National Standard Distance Champs – July 2017

As mentioned at the end of my last blog, our long run of racing every weekend (and midweek too!) was coming to an end and July was going to be a quieter month for us. The first half of the season was pretty much done and dusted and it was time for a bit of R&R before building up again for August & September.

As it happens, we have only done one race in July – the National Standard Distance Triathlon Champs at Ripon on 2nd July. This was the final race in a block of 14 races in 6 weeks for me which started on May 20th – my body was definitely ready for a rest!! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for a podium at this race as I’d been in good form over the few weeks before and I knew I should be able to.

We decided to drive up to Ripon on the morning of the race as it was only a couple of hours away and it would save us a bit of money not needing a hotel etc. We arrived in plenty of time in some nice bright sunshine and got registered before setting up everything in transition and getting ready to race. I was off first in the first wave at 1pm and Emily was setting off 14mins later. Soon the first wave was called to the start and were in the lake ready to go! The water was nice and clear but had lots of weeds fairly close to the surface that a lot of people were getting caught up in even before the start…

The horn went and it was the usual washing machine for the first 100m before it settled down with a big(ish) group ahead of me. I worked hard on the first leg up the lake and managed to catch a few others but my arms didn’t feel great on the way back down the lake so I settled in with the group that I’d caught – annoying as I’d have liked to keep pushing on and make time back on those still ahead.

I came out of the swim in 21.03 – a minute or so slower that I was hoping for and 6th in AG, around a minute down on the AG leader. Work to do!

Onto the bike and I knew this was where I needed to work hard if I was going to get anywhere near the podium. I picked off a fair few riders in the first 10km and was slowly gaining on those I could see up the road. As we made the turn at the halfway point (the course was out and back) I was in 8th place overall and 5th AG. I soon overtook two that I knew were 20-24 (onto the podium) and as I came back into transition I was just a couple of seconds behind the athlete currently in 2nd AG and 4th overall. My bike time was 59.19, 6th fastest split overall and fastest in the 20-24 AG.

Out onto the run and I caught the athlete 2nd in AG within 600m and couldn’t see anyone ahead. The run was a mix of tarmac, gravel and grass tracks which kept it interesting but hurt the legs a lot! There was a small out and back halfway through the run and as I ran up to that point I confirmed that I was 4th overall and 2nd 20-24 with a good lead over 3rd 20-24. However, the leaders were a little bit too far ahead for me to be able to catch annoyingly. I still pushed on and was overtaken by a couple of other athletes in other AG’s near the end of the run but managed to hold on and crossed the line 2nd 20-24 and 6th in the wave! My overall time was 2hrs 17s, so close to another sub 2-hour finish! Someone in a later wave managed to just beat my time so I ended up 7th overall, still a good result at National Champs 🙂

After Emily had finished and we’d packed all our kit into the car there was a long long long wait (Circa 2.5hrs…) until they’d finalised results and were able to do the championship presentations.

Overall I’ve got to be pleased with getting a podium at National Champs, especially after such a busy and draining last 6 weeks, but I was a bit disappointed not to win and with my splits being a bit slower than I’d hoped – maybe all the racing was catching up with me after all.

Following this race we’ve had a couple of weeks almost completely off training with just the odd swim or run if we felt like it. We’ve now started building up the training again with one goal in mind – World Champs in Rotterdam on 17th September. This is the only race we’ve got booked for the rest of the year, although we’ll probably end up entering one or two local races to use for training and to see how we’re doing between now and worlds.

That’s all for this blog – much shorter than usual but that’s due to it only being about one race! We’ve had a pretty good year so far with some good results which we wouldn’t have been able to do without the kind support from our sponsors, so thank you very much to everyone that helps us along the way 🙂

Thanks for reading and happy training/racing 😀

Angus.

Races, Races and more Races!

Picking up where my last blog left off, the last week of May and June up until now has been very busy, with races every weekend and some mid week races too. It’s been a tiring month but the end of this big block of racing is now in sight. This blog is a brief (compared so some of my race reports!) report of all 11 races I have done since my last blog. Enjoy!

May 24th – Overst League Plungar 35 mile cycling race

I went into this race feeling a bit fatigued from the last weekend’s racing (Nottingham Sprint Tri on Saturday (4th Overall) and the Uni of Nottingham GP on sunday (4th) so was just hoping to get round, stay safe and maybe have a go in the sprint. I was pretty much at the back for the whole race and couldn’t really move up at all coming into the finish but managed to weasel my way through to finish around 12th I think, not a bad result and I was glad to finish safely with some big races to come!

May 27th – British Sprint Triathlon Championships, Strathclyde – 2018 ETU Qualifier

Having travelled up to Strathclyde on Friday afternoon and had a quick look around the race venue it looked to be a good course for strong cyclists as there were a few hills on every lap and the run was fairly flat. Come race day and the weather was looking good, if not a little warm. On arriving at the race venue there was already a long queue for registration and it was growing fast! It took about 30 mins to register and by the time I’d managed to register the queue had stretched the whole way around the car park… not great! The delays in registration meant all waves were delayed but they didn’t tell us by how much…

Transition sorted and everything ready meant it was just a waiting game to see when we would be able to race! I got my Zone3 Vanquish suit on when there was what we thought was about 15mins until the start and they called us across next to the pontoon. They then told us there would be at least a 20min delay until the start – already getting a bit too warm wrapped in neoprene in the now baking hot, this wasn’t ideal. Luckily they eventually agreed to let us go into the lake to cool down.

A few more delays later and we were eventually ready to start. The swim was a 2-lap, 750m swim with the first turn buoy about 100m from the start – this was going to be chaos! As soon as the horn went I sprinted to try and get a good position for the first buoy and ended up on the inside of a couple of others just off the back of the front group. The rest of the swim was fairly uneventful and I managed to push on in the second lap to catch the front group and come out of the water in 8th place in the wave.

Through transition and onto the 4-lap, 20km bike course and I knew if I was going to get a result today I was going to have to work hard. I soon overtook a few competitors in the first lap but onto the rest of the laps it was hard to tell who was a lap behind and who was ahead. I could see I was biking away from a few guys that I knew were in my age cat as the course was an out and back, and with half a lap to go I caught the current race leader. The rest of the way back to transition 4 of us were all within about 100m of each other with one just up the road a tiny bit. I came off the bike into T2 in second overall and ran out onto the 2 lap, out & back 5km run in 4th place close behind 2nd & 3rd. This was as close as I got as those ahead were soon running away from me 😦 All of us were in the 20-24AG so I knew that hopes of a podium and a British Triathlon medal were now out of the picture, but I just kept pushing and was happy to eventually cross the line to finish 5th M20-24 and 9th overall.

I was initially pretty disappointed to miss out on the podium but I had a fairly good race with plenty of positives, especially as I have tended to be less competitive at sprint distance races in the past, and another top 10 overall was a good result. A few days later I found that the result had qualified me for the 2018 European Sprint Distance Champs which is to be held at the same venue in Strathclyde – the long journey was worth it!

June 4th – Deva Standard Distance Triathlon – 2017 ITU Qualifier

This years version of the Deva standard distance triathlon was my 4th consecutive year racing in Chester – a testament to how well organised the race is! I’m happy to say this year was no exception and Chester Tri put on another great event. This year had about twice as many people as last year’s race due to the fact it was a qualifier for World Champs later this year in Rotterdam. Emily had already pre-qualified as a result of being British Champion, so I had to make sure I qualify so we can both go!

We travelled across to Chester on race morning, about a 2hr journey on nice quiet roads at 4am. It was looking like it would be a nice day weather wise with the sun coming up as we got close to Chester, with a small breeze hopefully making fast conditions. Soon enough we’d registered, racked and set up transitions and were down at the start ready to jump in and race.

A short warm up swim in the river later and we were off, the first 850m of the swim being upstream where we spun round and did the remaining 650m downstream. I’d got a bit out of position at the start and couldn’t get across into the front group. However, as we turned at the 850m mark I broke away from the chase group and by the time we got the exit ramp I was on the feet of the front group.

