Race to altar for triathlon runner

The last thing she expected was for boyfriend Adam Rye to get down on bended knee and propose marriage.

Nicola, 26, from Barton on Humber, had just swum 1,500 metres – two laps of Allerthorpe Lake near York – cycled 40km and run 10km. She said: “I was completely shocked. I was still full of emotion from finishing and I was disappointed with myself for my time, and all I was thinking of was collecting my bike, so when Adam got down on one knee it took me a moment to realise what was happening.”

Nicola – who only took up athletics this year, after losing her grandfather to cancer – said yes.

She and Adam, 30, who runs the Reincarnate Safety business in Barton upon Humber, have been going out for two years and Nicola says she had no inkling he was planning to pop the question.

Peter Mathieson, from organisers Freebird Events in York, said: “So far as we aware this is the first time there’s been a proposal of marriage at the finishing line of a triathlon... and we’re thrilled it happened here.”