May Update – let the racing begin!

Around the time consuming processes of finishing my dissertation and revising for final exams I managed to fit in a couple of races in May and was glad to finally be on the start line after a long few months!

The first of these was at the DeltaSimons Lincoln Aquathlon series first round on 16th May – an 800m open water swim + 3km run around the lake. I came out of the water in 3rd place, swimming ~30s faster than I have done there previously, and took the lead nearing the end of the first of three run laps, holding this to the end of the race! Thank you to DeltaSimons for supporting Emily and I for this race series 🙂

Next up was Southport standard distance triathlon on 20th May. Although maybe not in the best shape after some very disjointed training around uni work, I was excited to race and see what sort of condition I’m in leading up to bigger races over the coming months.

I had a reasonable start with the usual fighting for position etc. but turning at the first buoy when I was comfortably in the front group of 8 or so people with a couple just off the front I got dunked by one person and pulled back by the ankle by another… helpful! This shoved me right out of the back of the lead group and it took me another 500m or so to get back into it – not ideal but hey ho, some people seem to like interfering with other peoples races, I never will understand that. I eventually came out of the water in 19.01, 7th in the wave and 9th fastest time overall.

Onto the bike and I overtook a few of the others in the first km before pressing on and about 5km into the cycle I was in the lead with a couple of others hanging on (a little too close behind…). I stayed fighting for the lead for the rest of the bike until with about 8km to go another rider pressed on and I couldn’t stay with them. Into T2 and I was in 2nd overall (59.22 bike, 6th fastest overall), lets see what the legs have in them for the run!

It was a painful start to the 10km run, my legs have definitely what it feels like to run off the bike over winter! I settled into a comfortable enough pace and was overtaken by a few others but wasn’t falling too far back. I knew the run would let me down a bit as this has been lacking over winter due to some minor injuries etc. I finished the run in 39.00 (31st fastest… oh dear) with an overall time of 2.00.27, 6th overall and 1st M20-24. A reasonable time and placing but I know I could have gone a lot faster had my running been up to scratch – things to work on!

Since that training has been even more sporadic with revision for final exams so we’ll have to see how the next few races go. I have a uni exam this afternoon, race Deva triathlon on Sunday before my final 2 uni exams ever next week, Leeds on Sunday 10th June and my dissertation Viva on 12th June – I can’t wait to finally be finished after many years of education!!!

That’s all for this blog – hopefully I’ll have more to write about in a couple of weeks post Deva and Leeds 🙂 Thanks for reading 🙂

A quick February update

So, it’s nearly March, 5 months since I last posted on here and I thought it was time for a quick update as to what’s been going on over the last few months and plans for this year. Following on from my last blog which was about the World Champs in Rotterdam, both Emily and I raced at the National standard distance duathlon champs (Oulton Park, October), both picking up a bronze medals with pretty much 0 training post worlds, and then raced the DBMax Chilly Duathlon in November at Castle Combe Circuit, where I placed 19^th overall.

Following on from those 2 races we had an extended end of season break which, other than a few swims, lasted until mid-January. Being in the final year of 5 years at uni, work pretty much took over leaving not much spare time, so training took the hit. We’ve now gradually started getting back into training, mainly swimming currently as we’ve joined Nottingham Leander Masters Swim Club which is really helping push us and make us remember what training is again, with 11,000m swam last week and more on the cards for this week. We’re still doing bits and bobs with running and cycling, especially with the recent weather not making it easy, but as we’ve got a relatively late start to this season’s races hopefully this won’t affect us too much.

The main bit of news from the last few months, as I’m sure many of you will have seen from our social media, is the creation of Team Emgus. Emily and I have decided to promote ourselves as a couple rather than individual athletes, as we believe it is unique and will help our progression in the triathlon world. We have setup our social media accounts (links below) and will shortly be announcing our new website where we will share our journey together. Please follow the accounts below for updates and giveaways over the coming weeks! We’ve got some great sponsors on board and we’re very grateful to them for their kind support!

Twitter: @teamemgus

Instagram: @teamemgus

Facebook: www.facebook.com/teamemgus

For this year, our main big race is the European Sprint Champs in Glasgow in August. Around that we’ll be racing at several British/National Champs events and also looking to qualify for the GB AG Team again for 2019!