An uphill run to transition later, wetsuit off and helmet on and I was out onto the single lap, 40km bike course. I knew there were a few people ahead of me so I pushed on straight away, passing a few and I could see a couple more up the road, including the 20-24 leader. I was holding a fairly constant distance to him and soon we had passed everyone else, meaning I was into 2nd overall. This stayed the same for the rest of the bike and I was back into transition with a bike time of 58.47, a PB for me over the distance! Just the 10km run to go…

My legs were a bit sleepy heading onto the run and the first lap was fairly slow and I was overtaken by one other competitor. However, I managed to pick it up a bit and with the support from Emily’s family who had come to spectate I had a great negative split over the 3 lap 10km. I held my position and crossed the line in 3rd place in a time of 1.58.31, a standard distance tri PB for me. Now I just had to wait around and see who finished where in the next wave. Unfortunately two competitors managed to beat my time so I ended up in 5th overall and 2nd M20-24, qualifying for World Champs! Job done 😀 I even got some High5 goodies for my age-group placing 😛

June 10th – National Aquathlon Championships, Leeds

Next up was the National Aquathlon Champs in Leeds, a race that Emily and I had entered fairly last minute and not really expecting too much other than a good training session and some race prep. It was a pretty damp day which was going to make the partially off-road run interesting! A quick summary: the 750m swim went reasonably well in 10.16, the long, uphill run to transition wasn’t very fun and the 2-lap 5km run was a bit too hilly for my liking – my quads ended up hurting more post race than after some cycling races… When results were posted I finished 6th overall and 5th M20-24… work to be done but a good training session.

June 14th – Lincoln Aquathlon Series Round 2

A few days after Leeds we raced at the Lincoln Aquathlon series, an 800m open-water swim and 3km run. I came out of the swim in 4th, exited transition in 3rd and finished 2nd overall, swimming ~30s faster than last year’s attempts at the race and beating my overall times from last year – another good training session. Emily and I both finished 2nd overall so got some new door-wedges for our house 😛 Thanks to Deltasimons & 100% Swimming for another good event.

June 15th – Alford Wheelers 10m TT

We hadn’t planned to do this and just decided on the morning to go and see how it went, myself having not done a TT for 3 years and Emily having never done one! We were staying at Emily’s parents until after Woodhall Tri the coming Sunday so this TT was only a short drive from us. It was a pretty windy night so not great conditions for it but I managed a time of 22.21, fastest by 45s on the night and a 10m TT PB of over 1.5mins 🙂 Emily set a great time of 29.00! We’re hoping to do a few more TT’s over the summer as they’re good fun and great training for tri’s.

June 18th – Woodhall Spa Sprint Triathlon

This was my second year racing at Woodhall Spa and I was hoping to go a bit better than I had last year, although the baking hot weather might have an influence on that as I don’t tend to deal with heat very well. The 400m swim was in an outdoor pool and I was in the last wave of 5 competitors. I came out of the pool last, but this was expected and through transition I overtook 2 others.

Onto the 24km bike course and I pushed on hard as I knew there were 2 other fast competitors up the road that I’d need to put some time into if I was going to beat them. After about 11km I caught one of these and the current leader of the 20-24AG, so I pushed on to put as much time into him as possible. I could see the other rider up the road but couldn’t put any time into him, so was currently in 2nd place overall.

Just the 5km run left and I was getting pretty warm by now – luckily Emily’s brother and sister had brought their water-guns to spray us with and halfway round the course some kind residents had brought their hosepipes out and were showering competitors to cool them down, very much appreciated!

I looked back a couple of times and could see that 3rd place was closing me down gradually, but thought I could do enough to hold him off. That was until in the last km I started getting a bit dizzy due to the heat, and with only ~200m left he came past me and crossed the line just 5s ahead… damn!

That meant that I’d finished 2nd in the M20-24 AG and 3rd overall, my first overall tri podium of the year. I’d also managed to beat my time from last year by over 3 minutes, a great improvement. The result also meant that I’d won the M20-24 midlands sprint series (Southwell tri, Nottingham tri & Woodhall Spa tri) and also won the series overall, another one of my season’s aims ticked off.

After getting back to Emily’s parents’ house and having some food we headed to the beach to make the most of the lovely hot weather!

June 21st – VBCC Thoroton 3/4 40mile cycling race

My first cycling race for a month and as with the last one at Plungar, I went into it pretty fatigued and with no expectations. I stayed in the bunch for the whole race, moving to the front a couple of times but my legs just felt flat as expected. Coming into the sprint to the line I moved up a few places but then someone decided to wipe out in front of me… I managed to avoid him, as did everyone else luckily with some doing some impressive cyclocross on the verge, but it meant we were now far too far back and we just rolled over the line. All in all a good training session to flush the legs out ready for another upcoming weekend of racing!

June 25th – Cholmondeley Castle Standard Triathlon

I’d been looking forward to racing at Cholmondeley Castle for a while now as it was to be my first Castle Series race and I’d heard great things about them! It was a damp morning and as we were racking our bikes it started to rain – it didn’t stop until we were packing the car away post race!

We got our Zone3 Vanquish wetsuits on fairly early to try and keep warm and had our High5 X’treme gels about 15mins before race start. The swim was in a pretty murky and muddy lake with shin deep silt to stand in at the start – lovely! It was a 2-lap, 1500m swim with a long ‘aussie-exit’ (~150m run) to start the second lap. Once we were off I thought I’d managed to get into the front group but unfortunately the guy who’s feet I was on had drifted back off the group slightly and a gap was now opening up… damn! I came around him and tried to bridge across to the front group as we were coming back down the lake to complete lap 1. I think I was about 30s behind going onto lap 2 but I thought they were still within catching distance, so I pushed on for the whole of the second lap, still not quite able to catch them. I came out of the swim in 5th place overall with some work to do on the bike.

A swift-ish transition later and I was onto the 2 lap, 44km rolling bike course. Within about 5km I was up into 3rd place on the road and after about 7km I made the pass to go into 2nd place. I could see one rider behind who was making a bit of ground on me and a few km’s later Tim Lynch came past, who I knew was a strong rider from Deva. I upped the pace a little and stuck (legally: ~15m) behind him before overtaking him as we were heading back into Cholmondeley Park to start the second lap. We stayed pretty close to each other for the rest of the bike, putting over 5mins into 4th place and catching the leader as he was now in sight. Unfortunately with about 4km to go a car passed me way too close and pushed me into a ~8cm deep pothole with a crunch. My front tub went down within about 10m and that was game over, I wasn’t carrying any puncture repair stuff. I was pretty annoyed as I knew that I was easily on for an overall podium finish, but there wasn’t much I could do and I was now getting cold as it was still raining. I walked to the nearest marshall point, with 4th place eventually coming past me (we really did have a big lead!) and after waiting there getting pretty cold for ~15mins I got picked up and taken back to transition.

Getting back there the race organisers said I could continue the race if I wanted to so I went into transition, racked my bike, got my run shoes on and headed out onto the 2-lap, 10km run. My legs had got pretty cold and tight standing around, so they took most of the first lap to loosen up and by the finish they were pretty achey. I managed to get the 7th fastest run split of the day to still finish in 20th overall… Looking at the results and I’m fairly certain that I would have been on the overall podium had I not had the puncture. Very annoying to miss out like that but there was nothing I could do and I’ll just have to put the frustration to use in training and my next race. Overall the race at Cholmondeley Castle was a great event (even if Emily and I both had bad races) and Castle Series do seem to organise it pretty well – hopefully I can come back next year and do a little better 🙂

June 27th – Harvey Hadden 3/4 Cycling Race

I wasn’t planning on racing this but my legs didn’t feel too bad on the day so Emily and I cycled to Harvey Hadden and I entered on the line along with about 25 others. The race was 20 laps and got off to a fairly fast start with a few attacks straight from the line. A couple of riders got away and nearly lapped the bunch and another rider got off solo to take 3rd place. I did quite a bit of work in the race, attacking several times but none of these came to anything annoyingly. I think I need to focus my efforts on one or two bigger attacks and need to learn when’s best to attack! I got a bit out of position coming round the final hairpin leaving myself a bit too much work to do to get into the top 10 but sprinted to 12th place. Hopefully this wouldn’t have hurt my legs too much for tomorrow’s race at Plungar!

June 28th – Overst League Plungar 35 mile cycling race

My 3rd race in 4 days and my legs were feeling a little bit tired but I went into the race as with the last few road races just hoping to get round safely. It was rubbish conditions for racing with spitting rain and some gusty winds so we’d all have to be alert to ensure it would be a safe race. It took me a couple of laps sitting close to the back to get warmed up but midway round the 3rd lap (of 5) I moved up towards the front just as 3 riders had attacked off the front, including one team mate from Beeston CC. I then rolled to the front and as we went onto the 4th lap a couple of riders attacked and I got straight onto their wheels. I looked back to make sure I wasn’t dragging the bunch along and there was a group of 6 others on my wheel, not too many! I pushed on and we started working together to catch the 3 riders in front. Unfortunately one of these riders wiped out on a tight corner and soon we had all come together as a group of 10 at the front of the race.

