We arrive again, for the 4th year running, at the beautiful University Park Campus for a second instalment of the now award winning Sandicliffe Fordstore Notts Triathlon. Although the Spring period has previously been kind to us, things should be heating up in Nottingham with this mid-Summer super sprint. 400m in a pool, 15km of some challenging cycling and 5km of running will now be enjoyed in the presence of a warm sun, gentle soothing music, mouth tingling food and a nice cool drink.
This was my first triathlon back in year 1 as a naïve fresher who didn’t understand the concept of non-chocolate aerobars, but I have risen from the pit of despair into triathlon royalty since becoming President of one of the biggest University clubs in the UK (and very recently winning a Tom Bishop signed trisuit.) As a 4th year student now, I have been lucky enough to have had this event throughout my time with the club and experienced everything that has happened from when the event first began.
The introduction of the tristars event for the second year was wonderfully fulfilling. Giving children the opportunity to experience their first race was very rewarding and having marshalled at that event in particular and seeing these future pros enjoying themselves so much makes me realise what a great event this really is. Also, it gives us a great excuse to hire a bouncy castle, we often make sure that gets picked up last…
In the past few years, we have had many incredible athletes joining us for this event, Beth Potter and Jimmy Kershaw to name just two and I hope we have those and more to follow in 2018. However, I like nothing better than to see first timers completing their very first triathlon where I completed mine.
After competing in the student run event for the first two years I have been at the front line of organization for our 2017 event and will be for our highly anticipated 2018 event. Tri and spot me on the 17th June and you’ll get a satisfactory high five.
“Tri Notts” to miss it,
Matt Phillips
(University of Nottingham Triathlon Club President)