So, that’s about it for this blog. Sorry it wasn’t the usual essay (or maybe that’s a good thing 😉 ) but with the race season getting underway and more training coming up I’ll have a bit more to talk about in the next month, so keep an eye out for my next blogs 🙂

Thanks for reading, Angus.

August update – the build up to worlds

Well this month has gone pretty quickly! It’s been a quiet month for us racing wise with no triathlons or anything, just a couple of single sport races to check how we’re getting on amongst lots of training, DIY on our house and other things 🙂

First of these was the Alford Wheelers 10 mile TT on 10th August. It was a sunny night with little wind so should have been fast conditions – Myself, Emily, Rob and Tory (Emily’s brother and sister) all went along to have a go and see what times we could do. Rob and Tory set great time’s of 32.34 and 36.16 in their first TT’s, definitely some potential there as they’re only 12 and 14! Emily did a good ride to set a time of 28.18, a 42s PB and on tired legs from a hard run the day before and a 1.5hr cycle that morning. From the first mile I knew it was going to be tough to beat my time from a few weeks ago (22.21), even though the conditions were faster tonight. My legs were suffering a bit from the run session and my power was down on what it should be. I kept pushing as much as my legs had in them and crossed the line in 22.30, a pretty disappointing 9s slower than last time. I had been hoping to go under 22 minutes but unfortunately my legs just weren’t up to it on the night! Hopefully next time we go there I can make amends 😀

The second ‘race’ of the month was our local Park run on Saturday 26th August. It was our first Park run so we weren’t sure what to expect but turned up with our barcodes to find a lot of people getting ready to start. We did a little warmup before lining up just behind those on the front line. In hind sight we should have been on the front line as as soon as we started I was held up and dodging around people for the first km or so – now I know for next time! After about 1km I managed to take the lead of the race, pulling away from everyone that I could see. I lead for the rest of the race until about 4.2km when a guy that had be slowly catching me for the last km came along side me on a small uphill section and then pulled away on the downhill that followed to take the win by 10s with me coming in 2nd. I was a bit slower than I’d hoped to be with 18.02 my official time, but we haven’t done much longer tempo running just yet so the speed should come in time for worlds. Emily had a mixed race, with a fair bit of unexpected pushing & shoving, but still set a great time of 21.45.

We’ve also been swimming fairly well recently – I set an unexpected new 100m free PB in the middle of a 3600m VO2 max set last week and we’ve both been setting some good times in the threshold sessions that we’ve been doing. All in all training is going fairly well and with just over 2 weeks until worlds we are in a good place currently. Just need to focus for these next 2 weeks to get to the start line in the best shape possible 🙂

So that’s about it for this blog – much shorter than usual but there’s only so much to say about a month of training! My next blog will be a lot more interesting with hopefully a good race report from the World Champs in Rotterdam 🙂

A final thank you to all of our lovely sponsors for keeping us fit & healthy, well recovered and well dressed when training over the last month and for all of this season, we really do appreciate your support and hope to do your support justice at Worlds 🙂

That’s all for now – happy training / racing 😀

Angus.

 

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 😀

 

ETU Middle Champs Report & March Update

My last blog post back in January finished by mentioning my race at the European Championships in Austria, many many moons ago in September. I was going to write a full race report from this but it was a long time ago, so decided to write a relatively short piece (by my standards!) on it and include it in this blog, along with an update on my winter training and a bit about the races I’m going to be doing for the first few months of this season! So…

The final race of my season was the European Middle Distance Triathlon Championships in Walchsee, Austria. Walchsee is an amazing place to be and the scenery there is beautiful, although I wouldn’t be taking much of it in whilst racing hard! The race was on Sunday 4th September and Emily and I headed out to Walchsee a week before to get used to the area and get some training in out there before the race. Here are a selection of photos from this week:

Race morning soon came around and it was a foggy morning, but about an hour before the race began the sun came out and it was baking hot, not something I usually deal with very well – I’m far too used to English weather!

The race began as a rolling start with waves of 8 athletes let into the water every 5 seconds, which reduces the chaos associated with a mass start when hundreds of athletes all start at once. I had a pretty good swim in 26 minutes, and got through transition and onto my bike without any issues. The bike was a pretty hilly 2 lap course and I felt pretty good after the first 30 mins so pushed on a bit.

I probably should have held myself back as onto the second 45km lap my legs were feeling it a bit. There was a long climb in the last 15km of each lap and the second time onto this my legs were definitely shouting at me and weren’t feeling like carrying on, but I managed to keep going and got back into transition with a bike time of 2hrs 24mins. Just the run to go!