Soon we started working well, chaingang’ing for the next 1.5laps or so and putting over a minute into the main bunch. It then started to break up a little with about 4km to go with a few riders missing turns and thinking about the finish. In hindsight I probably should have attacked at this point and tried to TT to the finish, but I sat in the wheels and coming up the hill to the finish I managed to sprint past a couple of riders and bagged 6th place on the line. A good result and a few more points on a night that I would have been happy to just get round! I was also pleased that I managed to have the legs to get in the break and work hard to keep us away from the chasing main bunch. It was some great experience and I’m looking forward to my next cycling races already 🙂

Next month’s plans:

So, that’s all caught up to date with my many races from the last month! We have one race left in this big block of racing before Emily and I have a small break and some time for relaxing and planning the rest of our season! My plans are as follows:

July 1st – National Standard Distance Triathlon Champs, Ripon

Break for recovery!

July 19th – VBCC Thoroton 3/4 40mile cycling race

July 23rd – Castle Howard Standard Distance Triathlon

July 26th – Overst League Plungar 3/4 35 mile cycling race

After this we don’t have any more races planned until Rotterdam in mid-September, but we’ll look to fit in a few local triathlons and other races as and when we can in August to ensure we’re in the best shape possible come World Champs 😀

Thank you to all of our sponsors for keeping us going in this busy block of racing and to all of you reading this and on our social media platforms for your support and encouragement – it really is appreciated.

That’s all for now, thank you for reading and happy racing/training 😀

Angus.

May Update – Crits, Road Races, Crashes and Tri’s…

Hi everyone – time to write a blog of what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks since my last post in April (http://wp.me/p44X24-gM). It’s been a busy month filled with racing, uni coursework, revision and more! So…

First up was the Overst Road Race League 35mile road race on the evening of wednesday 3rd May at Plungar – the second round of the East Midlands Development League and having recce’d the circuit a couple of days before I knew it should be a fairly fast race. The roads were pretty open on either side and there was quite a wind blowing which was going to make it interesting with a cross headwind down the straight to the finish. It was a pretty overcast day so the race had to be shortened to 4 7 mile laps rather than 5 due to the light fading. The finish line was about 40m over the crest of a short but sharp climb up and over a canal bridge so gear selection was going to be key coming into the sprint.

I rolled around the first couple of laps in the bunch with not too much happening until a break tried to go heading onto the penultimate lap. I shot out of the bunch to try and bridge across to the break of 4/5 and got within about 10m but just ran out of legs so had to sit up and drop back into the bunch. Luckily some others were chasing on the front and the break were brought back soon enough, meaning it was heading for a bunch sprint.

Onto the final time down the straight to the finish and everyone was sitting up not wanting to take the lead, meaning we were spread right across the road and no one could move up – I was stuck about 4 rows of riders back from the front annoyingly! It stayed like this the whole way until about 200m to the bottom of the climb to the finish with a lot of us behind getting very annoyed that everyone at the front was just blocking! As we hit the climb it split up a bit and a gap opened in front of me so I went for it, starting in about 25th position! Nearing the crest of the hill and a rider dropping back on my right pulled into my line, knocking my handlebars and taking my rear derailleur into another rider’s front wheel behind. I just about managed to stay upright and sprinted over the top to take 10th place. I was hoping for a higher placing and a few more points but happy with managing to get into the top 10 having started so far back.

On the spin back to the carpark after the race I found out the hard way that the knock to my rear derailleur in the sprint had bent the hanger – when I changed gear it took the derailleur into my rear wheel snapping it clean off, twisting the derailleur, breaking the pulley cage in half and snapping a spoke… great!

Pretty annoyed about this I headed home and quickly got searching online to order some new parts – I was supposed to be racing again on Sunday and my bike was in pieces!! Luckily I managed to get it all fixed up and just about working again, although with the derailleur slightly twisted still the shifting just wasn’t as crisp as it used to be and what I’ve become used to with Di2 😦

Anyway, onto Sunday’s race – another round in the East Mids Dev. League at Thoroton – a 7 lap, 40 mile affair. It was a sunny(ish) day with a swirling wind and the course was pretty flat with some sections of horrible road surface – hopefully people would be calling out the potholes!

The race was neutralised from the HQ until we got to the finish line on the circuit and then the flag dropped and immediately a teammate from Beeston CC went for it, getting a small gap on the group which immediately strung it out. I sat mid bunch for a few laps to see what my legs were doing and to get used to the circuit and was chatting with Phil (LRC rider who I know from uni) to see how he was doing – we decided to have a go halfway round the lap with 1.5 laps to go and see if we could get away. Things were going well leading up to the corner we were going to attack out of, we were moving up when suddenly a rider cut in front of me, pushing me into the group and stopping me moving up. Round the corner and Phil attacked, quickly getting a good gap on the bunch, albeit thinking I was with him. I managed to get out of the group about mid pack and sprinted off the front to bridge over to Phil (and a group of 3 that were chasing) and I got to about 5m off the back of them and a good gap on the bunch until again my legs faded and I had to sit up, slipping back into the bunch… If only I had been with Phil when we’d planned to attack!

Anyway, the main bunch soon caught the breakaway and we were heading for another bunch sprint when with 1km to go a tractor in the road forced the commies to stop the race as we couldn’t overtake safely. Very annoying as I was moving up in about 8th wheel and was ready to empty my legs and see what they could do. We then turned round, rolled back about 500m to the second last corner on the lap and the race was re-started from there. Adding another lap would have been the best solution but unfortunately they couldn’t as marshalls had already left the corners they were posted on.

We self-neutralised the race for 100m or so to ensure everyone was clipped in and ready and then it got strung out again. I was in a similar place to before but there was a rider on my outside, meaning it was going to be more difficult to move up. Into the last corner onto the finishing straight (with about 500m to go) and the rider in front just stopped pedalling and sat up, pushing me back through the group as I had nowhere to go – very annoying! This meant I started the sprint in ~25th place, doing it the hard way! I managed to get my legs going and was overtaking all the way to the line, ending up just out of the points in 12th place. I was pretty annoyed with this, not only as I was in a good place to get a top 10 finish but also as I proved my legs were sprinting well with how I did manage to finish. However, I learnt a lot from this race and know that I need to work on holding my top end power for a little bit longer to allow me to get away/bridge gaps etc. as this is something I’m not so good at currently coming from a constant effort tt’ing background!

5 days after and I was racing again at the Lincoln Criterium 3/4, a city centre crit on a tight 1km circuit including a cobbled climb. I was pretty nervous having never raced on cobbles or in a field so big in a crit – over 70 riders were down to start. Then add into the matter heavy rain all day leading up to the race making the roads very greasy! There was a fair bit of confusion at the start as to whether we were going to get a warm up lap or not but in the end we didn’t and I ended up starting pretty much dead last – definitely not what you want on a tight circuit with limited opportunities to move up.

As soon as we were started someone in front decided it was a good idea to not move anywhere, blocking the whole of the right hand side… guess which side I was on!? After about 30s I finally managed to get over the start line and was on my way, by which time the front group was long gone. I pushed hard straight away and was catching people for the whole of the 50 minute race. I was getting time updates to the front group from Emily and it was coming down fast after being around a minute back a couple of laps in. With about 3 laps to go I had got to about 10s off the back and was in about 13th place – one final effort and I could make my way into the top 10 and get some points.

That was until on the fastest corner of the circuit with 1.5 laps to go, going about 28mph, I had to go slightly off the dry line that was forming when lapping another rider and I lost both wheels, coming down hard and sliding across the road. I stood up, got out of the way of other riders coming round and bent my shifters back straight so I could carry on riding. I got back on and got back up to speed but I couldn’t change gear – one of the connections on the Di2 must have come loose. Faffing around with this coming over the cobbles going onto the last lap I hit the leg of one of the barriers, sending me over the handlebars and onto the road once again! That meant it was race over as I couldn’t get going again and I could now feel a fair bit of pain coming from my left side.

After finding Emily and telling her I was okay, I headed over to the St. John’s Ambulance trailer to get my road rash cleaned up and bandaged – I got away pretty lightly to just have road rash and no broken bones, I must bounce well! After that we stayed around to watch the women’s and men’s elite races before heading to the local hospital to see Emily’s brother, Rob, who had unfortunately crashed on the same corner as me in his race earlier and had fractured his wrist 😦 A couple of hours later we set off back to Nottingham and finally got home way past midnight – a long and stressful day!

I definitely didn’t get much sleep at all that night so the next couple of days were spent being pretty drowsy – not ideal with lots of uni coursework to complete and revision to do. On the upside (from uni’s perspective anyway), the injuries meant that I couldn’t train so had a lot more time for work… dammit!

One major concern on the injury side of things was that I was supposed to be racing the coming Saturday at Nottingham sprint triathlon – my first open water tri of the year, the open water bit being the concern with open wounds. I spent a bit of time researching how to get the wounds to heal as fast as possible and also was very grateful to have a sister who’s a nurse, brother-in-law who’s a doctor and for lots of advice from Emily’s relatives. I managed to get some waterproof dressings from my sister so would be able to use those and some other tape etc. to keep the largest wounds safe enough from the water on Saturday. I was going to wait and decide on Friday whether to race or not, but at least I now had the tools to do so 🙂

The rest of the week consisted of just two training sessions – a short 4km run on Tuesday which was all I could manage before it got too painful, and a 1hr bike on Thursday which wasn’t too bad – I was glad to be training again so was happy to push through the pain.

