Head coach Sally says
'It’s certainly gaining traction as there are more and more races popping up all over the country, and the take up at the ITU and ETU events is growing every year!
The format is swim, bike, finish and it is usually tagged on to a triathlon as that’s the best way for organisers to make it viable at this stage. It’s my hope that in a few years we’ll be seeing stand alone event.
Aquabike is a great race to fit into your season if you’re injured, or don’t like running, or even if running just isn’t your strength!
It’s also a great training race for fully fit and capable triathletes who might want to save your running legs for an A race, or perhaps if you’re not fully recovered from your last running related A race!
Maybe you need a swim bike brick session, or need to work on swim to bike transition? Ideal!
Quirks The finish line for an Aquabike race is different in every race, depending on the organisers, the course layout and the available resources. In some larger events they are able to have a separate timing mat before T2 so that athletes can RACE over their finish line. But that’s not always possible for smaller races, so more typically we see the timing mats for t2 used - in some cases entering t2 and in some cases on the out mat, meaning that the racking of the bike and running through t2 is also part of their race! It’s often difficult to have a separate finishes funnel, so Aquabike TS are usually asked to walk or run round to the main finishers shoot to collect their medals and get their finishers’ moment of glory
At ITU and ETU champs, the Aquabike is a longer distance race and usually piggy backs onto the middle distance ETU race and the long course ITU race. You can qualify as an age grouper for these championship races in a number of ways; There are no specific qualification races, and as there are so few Aquabike races out there (at the moment), British Triathlon allow us to use results from middle distance and long course races (even if you don’t finish the run!) or even time trials of appropriate distances. More info on the British Triathlon website.'
Last year, club members Miriam Rennet, Sally Newman-Carter and David Reeves (pictured above) took part in the Euroean age group championships in Transylvania. David won his category while Miriam was fourth and Sally sixth. You can see the full results for each category by following the link below.
Why not give aquabike a go? You could start with the East Fife Sprint Aquathlon on 12 April 2020 in Cupar, link below, or choose one from a list of events in the UK.