Onto the 4 lap run around the lake and the sun was now out in full force as it was about midday. I was suffering in the heat and my legs were not feeling good at all, but I just had to plod around and get finished – I wasn’t having another DNF after 70.3 Aix En Provence in May. I chucked cold water over myself at every aid station and was making sure I was drinking plenty of it too to avoid dehydration and finally managed to get to the finish line with a run time of 1hr 44mins – my slowest middle distance run to date. My overall time was 4hrs 39mins, a lot slower than I was hoping for but I think the heat really got to me. I finished 16th in the M20-24 age group and had some good sunburn – that’ll teach me to forget the sun cream! 

After the race Emily and I stayed in Walchsee for another week to have some R&R time after a busy season and before we had to head back to uni in October. We spent the week swimming in the lake, walking in the local hills and doing some sunbathing!

When we got back to England and the next few weeks we decided to have a break from training. This eventually turned into ~3.5months of no training as DIY on our house and Uni took over any time that we had – we had a kitchen to fit and a lot of other work to do!! In other news (and as I’m sure many of you know!), Emily and I got engaged on 19th October at Holme Pierrepont – how exciting :D:D:D

We started training again in December with a few short runs and swims, and cycling started again in January. It was a slow start to all 3 sports and we wanted to build up gradually to avoid injury problems that have plagued us both for the past few seasons. Coming into February and we were building up the training to ~6/7hrs a week – a lot less than most people would be doing but we didn’t want to overdo it having had such a long break.

Up to the current time and we’ve built up to some 13/14hr weeks in the last month and training has been going fairly well. We both had our first race of the season yesterday (18th March) at Clumber Park Duathlon where I did the standard distance race – I hope to have my race report up from that within a couple of weeks – I have a lot of uni coursework on at the moment!!

My plans for this season are a mix of sprint, standard and middle distance racing. My first tri of the season will probably be at Southwell Sprint at the end of April before a busy May & June of racing with Strathclyde Park Sprint (British Champs), Deva Standard (2017 Worlds Qualifier) and Cholmondeley Castle Series races among quite a few others! I’ll also be racing at Castle Howard at the end of July but I haven’t quite finalised the second half of the season yet. I’m also doing a bit of road and circuit cycle racing this year to see how that goes, I can’t wait to give it a try and see what happens!

I’m also very excited to announce that Raceskin are sponsoring me for this season – I will be racing in their trisuits which look amazing (Of course Emily and I had to be matching!):

I hope to see some of you on the start line at some races soon – please do come and have a chat if you see me 🙂 As mentioned, I’ll hopefully have my race report up on here about Clumber Duathlon pretty soon so keep an eye out.

Thank you for reading 😀

Angus.

Happy New Year! May-Aug 2016 roundup

Happy new year everyone! I hope everyone had a great christmas and new year and is looking forward to the 2017 season as much as I am!

I haven’t posted on here for a long time and my last 5 posts were race reports from Deva, Lisbon, Grafman, Aix En Provence and Windsor, so I thought I’d do this blog post as a bit of a roundup of everything that I got up to last year from the start of May up until the end of August, with plenty of races and other stuff going on. I’ll then post again soon about the rest of 2016 to bring the blog up to date and then crack on with the usual monthly posts 🙂

May

Having had a great week in the south of France which ended in a disappointing race day getting a puncture during the race (see full race report here – https://angussmithtriathlon.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/70-3-aix-en-provence/), I had three weeks before I was racing again at the British Middle Distance Champs at Grafham Water. During this period I managed to get a bit of training done, although I was still having problems with my ITBs playing up, so running was a bit low on volume.

On the 15th May I headed down to Milton Keynes with Emily to support her at the British Sprint Championships where she had a great race with a course PB, see Emily’s full report here – http://emilypatchtri.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/2016-season-in-full-swing.

I also raced at the first round of the DeltaSimons Lincoln Aquathon series at Activities Away on the 18th May where I came out of the water after the 800m swim in 5th place and then ran through those in front of me over the 3km run to take the win and the series lead – not a bad result in a very short race compared to what I’m used to!