Come Friday and all of the smaller wounds had healed, leaving just the deep one on the front of my knee and the large one on the front of my calf, both of which looked to be healing well. After a lot of umm’ing and aah’ing I decided to race and wrap the wounds up as well as I could – I couldn’t miss our home race at the location that Emily and I got engaged now could I??? 😀

Onto Saturday morning and it was the usual big bowl of porridge before getting our kit packed up and heading off on the long 10 minute drive to Holme Pierrepont in some lovely sunshine. Emily’s wave was at 11am and mine at 1.30pm so when we got there we registered and sorted Emily’s kit out so she could go and set up her transitions before getting into her Zone3 Vanquish wetsuit and heading down to the start.

Emily had a great race, coming out of the swim 3rd overall, even after being frozen and hardly able to move for the first 500m. She managed to bike well in the windy conditions and the rain coming down on the last 2 laps that made everything a little bit slippy! And then managed to run her fastest 5km for a long time to finish 7th overall female and 2nd F20-24 – another good result to start the season and to build on over the next races.

Then it was my turn to get ready and on checking my bike over before heading down to transition I found that my disc wheel tub had a puncture… great! Luckily I carry a spare tub and tape with me to every race so I quickly got it changed and pumped up ready to race. Having sorted out my transitions and got my Zone3 Vanquish wetsuit on I headed to the swim start and was first person into the water.

A few minutes of warming up and jostling for position on the front line the horn went and I was immediately sandwiched by the two athletes either side of me. Why they decided to swim across my line when there was plenty of space around I have no idea, but I pushed on and settled down into 4th place, with 2 people swimming off the front. Round the final turn buoy with 300m to go I pushed on into 3rd place and stayed there till I got out of the water in a time of 10.32 for the 750m – pretty pleased with that having not swum for 10 days!

I had a bit of a shocking transition as I couldn’t get my wetsuit over the massive timing chip, but I was eventually out onto the 4 lap bike course and knew this was where I was going to have to work hard. Although it had now stopped raining, the rain during Emily’s race had meant the surface was a bit greasy and having lost a bit of confidence cornering in the wet from the crash a week ago I took the corners pretty easy. I was passing people for the whole bike and made my way up into 2nd in the wave on the last lap, overtaking Joe Ricciardi who was leading the 20-24 AG up until then. I managed to put about 10s into Joe on the last half a lap so coming into T2 I knew I had some work to do on the bike to hold him off on the 5km run. My bike time was 29.22 for the 20km, a bit slower than I did at Nottingham a couple of years ago but the conditions were worse today with the wind.

Out of T2 and onto the mind-numbing 1 lap run around the lake where the end feels like its not getting any closer… I had maintained the ~10s lead on Joe through transition and told myself to just keep running and not look back. Rounding the top end of the lake with 2.5km to go I had a quick glance and saw that the gap to Joe was still the same – now just to hold onto it for the next 2.5km! Coming into the last km and I still had the gap so knew that I should be able to hold it and that I did, coming into the finish 2nd in the wave (to a flying Luke Pollard who ran 15.41…) and 1st M20-24 – result!!!

When the results were posted later I was also 4th overall, just missing out on the overall podium by 14 seconds with my overall time being 59.58. I was pretty happy with that result after a frustrating week of not being able to train and also with racing all bandaged up, but had to focus on getting recovered quickly as I was racing again the following morning!

Once back home we sorted out the mucky kit and I sat down to write an essay that was due in on Monday – nothing like last minute work! My legs were feeling pretty tired so I knew that racing in the morning was going to be tough.

I woke up and my legs were very stiff and took a bit of getting moving so I hobbled downstairs to make some porridge and get my kit ready – I was racing at the Uni of Nottingaham GP 20 mile cycling race which was due to start at 9am. Thankfully the sun was out drying the damp roads – I wasn’t going to race if it was wet as I couldn’t risk coming off again with so many tri’s lined up in the next few weeks. The course was 10 x 2mile laps with short, sharp climbs halfway round and at the end of the lap which should make things interesting for the finish.

I headed to the race, signed on and went for a warm up around the course. It was pretty much all dry except for two tight 90 degree corners which were renowned for crashes over the last few years. I knew I was going to need to take these easy as my confidence was still a bit down after Lincoln. Soon we lined up and had the race briefing before being set off neutralised behind the commies car for the first km. As soon as the flag dropped it kicked off and I was soon at the back, my legs just didn’t want to wake up. After 1.5 laps I was about 20m off the back of the group and had to put a big effort in to get back on. After this my legs showed some signs of life and I managed to stick in the group and recover a bit.

A few laps later an attack with 3 riders went and I tried to bridge over to them – by the time I’d got to them the bunch had picked up the pace and caught us all a few moments later. I then decided to just sit in the group for the next few laps and that I’d have to go for it in the sprint. Onto the last lap and I moved into about 6th wheel and then coming up the hill with half a lap to go I found myself rolling into the race lead so I just went for it down the hill and got a small 5m gap. I knew I had to go for it as if I eased up I’d just be swallowed by the group and end up out of position for the sprint, so emptied the tank going up the final climb. I crested the hill in first but ended up leading everyone out for the sprint to the line which was about 300m after the crest.

Two riders came round me but I carried on pushing hard and just got pipped on the line for 3rd place by about 10cm, finishing 4th. I was annoyed to miss out on the podium as I felt I should have been on it, but I’ve got to be pleased to even finish the race after nearly pulling out after a couple of laps. I’m also pretty pleased to have finally got enough points to get my 3rd cat 😀

After the race Emily and I headed home and went out for a short spin in the sun before coming back home to do some uni work – I still needed to finish off two bits of coursework that were in in 16 hours time!

Overall I’ve had a pretty good month, despite the crash at Lincoln and uni work having to take over our lives a little bit – it’ll soon be over and we can focus on training over summer 🙂 I’ve accomplished one of my season goals to get my 3rd cat BC license, have raced pretty well at Nottingham Sprint and am also learning a lot in all of the cycling races that I’m doing. Over the next month or so I’ve got a pretty packed schedule, with uni exams included! See below for my plans:

May 24th – Overst League Plungar 35 mile cycling race

May 27th – British Sprint Triathlon Championships, Strathclyde

June 1st – Mallory 3rd Cat Cycling Race

June 4th – Deva Standard Distance Triathlon – ITU Qualifier

June 6th – Harvey Hadden Circuit Race League (Cycling) – 1st Round

June 10th – National Aquathlon Championships, Leeds

June 17th – Harvey Hadden Circuit Race League – 2nd Round

June 18th – Woodhall Spa Sprint Triathlon

June 24th – Cholmondeley Castle Sprint Plus Triathlon (800m OW, 44km, 8km)

June 27th – Harvey Hadden Circuit Race League – 4th Round

Finally, to end this massively long blog, I’d like to thank everyone who supports me in my racing and training – I wouldn’t be able to do it without the kind support from my sponsors and also from Emily and everyone else supporting me at races – I appreciate all the shouts of encouragement 😀

Into summer (June 6th and beyond after final uni exam!) and I hope to have more regular race reports on here to avoid massive long blogs like this one, so keep an eye out for those.

Until then – happy training 😀

April update – racing has begun :D

Hello again! Time to get caught up on the last month or so of what I’ve been up to in the sporting world. Firstly, I’ll pick up from where my last blog ended – Clumber Duathlon on 18th March.

This was my first race of this year and first since the European Middle Distance Champs many moons ago in September. I’d spectated last year as Emily was racing, but decided to give it a go this year so I entered myself into the standard distance race. Emily was again racing the sprint distance event which was starting an hour or so before my wave.

An early start and big bowl of porridge each started our day before getting the bikes and kit packed into the car and setting off to Clumber. Once there, we registered, racked our bikes and reminded ourselves what we needed to put in transition having not done a duathlon for nearly a year! It was then time for Emily’s start so I went to the start line with her and took a few photos as she raced off into the distance before going back to transition to check everything was fine, do some stretching, have my usual pre-race High5 Isogel X-Treme and get ready to start.

Before I knew it we were being called to the start line and the gun went. Cue everyone sprinting as per usual – although it was necessary on this course as the road soon narrows and it gets difficult to pass others. The run was an out and back rolling course which we took on twice for the first 10km. I went out hard(ish) but not too hard as we haven’t done too much speed work in training yet – we have bigger targets later in the season! I soon settled the pace down and came into T1 with a first run time of around 40 mins – slower than usual but this was a training race after all!

