A Splash in Cardiff Bay - our team experience of the Cardiff Bay Triathlon.

At 8.18am sharp the siren signalled the start of the sprint tri as part of the Cardiff Bay Triathlon events in Wales, and Margaret set off for the first of three pink buoys.

A few days before she turned 70, she was swimming 750 metres in the opening leg of a team relay. My daughter Niamh was waiting by her bike and daughter-in-law Elspeth was warming up for the run.

None of them had exactly killed themselves in training. Margaret had caught Covid and had to put swimming aside until she was cleared, so this was only her second swim in three weeks. Niamh lives in Cambridge, which is nice and flat if you are a commuter on a bike but no good for proper cycling, so she and Elspeth had kept fit by running.

There was plenty of excitement and buzz on race day, as is the way with a well organised event like this one.

The Cardiff Bay event is nothing more nor less than a triathlon extravaganza with dangerously fit people swimming like fishes, hurtling around closed streets on bikes and running tight circuits between throngs of supporters. There’s an event for just about anybody and it’s well organised. Everybody gets a pre-race briefing – swimmers, cyclists and runners. And the apres-race entertainment right is on your doorstep – I fear I drank too much of a wonderful organic beer by Fullers called Honey Dew. Even if you don't partake in a post-race beer, there's plenty of places to grab coffee or have lunch in the surrounding area.

Having said that, everyone knows that beer tastes better after exercise!

Anyway, back to the race.... Surrounded by serious triathletes and weekend warriors alike in a field of about 2000, they were all nervous. But adrenalin is a wonderful thing.

Margaret emerged from the water, swimming onto the pontoon and getting unsteadily to her feet, in just over 21 minutes. By my reckoning that was a good four minutes ahead of schedule.

Daughter Niamh made short work of the 20 kilometre-long bike in 43 minutes, not bad for somebody who hadn’t ridden for months (or raced in years).

And Elspeth knocked off the five kilometres of the run in a brisk 26 minutes.

Total time was 1hr 33m, roughly ten minutes ahead of my estimate.

Their team, the Celtic Queens, placed first in their category, which sounds amazing. It would be nice to say they blitzed the opposition but the truth is there wasn’t any. The Celtic Queens was the only all-female team in the race.

So they finished first out of one. Put another way, they finished both first and last.

Still, you’ve got to be in to win.