The weekend came around and it was then time for British Middle Champs (see race report here – https://angussmithtriathlon.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/british-middle-champs/) where I had a mixed race off the back of fairly limited training and managed to take the silver medal in the M20-24 AG so I couldn’t be too unhappy! A rather rushed afternoon of packing my bike away, sorting kit out and not getting very much sleep that night and it was off to Lisbon for the European Champs. I had an okay race in Lisbon, coming 5th M20-24 but I was left a bit dissappointed and wondering what could have happened if I had put a bit more training in (see full report here – https://angussmithtriathlon.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/etu-lisbon/).

June

Into June and I was back to work on the Tuesday having got back from Lisbon the day before. I then had just under two weeks before I raced at Deva Standard and knew that I would need to get some good training in to be competitive there. I had a few good sessions in the pool and on the bike but my running was still a bit limited as although I needed to train, I didn’t want to cause my ITB to flare up too much pre race day. I picked up some flu in the week before the race so didn’t do much at all that week so going into race day I wasn’t sure how my body would react. As it happened the race went pretty well and I finished 2nd overall, picking up some prize money and some High5 goodies for my efforts! My full race report is here – https://angussmithtriathlon.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/deva-2016/.

After Deva I had another two weeks until I was racing again at Woodhall Spa Sprint Triathlon, one that I hadn’t done before but it was local to Emily’s and one she’d done the last two years so I thought I may as well give it a go! Unfortunately my right ITB was very sore post Deva, so I had to miss the second round of the Lincoln Aquathon Series on the 15th, annoying as I was currently leading the series after the first round in May. This also meant I couldn’t run at all during this two week period and I’d have to go into the race not really knowing what my legs would be like – lucky it was a shorter run than I’m used to now!

The race itself was okay, I was in the last wave of 6 swimmers in the outdoor pool and although I came out of the water last, I overtook a few people through transition and was soon out onto the bike where I overtook a few more within the first few kms. My legs weren’t feeling great on the bike and I’d have liked to take a few more places.

Heading onto the run I was pretty tired and my ITB was pinging in the first few steps – only 4990m to go! I pushed round the single lap run course but was being overtaken by people I’d usually beat which was annoying. Coming into the finish I was pretty sore and I sat down as soon as I was over the line, with Emily coming to greet me having finished a few minutes before me.

In the end I finished 7th overall and 1st M20-24 and Emily was also 1st FU20 so we got some nice trophies and prizes to take home! Emily’s race report is here along with her reports from 2 races at Leeds (same weekend I was at Deva) and also with her report from Lidl Bananaman which was in July – http://emilypatchtri.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/summer-update.

July

After Woodhall Spa Sprint I had 7 weeks until my next race on 14th August at British Standard Distance Champs in Liverpool. At the start of the year I’d planned to have this as a good training block leading into my final few races of the season, but as Emily and I got the keys to our new house on 5th July (Yippeeeee!!!), training took a bit of a back seat! Emily raced at the Junior Elite Lidl Bananaman Sprint on 9th July as mentioned earlier and had a great race even with a lack of training with the house move!

The third round of the Lincoln Aquathon Series was on 13th July but unfortunately I finished work a little bit late and with a bit of traffic on the way we got to Lincoln just as the race was about to start so we both had to miss that round too, with hopes of placing highly in the series now over. Annoying as this was one of our aims for the season, but some things are just out of our control!

The next few weeks consisted of little training and lots of DIY/destruction on the house. We’re getting pretty good at stripping wallpaper now and have lots still to do! With Liverpool looming just into August we both knew we needed to get some training done so made sure that the sessions we were doing were good quality and not wasting time. With Holme Pierrepont (race venue for Outlaw, Nottingham Sprint, Big Swims etc) very close by we can easily cycle over there in about 20mins and then get a good session in on closed roads, even with a fair few pedestrians and geese around! This is ideal as we can both go at our own speeds and do what we want to do.

August

August came around a bit too soon for our liking and we started to do a few more training sessions to try and salvage some sort of fitness for Liverpool on the 14th. We both raced at the 4th round of the Deltasimons Lincoln Aquathon Series on the 3rd August and both finished in 3rd place, getting some more wedges to put on the mantelpiece and some goodies from the race sponsors. These aquathons are great fun and are a good event to keep you sharp for racing and if nothing else are a good training session! Hopefully Emily and I can do the full series in 2017 to challenge for the series titles once again.