I was soon out onto the two lap bike course and passing people ahead of me who were slightly faster runners. The bike was pretty uneventful, overtaking lots of people and only being overtaken by one person so not too bad! I came back into T2 with a bike time of around 59mins, not too bad even if the course was a tiny bit short.

Finally onto the second 5km run and my legs were definitely a bit confused now as they haven’t done this for a while! “We’ve already ran 10km, do we really have to keep going?”. I managed to pull them round the out and back run and over the finish line with a run time of around 20mins and an overall race time of  2hrs 1min exactly – a standard distance duathlon PB (my second one…) and a good enough for 5th M20-24 and 20th overall. Not a bad start to the season and something to build on coming into tri season over the next few months.

Emily also had a great race finishing 6th F20-24 and also getting a duathlon PB in the process. From these results we have both qualified for the 2018 ETU European Duathlon Championships next spring – hopefully it doesn’t clash with Uni exams for us both!!

After Clumber I had decided to enter some local cycling road races so joined a local club (Beeston CC) and had my first race on 9th April at Sutton Bonnington – a 40mile cat 3/4. It was a baking hot day and I wasn’t quite ready for the chaos for the first few laps and ended up getting dropped and held up behind a crash after a lap and a half… not ideal! I did however manage to work with a couple of other athletes to get back into the main bunch and finished in 20th place – no points but a pretty good first race and I knew I had more to give.

The following Thursday I was racing again at the Mallory Park cat 4 circuit race. I had a good race, chasing down moves and trying to get away on a couple of occasions but not being able to make anything stick. This meant it came down to a bunch sprint and I finished 5th and got my first BC points – yeeha!

Easter Monday (17th April) was my next race at Yarborough 3/4 crit in Lincoln. This was a tricky circuit with 6 90 degree bends every lap and a chicane thrown in for good measure! The tarmac was a bit damp and mossy and I could feel my wheels sliding a tiny bit on the warm up laps. Sure enough, 3 laps into the race and there was a crash on the tightest corner which most of the field got held up behind including myself. This meant the next 4 laps or so were spent riding hard to chase back on to those who had got away as a result of the crash. I spent the rest of the race keeping in the first 5/6 wheels to try and avoid any further crashes (luckily there weren’t any) and with 1.5 laps to go I made my move around the chicane. I got a gap of about 10m but my legs just didn’t have enough to keep it up for the last lap and I was caught going onto the last lap. I kept close to the front and managed 9th in the final sprint, claiming another BC point – 6 down 6 to get to get to 3rd cat.

I raced again the following Thursday at Mallory again but I was a bit naive and spent the first 40mins at/on the front of the group chasing down moves and also trying to get away myself. This meant come the last few laps my legs didn’t have much left in them and I tried to force them to sprint off the final bend but it was no use. I sat up about 100m from the line and rolled across to finish ~20th. Not the result I had hoped for so I was pretty annoyed at the time. Looking back on it it’s all experience and I’m learning all the time having only just started racing – there’s more to come!

I also raced at Mallory on Thursday 27th April (Thursday just gone) where I sat in the pack a bit more but found myself out of position coming onto the climb to the finish line and although I was catching people in the sprint I just ran out of road and ended up 13th. Again, a little bit annoyed but some more lessons learnt! 

I’m enjoying the bike racing quite a lot and hope to carry on fitting races in around my multisport racing when possible. I feel that it’s benefitting my bike strength a lot and should ensure I can put down some good bike splits at my triathlons this year! I am also hoping to get up to 3rd cat pretty soon and if I can fit enough races in, possibly try and get my 2nd cat license this year. Who knows what might happen!

3 days after the bike race at Mallory, Emily and I were taking on our first tri of the season at OSB Events’ Southwell Sprint – fairly local to us and an 11.26am start for emily and 11.48am for me meant the race morning didn’t have to begin as early as most. We had the usual porridge, packed everything up and got to Southwell with a couple of hours to spare before Emily’s start. Like with the duathlon, we had to remind ourselves what we needed to do in transition and what kit we would need – it’s been a while! Once we were both set up we went for a little walk around the event area and relaxed for a bit.

It was soon time for Emily’s start so we headed to the pool and I saw her off and cheered her on after her swim before I got my race kit on, had my gel and went to start myself. The race was a 400m pool swim, 17.5km bike and 4.6km run, so it should be a fast time for a sprint if all goes well. I was in the second last wave, and came out of the swim 3rd in the wave (out of 5) but close behind those in front. I think I swam around 5.15, although the long run to transition is included in the swim time which was 6.08 on the results.

Through transition and I was onto the bike where I hoped to make up some time and try and give myself a buffer on other athletes going onto the run. The course is out and back with the turn point around a roundabout on a fairly busy road. I managed to catch and pass the two athletes ahead of me from my wave within a couple of kms and wanted to push on and put as much time into them as possible as I knew one of the was a faster runner than me. Come the turnaround I had ~20/25 seconds on him and couldn’t see the other athlete which was good news. However, I got stuck at the roundabout as there was loads of cars coming from the right, so had to stop and wait. When I got going again and round the roundabout the athlete had caught me up again and was right behind me. Now I knew I had to do even more work on the way back to T2 in order to get a gap on him. I managed to do this but I didn’t think I’d managed to get enough – we’d have to wait and see on the run. My bike time was 26.09 (including the stop) which was good enough for 4th fastest split of the day.

Back into transition and I was soon onto the run – a 2 lap out and back with a nasty little hill at the start of each lap. I’d soon get to see how much of a gap I had to those in my wave. I managed to hold the lead in my wave until the second time up the hill when I was overtaken by the faster runner – I hadn’t managed to take enough time out of him on the bike 😦 I tried to pick my legs up but they were having none of it so I pulled them round and managed a small sprint across the line. My run time was 16.41 for the 4.6km (equivalent to ~18.10 5km) and I was pleased enough with that given the lack of run speed training so far this season. My overall finish time was 50.09, 2nd M20-24 and 4th overall – a good result for the first tri of the season.

Emily also raced well and also came 2nd F20-24 in just over an hour but with some positive splits for our first tri this year. Definitely a good race to build on for us both with a busy schedule over the next few months and uni exams to think of as well!

My race plans for May are as follows:

May 3rd – 35 mile cycling 3/4 road race

May 7th – 40 mile cycling 3/4 road race

May 12th – Lincoln Criterium 1hr 3/4 cycling race

May 20th – Nottingham Sprint Triathlon

May 21st – UON GP Crit cycling race

May 24th – 35 mile cycling 3/4 road race

May 27th – British Sprint Triathlon Championships – Strathclyde, Glasgow.

May 29th – GT Ellingworth 50mile cycling 3/4 road race

So it’s going to be a busy month of racing and training! You’ll be able to keep up with my progress through the month on Twitter/Instagram and I’ll post a roundup of all the results in about a month’s time! Please get in contact with me through twitter etc if you have any feedback on my blogs or anything that you’d like advice on, I’d love to hear from you.

Emily and I love training together – It’s amazing to be able to do what you love with the person that you love and it’s something that we’ll always be able to do together. It’s how we met, we got engaged at Holme Pierrepont (location of the Nottingham Triathlon), it’s a massive part of our lives and we enjoy (nearly) every minute that we get to train together.  We’ve been putting some hard training in over the last few months and here’s a few photos from along the way 🙂

Thank you for reading and for your support and a final thank you to all of my amazing sponsors – I wouldn’t be able to afford to do all that I do without your kind support, so thank you very much.

Until next time, happy racing & training 😀

 

British Middle Distance Championships – Grafham Water

After the disappointing end to the trip to Aix En Provence at the end of April I had 3 weeks to prepare for my next big race on 22nd May, the British Middle Distance Triathlon Championships at Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire, held by NiceTri Events. This was another race which I’d been looking forward to for a while and having raced the event last year (when it was the Triathlon England National Champs) I knew it was a good and fast event. This year they’d changed the bike course to a single lap with 4 ‘out and back’ sections in an effort to reduce congestion on the course which was a good choice given the ~1000 competitors due to take to the start line this year!

Race morning came around and a 3.30am alarm soon sounded for me to get up and make a nice big bowl of porridge. I quickly ate this and had a quick check of my kit before packing it into the car along with a sleepy Emily and set off on the ~2hr drive to Grafham. On arrival at Grafham we parked up and got registered to avoid the crowds that would likely appear soon. I then set up my transition and got everything sorted and with about 90mins till race start I had a High5 Berry EnergyBar as I always like to have something solid to eat before racing. We found a bench up near the cafe and sat around for a bit before nipping to the loo and then putting on my Zone3 Vanquish wetsuit up to my waist to head down to the swim start. I was also sipping a 750ml bottle of High5 energy powder that I usually try to finish off before the race as I know this leaves me well fuelled for the start.

