We asked some of our junior participants to write about their experience of the Junior Pool Tri in April 2022.
Jessica Gardiner, age 9
At first, I was excited but nervous. As soon as I heard the bell, I started swimming the four lengths of the pool. When I got out of the pool, my legs were burning!
I quickly put on my clothes and ran out of the pool to the bikes, and set off to Argos.
As soon as I was back at the park, I set off on the run and finally came to the finish line and received my medal with joy.
Thank you for allowing me to have this opportunity. I will definitely consider doing a ‘real’ tri someday.
Thomas Gardiner, age 11
Thank you for allowing us to do the Triathlon. I really enjoyed it.
I had done a trial for another swimming event the same week and it had been a disaster. We hadn’t been in the pool for more than two years, so when we were asked to get back in and swim, it was a bit daunting.
The trial had been awful. My sister and I had left crying. When mum told us she had signed us up for Tri-A-Try I really did not want to do it. In fact, I would have been happy enough if I never got into the pool again! We live close to the sea and mum is always insisting that we need to be able to swim.
The training sessions with Ross were amazing. He was so kind. He really gave me my confidence back in the pool, although I will be the first to admit that I struggled in the pool on the day of the competition.
I love cycling and running. Those parts of the competition went much better for me. I got out of the pool knowing that the most difficult part of the race was behind me. I was so fast on the bike and the run that Mum and Dad were waiting in the wrong place for me when I finished (down at the bikes).
I love my medal. I am very proud of it. I have a condition called dyspraxia, so when I was little, the doctors told mum and dad I would never be balanced enough to cycle.
Not only can I cycle, I can cycle so well now and swim and run! I wear my hat to school with pride. I had to show it to my teacher just to let her know that I was able to complete the event just like everyone else.
I was the slowest in the pool for my group. I find getting changed always a bit of a nightmare and that slowed me down. However, I was so fast on the bike and run that I actually caught up and passed out some of the people in my age category.
Mum explained to my sister and me that you rang the man in charge to allow us to do the race because there was a problem with the computer. Thank you for doing that for us. It really meant so much.
Please say a special thank you to Ross. He has been so kind to us all. I really appreciate his patience and the way he tries to think of different ways of explaining things so that they make more sense.
Mum and Dad brought us to the local Cafe to celebrate. The owners are our neighbours, so we went into the kitchen to show them our medals and hats. We were very proud.
Thank you again!
