Despite the fact that I have been a ‘full time’ athlete for
the past few weeks, time still seems to be a luxury that’s in short supply,
hence the delay in updating, but anyway here it is.
In the lead up to Liverpool, I was feeling good and, come
race weekend was confident that a good result was on the cards, however that is
the joy of triathlon, you can never predict what will happen, as was to become
apparent….
Swim – good, comfortable swim, emerging from the water in 2nd,
however then followed one of my first mistakes… I got stuck on the landing
ramp, and as I watched helplessly as people ran past, desperately trying to get
moving, but instead of keeping my cool and moving on, I started to overthink,
hence meaning that I had a poor transition. However, I was still in the front
pack at the start of the bike, so I started to cool off a bit.
This was just the start of my problems, as for the duration
of the bike; I couldn’t seem to find any power, meaning that I lost contact
with the front group and then the chase group. I wasn’t sure what was going on,
but I kept pushing and eventually reached the run. Surprisingly I had a solid
run, but overall position was disappointing, as I came off the bike out of contact
with the leaders. Disappointing, but afterwards I found out that my tyre had
been rubbing for the duration of the ride, giving me at least peace of mind it wasn’t
just lack of form.
So onto London, and the weather couldn’t have been much
different , and with the added bonus of being able to travel from home for the
race I was confident that once again if everything went to plan I had a good
chance.
Out onto the swim and it was clear that I wasn’t going to
emerge where I wanted from the water, be this due to lack of experience, or
technique, but it just didn’t seem to be there. Being an Olympic distance
however I settled in , and then on the home straight started to try to move
through the people in front to try to make the most of a bad situation. In the
end, 7 seconds down on the leader wasn’t too bad, however once again
transitions meant that I came out onto the bike out of touch of the lead pack,
which I was annoyed about salvaging a decent swim.
Anyway, I learned from the last race not to dwell on
mistakes, so it was a case of working hard on the bike and seeing if we could
close the gap to the leaders. Annoyingly not many of the guys in the group
fancied pulling turns so it was down to a couple of up to keep the pace rich.
We tried a couple of breakaways, but realistically there was no way we could
get away from the group, so emerging into T2 and once again it was a case of
damage limitation on the run, however as I was about to find more, more than I thought…
The first lap felt good and I was working my way through the
field, however onto the second and that was when my problems started. On the
bike I had dropped my gel, and had not drunk a quarter of what I thought I had
done, so I started to go light headed and breathless, and I knew that things weren’t
good. I grabbed as many cups of water running through the aid stations as I could
and poured them over myself, and from that point on I knew I had to be
sensible. Its not in my vocabularly to stop and get my first ever DNF would not
have been a good feeling, so I continued round, and finally reached the finish
line.
It was as I passed the finish line that I realised how much
of a bad way I was in as I nearly lost consciousness. After a long period of emptying
bottles of water over my head and drinking as much as I could stomach I finally
started returning to ‘semi normal’.
Once again, a lot to learn, but in a way I’m glad this happened
now, as I have learned my lessons, meaning that hopefully, my European cup
races in Karlovy Vary and Romania will be much better and I won’t have a
repeat, in what are likely to be once again testing conditions.
I’m looking forward to taking my racing to the next level,
and let’s hope my experiences this season help me. Stay tuned for updates.
Happy Training