As we walked down with plenty of time to spare (or so I thought!) they announced over the tannoy that everyone should be in the start pens now and to hurry down if you weren’t already there. I quickly got my swim hat and goggles out of my bag and left the rest of my kit with Emily before running down to the swim start. As I squeezed into the start pen they were just starting the briefing so I put my wetsuit on fully and got my hat/goggles sorted.

This year they changed the swim start to a rolling start in an attempt to reduce the congestion associated with mass starts, so there was a narrow chute going to under the start banner where there was a timing mat that would record everyone as they stepped into the water. This is good as it does reduce the usual argy-bargy of a mass start but also means that the race is a time trial and you don’t really know who you’re racing as someone that you’re running alongside might have started 20s ahead of you etc. I lined up just behind the front line and soon the horn sounded and we were off.

The swim course is a 2 lap clockwise triangle with an Australian exit halfway through. After the usual first 200m sprint to try to get some clear water I settled down onto someone’s feet and stayed in touch with them for the first lap, in around 10th place. Onto the second lap and with a not so smooth dive (see photos below) the guy whose feet I was on disappeared into the backmarkers that we were lapping and I didn’t see them again (not sure if I beat them out of the water or not!!). 

On the way back to the swim exit everyone seemed to be swimming a bit of a curve as the wind was blowing at 90 degrees to the swim direction, but I made sure I was sighting every 2 strokes to swim a nice straight line back to the shore and minimise the distance covered. It was also at this point that I realised I’d somehow forgotten to have my usual High5 Isogel Extreme ~15mins before the start, a gel which is packed with energy and also a lot of caffeine and I find really gets me focused and ready to race. I’ve never forgotten this before so was a bit annoyed that I had for this fairly important race! Oh well, nothing I could do about it now so I pushed on to get out of the water and just knew that I’d have to have some energy fairly early on in the bike to make up for not having the gel.

I was soon back to the crowds of people cheering everyone out of the swim and ran up into transition with a swim time of 26.53 for the 1900m, a bit down on last years time but that was expected and I still had the 10th fastest swim of the day, not a bad start but there was still a long way to go.

A quick T1 later slipping off my Zone3 Vanquish and slipping on my helmet and Compressport socks I was out onto the bike with the 6th fastest T1, mostly down to how quick the Vanquish is to get off!

The first out and back of the bike course heads up through Grafham village to the village of Ellington before doing a quick loop round the village and heading back towards the reservoir. This contains a short but steep downhill on the way out and the same steep uphill on the way back which is always a good indication of how the legs are going. Result – not too bad and I’d overtaken 2 others already by this stage of the bike. The course then heads south and takes on 3 more out and backs before returning to transition.

After an hour of the bike I was feeling good and looked at my Garmin to find I was averaging >4w/kg by this point. This was a bit higher than I was expecting to do but I was feeling good and had settled into a good rhythm, though I had been cycling on my own for the whole race so far. I headed onto the third out and back which is the new addition to the course to make it a single lap, and this had added quite a few hills to an otherwise flat course so I knew it was going to make my legs hurt!

My nutrition for the bike consisted of a 750ml High5 bottle with 9 scoops of summer fruits energy powder mixed with 5 energy gels (some containing caffeine) and topped up with water. This tastes incredibly sweet and sickly but goes down well and I sip water from my aero bottle to wash it down. I find this the easiest way to get plenty of calories in on the bike without having to deal with gels taped along my top tube. I also have a High5 EnergyBar at about 50km on the bike to have some solid food amongst the otherwise ‘liquid lunch’, and top up my aero bottle with water from the aid stations. I aim to have a mouthful of the energy bottle every 10 mins along with a sip of water as I find this keeps me well fuelled for the race and keeps a constant supply of energy going in.

As we headed onto the hillier section of the course I was caught by 3 others who had been catching me for a while, and they soon zipped off into the distance over the hills. On the return of this out and back my legs had started to fatigue quite a lot and with 25km of the bike still to go I knew I was in for a tough rest of the race. It was also on this return that it became evident the draft busters weren’t really doing their job as there was several packs of 20+ athletes all riding within about 10m of road and no draft busters in site. When I did eventually see a draft buster there was 3 of them within about 5mins of each other and 2 were riding side by side having a chat! Nice to see them spaced out through the field… The photo below was posted by British Triathlon congratulating everyone who raced… seems they support drafting!!

The last out and back came and went with a couple more people catching me but I was still maintaining a decent pace. My power had dipped a fair bit and I was now averaging ~3.9w/kg. I knew I just had to dig in and get back to T2 without losing too much time, but with my quads deciding now was a good time to start cramping this was going to be tough!

A burst of energy to get me up the final big hill left my legs pretty tired and I rolled through the final 5km back to transition trying to spin my legs out and get ready for the half marathon that was waiting for me. As I jumped off my bike at the dismount line I knew straight away that it was going to be a tough run and jogged very gingerly through transition to try to make my legs start moving in a motion that resembled running. Bike racked, helmet off, Compressport run visor on, shoes on, garmin and 3 High5 gels picked up and I was out of transition (with the fastest T2 of the day!). At this point I was 12th overall and 1st M20-24 but with others pretty close behind it was going to be tough holding them off.

The run course is 2 laps of 2 out and back sections, the first to the far end of the dam (pretty flat) and back and then out through Grafham village and back (a bit more hilly with a few inclines), which gives plenty of opportunity for spectators to cheer you on, something which I was going to need lots of to get round this run so thank you to Emily and also Clive who had come down to watch. Your cheers of support were much needed!! I held about 4.15min/km pace for the first out and back and my legs had finally started to work, albeit with my hamstrings also deciding that now was a good time to start cramping.

As I headed back past transition I took on a summer fruits High5 gel and washed it down with a cup of water. I was aiming to have a gel roughly every 25mins to keep my energy levels topped up. It was then onto the slightly more undulating second part of the lap where my legs really started to ache and I was now starting to pay for my efforts on the bike. I kept plodding along and soon hit the turnaround point so would be able to see how quickly those in my AG were catching me on the way back. Barney Palmer, who I raced here last year and also at a few other races, was catching me pretty quickly and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold him off too much longer.

As I came back past transition to head onto the second lap I got a good boost from the encouragement from Emily and Clive and pushed on a bit. At the turn on the far end of the dam Barney was even closer and by this point my legs were starting to shut down, running about 4.35min/km pace. Sure enough, as I was nearing the end of the dam near transition, Barney came past. I thought about picking up the pace to try and stick with him but knew there was still 7km of running to go so painfully let him go.

The rest of the run was pretty uneventful and I was counting down the kilometres that I had left to race. As I hit the final turnaround point there was about 3.5km to go so I tried to pick up the pace again to maintain a half decent overall position in the race. Coming back down the gravel path through the carpark knowing there was ~300m left to run was a good feeling and coming into the finishing chute I picked up my pace and tried to run with half decent form for the photos!! I crossed the line with a final time of 4.31.30 and a run of 1.34.14, 6 minutes slower than last year. Oh dear.

After finishing I went to get my results slip from the timing tent and then went down to the lake to give my legs a bit of an ice bath – the water was 13 degrees after all! I then got all my kit out of transition and got a bite to eat, including a High5 chocolate protein bar and a peanut Bounce Ball, my favourite things to eat after racing!

It was then time for the presentations and it turned out that I’d picked up a silver medal in the M20-24 AG, with Barney taking the gold and with it the British title, well done!

It was then time to jump in the car and head home quickly as I had to get all my kit cleaned and sorted and my bike packed ready to fly to Lisbon with Emily for the European Champs on a very early flight the following morning. This packing finished at about 11.30pm and with a 1.30am alarm to get down to Luton Airport for our flight I jumped into bed asap to get what sleep I could!

Having now had a bit of time to reflect on the race overall I’m pretty pleased with how it went. My run training hasn’t been anywhere near what I was hoping it to be and generally training volume has been down a bit, so to pull out a 4.31.30 middle distance race and pick up another British Triathlon medal in a strong field then I’ve got to be happy, even knowing that if I’d run the same time I had last year I’d have got that top step on the podium that I was aiming for. I think I could have paced the bike a little better which may have helped later on in the race but hindsight is a wonderful thing. All in all a decent performance and 26th overall in a British Championship event is a good result and something to build on.

As mentioned earlier, it was straight off to Lisbon after this race for the European Champs so I hope to have a race report from our time out in Portugal up pretty soon, keep an eye out for it 🙂

Finally thank you to those supporting me that make it that little bit easier to race and train and who have helped me onto the podium at another British Championship. Pedal Potential, Zone3, Compressport, High5, BounceBalls and Nature’s Kiss have all been amazing and your support is invaluable, so thank you very much. Thank you also to Emily for cheering me on at all my races, taking lots and lots of lovely photos and getting up far too early to do so, your support really helps 🙂

That’s all for now, thank you for reading this far and hopefully you enjoyed the read! I’d love to hear from you all how your racing/training is going so please get in touch. I’ll have my European Champs report up soon and it’s likely to be another long read for you all 😛

Happy training / racing 😀

Angus.

