a temporary stake out line, before prepping yourself for the 5k MTB.
Huxley set off on the bike like a dog keen to get himself dried off 🤣. Going past other teams was good overtaking practice and he kept a good pace all the way round the course.
Onto the 2.5k run, he was trotting along in front quite happily. My running is pretty lousy these days, but we finished happy. Day 1 done.
Sunday’s day 2 was the same course and format as the day before. Realising that Huxley would be nervous in the water after the last time, I’d borrowed a dog life jacket. In the end, it didn’t matter, because he straight up refused to go in the water. If I’m honest, I was quite happy to take the time penalty, even though it meant game over in terms of being competitive.
If anything, Huxley set off on the bike leg even quicker than he had the day before. We blasted past two other teams within the first kilometre. Then at about 3km, he decided he couldn’t be bothered anymore. At about 3.5k, he took a dump, which I hoped meant he’d then be good to run again after, but he just wasn’t interested in doing more than an average paced jog.
He got slower still on the 2.5k ‘run’, and this gradually turned into a pleasant walk.
Despite our poor showing on Day 2, we again finished happy, which is definitely the point of this event. It’s a superb event, really well organised and attracts really lovely people, so the social is great too.
As for the hotel, I’m not petty, so obviously I didn’t leave my manky wetsuit to dry on the radiator in my room on Saturday night. 😉
