A few months ago I found out that I would be travelling to Barcelona with work and used racecheck to see if there were any local races. I found this aquathlon and decided it would be a great 'warm up' race for my main event. It would give me an excuse to spend the weekend in Spain and get in some warm weather training.

From what I remember, registration was ok, but may have required some knowledge of Spanish to navigate the pages. The organisers had paired up with a travel agent, viajes El Corte Ingles to organise hotels. They had organised special deals with a numbe of local hotels to provide an early breakfast for race participants, as well as a late checkout, at 16:00 for all the hotels. This was really easy to book, saved the hassle of trying to find somewhere, and the hotel I picked was only a 5 min walk from the train station, and a few hundred meters from the main event village. They sent several email reminders about booking details etc as race day approached.

In contrast, I never received any information about the event. There was a good deal of information on the event website, and detailed timetables for each of the events (the aquathlon was run alongside the 70.3 race). I had used these times to organise meeting up with friends and to schedule my training. As the aquathlon was just a side event, and 5 weeks from my main event, I still had to head out to do a long ride on the Saturday. By chance I saw a tweet, the week before the race that the aquathlon start time had been moved forward by 2 hours, and only in Spanish. We received no other notification of this. Some people might say that race times can often change, but nothing on the website indicated that the times had been provisional (other races do state this). When I went back later that day, the time had been changed on one part of the website, but not on others, and no message saying 'attention - time change.'

I also tried to contact the organisers on several occasions, in English and Spanish, to find out the likely water temperature, with regards to wetsuit use etc. I never heard back.

I was able to pick up my race pack at the expo on Saturday, but still had several questions about the race, that I had to wait until the Sunday morning to find out. The race pack contained several goodies, and a detailed race schedule for the middle distance event. There was some information for the aquathlon, but it wasn't really complete, and I had to guess and piece together bits of information from what was written for the triathlon. Even then, I was told contradictory information when I checked in on the Sunday morning, and had to double check this.

We had one hour on Sunday morning, during which we could check in, pick up our timing chips and set up our transition area. Everyone was allocated a small box so it was easy to keep all your stuff in one place, and it was easy to find my box when I came into the water, as they had put stickers with everyone's number on the floor in front of the box.

the aquathlon was only a small event, ~50 people, so everyone started at the same time. To start the race they wheeled a small canon onto the beach to be our starting gun! 

It was very windy the morning of the race, so the course was shortened by about 200m I think. To aid sighting they had attached a big red ballon to the first turn buoy, but even then the waves were so big, that I struggled to keep an eye on the ballon. I think this may have been because the waves were coming diagonally across, and I was drifting quite a bit. I am used to being in water with waves, but I am not used to having to swim in a straight line for a specific distance, so I did find the swim quite tough.

Once out of the water we had a run across the soft sand on the beach to transition, and heading out onto the run, which was a 2 lap course. It was an out and back loop, but they did manage to separate it for sections, so you weren't running the exact same section there and back. There was an aid station in the middle of the run, which was well stocked with water, red bull, fruit and energy bars, and a percussion band. Their music was great for setting the rhythm for the run, but they only played the first time I went past, which was a shame.

Before I'd even reached the halfway point on the first lap, a bike came past me with a woman running behind, it took me a few seconds to realise this was the lead woman from the aquathlon. Several minutes later, a second bike came past, with the lead man. She was fast, and she won the whole race! It was great that they had provided lead bikes for the aquathlon as well, but when I checked twitter later that day, I saw that there were constant updates on how the triathletes were doing, but nothing about the aquathlon winners, or that a woman won the race, until they showed the pictures of the prize ceremony.

At the finish we received medals and a t-shirt, and there was water, fruit and some snacks available for us in the food tent afterwards, which was nice. I used the opportunity to refuel, before heading out for the rest of my run (I had to add on an extra 6km, to make sure I did my long run for the weekend). And they had provided massages for everyone after the race as well. Always a bonus.

The main focus of the day was the middle distance triathlon. They started the swim a while before us, and as I was getting ready I saw lots of people lining the run up from the beach and down by the water and along transition cheering everyone on. The aquathlon was definitely a much smaller focus, and at times felt like a side event. There were some people along the beach and the run course while I was out, but on more than one occasion, I thought to myself that it was a very quiet race. Maybe because there weren't many competitors, and many people were watching the others set off on the bike course, but I did notice a difference from other events where all the marshalls are cheering and shouting encouragement etc. At most, a couple of them pointed where I needed to turn/run. I have been at other events where more support, but I have a feeling that those taking part in triathlon may have had a different experience, at least from the competitors.

It was great to have had the chance to race somewhere different and warm, but I am also glad that this is now my 3rd year doing multisport races, as I would probably have felt very lost if this had been my first race, and I didn't know what to expect. I think some improvements could be made on the communications side of things, at least for the aquathlon.