A muddy day at Windsor British Duathlon Champs

2 weeks ago (3rd April) was the British Duathlon Championships at Windsor Duathlon, being run by British Triathlon for the first time at this new venue. I was racing in the Standard Distance in the morning which was a 10km run, 4 lap 40km cycle and a 2 lap 5km run to finish, and Emily was racing in the Junior Elite race in the afternoon, a 5km run, 20km cycle and 2.5km run. I’d signed up for this race quite a few months ago as it was British Champs and I thought I’d give it a go! I’ve only ever done super sprint duathlons so this was a bit different to those being about 4x the distance, and as an early season race I was interested to see how the legs were doing.

Emily and I travelled down to Windsor on Saturday afternoon and arrived at our hotel around 3.30pm. The weather had been very sunny the whole way down so we decided to head out for an hour or so on the bikes to stretch the legs. We set off and ~ 20mins later it decided to start raining, so we went back to the hotel to dry off and warm up before getting something to eat. We had a quick look on google and found there was a Pizza Express not too far away, so drove the mile or so there and had a nice dinner of a delicious pizza and pasta (we had half and half each!). Of course we had to have dessert so had a yummy passionfruit tart 😀 It was then back to the hotel to make sure our kit was ready before setting 2 alarms and getting some sleep.

All too soon my alarm was going off and it was time for some breakfast! As we we’re away from home and didn’t have any cooking facilities other than a kettle, this consisted of 2 porridge pots – not ideal but about the best we could do. I then set about taping up my right IT band with some Kinesio tape to hopefully support it and keep my pain free through the race.

A final check that we had all our kit and that everything was ready before setting off on the 15 min drive to Windsor Great Park. On arrival we found a fair sized queue waiting to get into the car park, which turned out to be in a rather muddy part of the park, and the large amount of rain overnight hadn’t helped matters. As we parked up a 4×4 next to us got stuck and had to be towed to a parking space. I’ve never seen anyone being towed into a car park before but hey ho, we were parked up now and getting out of the mud would be a problem to be solved later on, no point worrying about it now!

It was then about a 1000m walk through a similarly muddy field to get to the event area and transition. By the time we got there our shoes, clothes and bikes were already covered in mud and my back wheel had jammed up due to mud getting stuck in the integrated brakes. Excellent. There was a big queue to get the timing chips so I went and set up my transition spot before going back later to pick it up.

On getting to the transition area it became apparent that this was situated on a very muddy part of the park and the volume of foot traffic in and out had already turned it into a bit of a mud bath, and this was before racing had begun! I wasn’t looking forward to running through this in just socks after T1 and back into T2. Oh well,, everyone was in the same position and nothing we could do except just get on with it!

Having racked my bike, cleaned as much mud out of the brakes as I could and made sure I had everything in transition that I needed, I headed back out and went to collect my timing chip. Whilst we were queuing up to get the chip it was announced that due to people having trouble parking and getting into the car park the start was to be delayed by 30 mins, meaning we’d now be set off at 9.33am. This wasn’t too much of an issue but I’m sure it messed with a few people’s pre race nutrition etc, as I know some are very particular!

 

It was then time for the delayed race briefing to take place. I usually half listen to these whilst doing final prep and getting ready to race (having a gel, putting race clothes/shoes on etc), and it wasn’t until right at the end of the briefing that they told us something that definitely made us listen. We were told that at some point between 10.30 and 11am then part of the bike course would be closed to allow none other than the Queen to go to church. They’d put us into a pen and time us in and out again and the difference would be taken off our overall time. Fantastic, just what you need in the middle of a hard race is to be stopped still for ~1min. Your legs fill with lactic acid and your mind begins to wander, and it’s very difficult to get back into race mode after it. I could only hope that I wouldn’t be one of those unlucky enough to be stopped.

A goodbye to Emily later (and leaving her with the rest of my kit, sorry!) I jogged to the start line, about 1km from the transition area and finish line where the briefing was. About right for a nice warm up! We got to the start area and the sprint distance wave was being set off 3 minutes before us, so they assembled on the line and were off. We then all moved forward to the line, ready to go. I positioned myself a couple of rows back as I didn’t want to get caught up with everyone going off too fast. We waited for what seemed like forever (actually about 5 mins) to be told we had 1 min before the race start. So we’d actually be starting about 9.45, even later than the delayed time.

 

‘Bang’. And we were off. It was a nasty uphill start to the race towards the Copper Horse before turning left and the course flattening out slightly before another incline. The first 6km of the run was pretty uneventful, running about 3.50min/km which was about what I was hoping for having not run much at all the last month or so. The tarmac then ended and the course went onto a sand/mud based horse trail through the forests which really sapped the legs. About 2.5km later we emerged from the forest for the terrain to change once again onto mud similar to that in transition in parts. This really did test the legs and as I turned the corner to head towards transition I ran past Emily and muttered something along the lines of ‘I don’t like duathlon!’. For a video see my Instagram post below:

View this post on Instagram

Clip taken by @em_patch15 at the end of the first run at Windsor @brittri duathlon championships a couple of Sunday's ago! I still don't like them, especially when they're that muddy!! @pedalpotential @high5sportsnutrition #duathlon #mud #racing #britishchamps

A post shared by Angus Smith (@smithtri95) on Apr 17, 2016 at 11:53am PDT

Another corner turned and we entered the bog that was transition. I got to my transition spot and reached down to take my shoe off only to grab a big chunk of mud and my hand slip off the back of my shoe. Try again. I eventually got my shoes off, helmet on and ran out of transition carrying my bike to try and avoid too much mud getting stuck in the brake (again!). I was glad to see tarmac and the mount line, so quickly jumped on my bike and got up to speed along the long straight again up to the Copper Horse. I reached down to put my my right foot into my shoe and managed to pull the fabric tab off the back of it… Oops! After fumbling around for a bit getting my feet in I was finally ready to get going 🙂

 

The rest of the bike was pretty uneventful, and luckily I didn’t get stopped by the Queen going to church! The course was incredibly busy with over 1000 sprint + standard distance athletes on a 10km lap, you can do the maths. There were large groups of people cycling all over the road, some of which were very difficult to pass as people would swerve/move out without looking behind. Some were cycling on the left, some on the right, some right in the middle. I think this was because British Triathlon had given some very unclear / mixed up instructions about this, some had been told to cycle on the left when not overtaking and some told to cycle on the right. I’m not sure about those that were cycling in the middle! I was passing plenty of people when I could and it was a rolling course with a few kick ups. It wasn’t the fastest course due to the number of people but again, everyone was in the same boat. Thankfully after I’d done 2 laps numbers started to thin out a bit as the sprint distance athletes headed back to transition. This made it a little bit easier and I picked up my average power over these last 2 laps. It was still much lower than what I’d hoped for but I think a lot of this can be put down to not being able to be going full on for the whole of the bike.

 

A fast last dash down the hill away from the Copper Horse and I was soon at the dismount line, ready to enter the mud bath for the last time during the race. I once again carried my bike through transition as it was bouncing all over the place as the ground was pretty uneven, and at points I was having to walk due the the mud. As I slipped on my shoes I found that I had a lot of mud stuck to the bottom of my socks which made my toes curl over at the front of my shoes. This was going to be a pretty uncomfortable 5km run. Having nearly lost my left shoe running around the outside of transition, I was very glad to see the tarmac of the ‘long mile’, even if my legs weren’t very pleased that I was still trying to make them run.

This run seemed to take forever, and the dead straight out and back nature of the course didn’t help, other than allowing you to see roughly where you were compared to others and who was catching you. After the first lap my quads were screaming at me to stop and I very nearly called it a day, but I thought I may as well carry on and get over the line. I turned the corner at the far end of the lap and could see the finish line 1.25km in the distance and knew that was all that was left. I hobbled along, the finish line very slowly getting closer and soon I was onto the green carpet and over the line.

 

As I came across the line the commentator announced that I was provisionally 3rd M20-24 and that I’d got a bronze medal! I was very pleased with that after a tough race and hoped that they were right. After all, they seemed to be having big problems with the timing system and someone who was stopped by the Queen could also eventually be placed higher than me, but I hoped this wasn’t the case.

A couple of hours later and after cleaning as much mud off bikes and kit as possible,  it was time for the presentations and by then we were fairly sure I had come 3rd in AG. I was called up onto the podium with well deserved AG winner (and 4th overall) James Phillips and Phill Maddocks in the silver medal position. I’d finished 30th overall in a strong field so was very pleased with the end result, picking up my 3rd British Triathlon medal.

