Beastie Triathlon Festival 2025
2025 was the 25th anniversary of Lomond Swimming & Triathlon Club’s Beastie Triathlon festival which includes the Bikeless Beastie , the Wee Beastie and the Big Beastie. There were two harriers taking part, with a Jennifer in each of the triathlons.
The Wee Beastie – Jenn Hall
I am not sure I can still claim ‘new girl’ status with GGH, but for the purposes of this I think I will try. I joined the club back in February after moving back home at an attempt to keep moving and get back into a routine with exercise. I have never seen myself as a runner, but I do regularly sign up for running events, so I took the leap at joining a club and it has been the best decision I have made as the Harriers have been the most incredible, supportive and encouraging group of people!
In January I decided I wanted to try a triathlon which had an open water swim. I’ve done sprint triathlons before, but never with the open water swim. The distances for the Wee Beastie seemed manageable, I was almost embarrassed when I decided to fund raise for the Neurological Alliance and people would ask what the distances were. The Wee Beastie is a modest 400m swim in Loch Lomond, 9km bike ride and 3km run (although my Garmin swears it was closer to 4!). I focused my attention on the swim as I it was the discipline I was most anxious about. I am not a confident or fast swimmer. I am comfortable and feel strongest with breaststroke. I can’t tell you how valuable I have found the GGH ladies strength sessions with coach Jill, Aikman and particularly on a Sunday with fellow harrier Wenda Crawford from Swim Safe Adventures, topping off our run with a swim in the Clyde, and most recently Loch Thom. It has been amazing in building my confidence and technique and prepared me well for this tri.
There has been a lot of learning in this experience for me, but it essentially goes back to consistency with training being key! I have found routine difficult to establish due to starting a new job back in June which has me traveling quite a bit. It is easy to use this as an excuse along with what seemed like small distances I could manage with minimal training. I was so wrong. The Wee Beastie is a fantastic event. Well managed, stunning location, and fantastic atmosphere. What I thought was modest distances proved to be extremely challenging. The swim was probably where I felt most comfortable completing this in 14.15. I know I can shave at least 3 mins of this as I stopped to help my friend who got into trouble just at the halfway point after choking on a mouthful of water and having a panic attack (he was fine and managed to finish).
After the swim it was onto the bike, and this is where I was instantly regretting my complacency and acutely aware that even though 9km doesn’t sound a lot on a bike – a few spin classes and cycling to work occasionally is not going to prepare you for a technical mountain bike course like the one I was on. It didn’t help that I had never been on a mountain bike before or even tried a mountain bike terrain. I took it for granted, after watching the Youtube video of the course that it looked manageable and how hard could it be? Wrong attitude and hard lesson learned as I really struggled. The terrain was super tough. Some really challenging aspects we needed to navigate and as I said, first time being on a mountain bike I borrowed from my brother-in-law and had no idea how to use the gears! After 47 painful minutes I was off the bike on to the run, by which point my body felt like lead. I still had fuel in the tank but 3km is extremely tough when your body is fatigued and struggling after the hellish mountain bike ride. I was so delighted to see a fellow Harrier pass me on her home run. I hadn’t met Jennifer before, but it was so lovely to see the Harriers colours and feel part of this team. That gave me the wee boost I needed to drag myself across the finish line.
All in 1hr 27mins is what it took for me to finish this and I both enjoyed and learned a lot from this experience. I will certainly be doing this again next year with more commitment to a consistent training plan and pushing for a far better time, particularly with the bike leg.
The Big Beastie – Jennifer Rooney
Having taken part in the Beastie before, albeit not since 2019, I was excited to take on the challenge once again. It’s a friendly event with a great atmosphere. With three events to choose from, I opted for the Big Beastie, which is a 750m open water swim in Loch Lomond, a 16km mountain bike ride and a 5km multi-terrain run. For the past year or so I’ve been experimenting with a reduced weekly running mileage supplemented by a couple of hard bike sessions due to my dodgy knees, so I felt well prepared for both the run and bike sections. I am a reasonably strong swimmer but I do tend to get quite bored training for the swim so it had been less of a training focus for me. That being said, I’d done enough to know I could do the distance comfortably, which is important as, despite the safety boats, the risks of open water should definitely be respected. I was most nervous about the transitions; there are a lot of rules, there’s lots to remember and I don’t have very much triathlon experience.
The swim was first, 750m around a series of yellow buoys which looked from the shore to be miles away! I set off on the edge of the pack in an attempt to avoid the waves and splashing from the other swimmers. I didn’t want to swallow water or risk getting kicked in the centre of the pack. I did still manage to get kicked but to be fair I also kicked a couple of people – it’s so dark under the water that it’s near impossible to see! The water was not too cold, the swim went smoothly and I came out of the water in 8th place (female) in a PB of 17.03, although at the time I had absolutely no idea of my placing within the race.
After removing my wetsuit, flinging on my trainers, helmet and GGH vest, and successfully navigating the first transition with no penalties, I set off on the bike for what is a really technical mountain bike course – a three-lap course with a mixture of cycling across grass, through deep mud, across gravel and with some really tight turns and steep downhills. There are also some nasty uphill sections including “chainbreak hill” with a grade of almost 15% on a grass surface which features in all three laps. Although the course was really challenging, I thought it was great fun and I actually enjoyed the bike section the most. I felt strong on the bike and found myself overtaking a number of other athletes, although I did take the downhills quite cautiously so as not to have a repeat of my first Beastie experience where my bike slipped on the grass and I broke my wrist! Although I was still completely unaware of my race position I went into transition 2 having moved up into third place (female).
I found the run really tough. I think I just took a bit too much out of myself on the bike and I ran out of energy on the run. At the time I was a bit disappointed that I hadn’t left enough in the tank for what should have been my strongest discipline, but looking back I did still move up one female place and I don’t think I was overtaken by any men or women so it wasn’t a bad run by any means. I finished smiling and happy to have completed the challenge in a total time of 1:52:03.
When I crossed the finish line I was astounded to find out I was second placed female. It was my first time on a triathlon podium, something I’m really proud of. Overall it was a fantastic event and I really enjoyed the day. I’d definitely encourage anyone interested in trying a triathlon to give it a go!