It was then Emily’s turn to race, with her start also delayed by about 25 mins due to ‘technical problems’. Luckily all of her race would be on tarmac and the grass that the elite transition was on was much drier and resembled less of a bog than the AG one! The junior girls set off at a sprint and the front group stayed at that pace for much of the first 5km run. Emily, who having only been back in proper training for under 2 months, did very well to hold onto most of the group for the first mile (6.25 min/mile pace) before dropping back slightly. Unfortunately as the first run came to an end Emily didn’t quite make the cut off time, so was stopped as she came into T1. Although this was a shame having come all this way to only be allowed to race 5km, there are plenty of positives to take away from the race, including her fastest 5km of the year on limited training 🙂 Being from a swimming background then it’ll be a much different situation once triathlon season starts and I’m sure Emily will be out of the water with the front pack and much more competitive!

After the highs and lows of the day we packed all our kit away, jumped in the car and just managed to get out of the car park without needing towing. 2.5hrs later and we were back home and definitely ready to wash all the mud off ourselves and the bikes before getting some well earned sleep.

The next day it was my birthday so I’d taken the day off work and didn’t get out of bed until nearly midday, having a deserved lie in 😀

 

Looking back on the race it was a bit of a shambles with regards to organisation on British Triathlon’s half. I know they couldn’t control the weather but it is April and we’re in England, it’s bound to rain. The whole parking problem, dangerously muddy transition (many people fell over in the mud and lost shoes, I’d be surprised if there weren’t any twisted ankles etc), delays to the race start, timing problems, crazy busy bike course and even some marshalls sending the sprint distance athletes the wrong way! It all just made the day that little bit less enjoyable when it could have been so good in such a great location. Cutting down the number of entries or not having a sprint race at all would definitely have helped. After all, it is the standard distance that was the British Champs event so why the need for a sprint race. Oh I forgot, £££.

Oh well, hopefully British Triathlon will take on board the feedback from many of the competitors and next year’s event will be a lot better and run a bit smoother.

 

Next up for me is a week of training before heading out to Aix En Provence on the 25th April for my first 70.3 and first big race of the season which I’m very much looking forward to. Fingers crossed I can sort my ITB out asap and get some good running in over the next couple of weeks.

A final thank you to everyone who supports me in racing and training. To my very kind sponsors who help me in many ways, Pedal Potential, Zone3, High5, Profile Protein, Bounce Energy Balls, Nature’s Kiss, Compressport, thank you all. But also a big thank you to all of you on Twitter & Facebook who wish me luck before events and for the congratulations after races, I’m very grateful for all of the support. Hopefully I can continue to get good results over the next few months and keep writing interesting blogs to keep you occupied!

 

On that note this blog has gone on for a very long time and I’d imagine you’ve run out of tea/coffee long ago, so I’ll wrap this one up 😛

Thank you for reading this essay and happy training/racing! I’d love to hear what you’re all up to over the next few months, please get in touch on Twitter 😀

 

Beaver Middle Distance – What a day!

As promised in my last update just over a week ago, here is my race report from the Beaver Middle triathlon – my first attempt at this distance – which took place on Saturday 16th May.

A bright and early 4am alarm sounded marking the start of another race day, and just 4hrs to go till the starting horn would sound. I woke up and straight away the nerves hit, just as they usually do on race morning. These nerves were slightly different though, and were mixed with anticipation to find out what the day had in store, given that it was my first middle distance triathlon and ~4hrs of racing is something that I had never done before! A big bowl full of porridge later, I finished packing my kit and stuffed it all in the car ready to leave.

We arrived at Belvoir Castle at about 6.45 (only about 40mins from Loughborough!) and having registered I set up my transition spot – I’d been given race number 1 as I was the youngest competitor in the race 🙂

It was then time to don my Zone3 Vanquish wetsuit – my first race in this suit – and head down to the lake ready to start the race. With a few mins to go we all got in the water and I did some sprints to warm my arms up and practiced a few deepwater starts to get my mind focused. ~220 of us were then squished onto a start line about 25m wide and the horn went. Cue madness. Fists, legs, arms, heads, bodies everywhere with nowhere to go but over people!

After the first 200m or so I managed to get into some clear water so could settle down into more of a rhythm following the manic start. I could see 3 athletes up ahead with about a 25m gap at the front of the field, and I thought they’d stretch out that lead over the remaining 1700m. However on completing the first lap of the swim they had about the same gap on me, so had been swimming at a similar pace. On coming onto the second lap we began to catch the slower athletes of the second wave which set off 10 minutes after us, which made it interesting trying to dodge around them all, and I lost a bit of time having to swim around large groups. On exiting the water I found myself still in 4th place with about a 23.30 1900m split.

A 400m run up a deceivingly leg-tiring hill took me to T1, where I entered in 2nd place as I’d overtaken a couple of those who came out of the swim ahead of me on the run. Wetsuit down, socks on, helmet on and I was out onto the bike, about 40s behind Tom ‘the fish’ McGlashan.

I closed this gap down in the first couple of km’s and went into the race lead. The bike course was 3 laps, going up the infamous ‘Harby Hill’ 3 times, definitely a good test for the legs and with a fair wind blowing it was a tough bike. Before the race I was aiming to average about 37km/h on the bike, which would give me a split of around 2 hours – about the fastest bike split from last year. After the first lap I was averaging 37.3, after the second I was at 37.1 and when I came around on the 3rd and final lap I had averaged bang on 37! Job done, and I had extended my lead at the head of the race to around 4 minutes over the two Tom’s of Tom Vickery and Tom McGlashan.

I returned to transition to find it a bit deserted:

A quick change of footwear into my Saucony Fastwitch running shoes and onto the 4 lap, out and back 21km run I went. The course was up and down a fairly nasty hill, which sapped the energy from the legs with every stride. The nature of the course meant I could see who was chasing me down, and they were coming quickly! A couple of weeks prior to the race I had started to develop some IT Band issues in my right leg, and as a result I hadn’t run at all for 15 days, so I was going onto the run not knowing how my legs would fare and just hoping I was able to finish. This meant I wasn’t able to run quite as quick as I would have liked to, and those who were behind me were catching me up fast. I managed to hold onto the lead until about 14km through the run when Tom Vickery overtook me to take the lead which he would take to the finish tape. Onto the final lap of the run I was still in 2nd place and was dreaming of a podium finish in my first longer distance race!

It all went wrong from here on in and the final time up the hill I was getting horrible cramps in my legs and had to stop and walk a couple of times to ease the pain. In the final 2.5km I lost 2nd and 3rd place to Alain Friedrich and last years winner Chris Nicholls, and stumbled over the finish line in 4th place and 1st M20-24. Safe to say I was shattered:

Reflecting back on the race I had a really good day out all in all. To lead my first longer distance race for over 85kms and finish just over 3mins off the winner was great, I was just a bit gutted to lose out on an overall podium position having lead the race for so long. I had however beaten my overall race target time of 4 hours, and was pleased to be able to run a 86 minute half marathon off the bike having not run for a few weeks. I was also amazed with my swim split, my new Zone3 Vanquish suit really did the business and I hope to be coming out of the water as high up in the field at the rest of my races this year with its help!

My final splits for the race were as follows:

Swim + 400m run to T1 – 25mins 52secs (2nd fastest)

T1 – 1min 1sec (fastest!)

Bike – 2hrs 1min 35secs (2nd fastest)

T2 – 1min 7secs

Run – 1hr 25mins 58secs

Overall time – 3hrs 55mins 33secs – 4th overall, 1st M20-24

A final thanks to all those who are supporting me in my triathlon career. Pedal potential for helping fund my racing, Zone3 for providing the amazing Vanquish wetsuit to give me such a great swim split, Beat The Bonk + BounceFoods for providing the nutrition that keeps me racing and training hard, Profile Protein for the incredible tasting recovery products keeping me ready for the next day of torture in training, Natures Kiss for helping with the recovery process providing me with amazing recovery cream and nice relaxing massage cream and Saucony for providing me with great running shoes to keep me running fast! Without all of these companies help I wouldn’t be able to race and train as I do, so thanks a lot.

So, I’m still not sure what’s next for me, I need to try and get rid of this IT Band pain asap before deciding my next race. I’m now building into the main part of my season, and if it clears up fairly soon I’ll likely be racing at the British Middle Distance Champs at Bala on the 7th June. If not then the Deva Standard in Chester will be my next race on the 14th June – English Standard Champs!

Until my next post, happy racing and training! 😀

Ps. I’d love to get some feedback on my blog posts + overall layout of the website, please tweet/DM me if you have anything to say 🙂 Thanks.