It was then just 11 days until Liverpool and the weekend of the 13th/14th came around quickly. We had to travel across to Liverpool on the Saturday to register and rack our bikes so we had booked into a hotel nearby for the night. We headed out to Pizza Hut to get some carbs on board before heading back for some sleep 🙂

An early alarm was quickly followed by some porridge pots for breakfast before we made our High5 drinks up, packed our bags and set off to the Echo Arena to sort our transitions out and prepare for racing. I was off first at 8.30am and Emily’s wave was off at 9.20am. This was to be Emily’s first standard distance race and it was British Champs – no pressure! Having prepared transition, we headed down to the swim start to get our Zone3 Vanquish wetsuits on, have our pre-race High5 Isogel X’treme’s and I was soon into the salty water ready to go.

We were kept in the water for a fair few mins but were told we couldn’t swim away from the pontoon to warm up – not quite sure why this was but oh well. The horn eventually sounded and the washing machine was going at full speed as everyone sprinted for the first 50/100m. I found some feet to sit on and the rest of the swim went by fairly uneventfully aside from spearing a jellyfish with my fingers which was a bit of a surprise! I came out of the water in 20.41, 30s or so slower than last year but that was expected with the lack of training!

Through the long transition and I gained a few places, including on the mount line! I was looking forward to the bike section of this race and knew I was going to have to give everything my legs had in them to stay in the race. I quickly passed a few others in my AG and was up into 2nd place behind Matty Davison who was about 200m up the road. This stayed pretty much the same for the whole of the bike, and although my power numbers weren’t quite where I’d hoped they would be I was keeping a good average speed. Coming off the bike I was 2nd in the M20-24 AG but 3rd and 4th were seconds behind. I did the bike in 59.15, equalling my fastest 40km in a triathlon. I was pretty happy with this considering the complete lack of training.

Onto the run and I was now 3rd M20-24 and was quickly passed by James Phillips so was now into 4th. The rest of the run was pretty dismal and I had a stitch for the first lap which wasn’t ideal. I picked it up a bit on the second lap but I just had nothing and was getting passed by a fair few people from all AG’s. Oh well, I just wanted to finish now and then I could go and support Emily 🙂

I finally finished with a 40min+ run and my slowest standard distance race to date (2.05.23)… oops. When the results were posted I found I was 8th in the M20-24 AG – still top 10 so not a complete failure but close to it! I went through the post race area, chatted to a few people and then went outside to find Clive (who had very kindly come up to Liverpool to support us – thank you very much!) and then headed down to the bike course to see Emily come back into transition after the 40km bike.

We then nipped over to the run course and cheered her on for the rest of her race before she ran up the finishing chute to become British U20 Standard Distance AG Champion in her first race at the distance – an amazing result and in a great time too 😀 After Emily had recovered and come through the post race area there were plenty of sweaty hugs and congratulations before we went to transition to get all of our kit and packed it away into the car. We then had to wait around for a bit for the presentations and I was very proud of Emily going up onto the top step of the podium to get her gold medal! Yippee 😀

By this point I had pretty much forgotten about my rubbish race and was very pleased for Emily – it made the weekend and the trip up to Liverpool worth it! We jumped in the car and went straight to Tesco to get some food for the journey home – strawberries, raspberries, cheesy bread, chocolate and more – we had a feast!

Following on from the successful weekend we had a couple of weeks before we were racing at national club relays at Holme Pierrepont in Nottingham. We had a team of Emily, myself, Sam Mileham and Whitney Larkin named ‘Team Zone3 plus Whitney’ – three of us are sponsored by Zone3 and it sounded like a fun name, although on the day we realised Whitney also raced in a Zone3 suit 😛

This was a very fun day out (but very wet) and we came away with the 3rd fastest time on Saturday afternoon and 2nd overall in the Open Mixed category – the team that beat us had 1 girl and 3 guys and were only a couple of mins ahead. We all had lots of fun and hopefully we can race it again next year 🙂

That nearly brings us up to date – the day after club relays at Nottingham Emily and I flew to Walchsee in Austria for the European Middle Distance Champs on 4th September, but that will all be included in my next blog post which will be a race report from that – I hope to have that up soon!! Here’s a sneak peak:

A final thank you must go to all of my sponsors – Pedal Potential, Zone3, High5, Bounce Foods, OORR, Function Jigsaw and Nature’s Kiss, your support has been very much appreciated and I wouldn’t have been able to do half of the races I did last year without their kind support. I hope to have a better 2017 season with some better results to repay your kind support 🙂

That’s all for now and I’m sorry for the long post – how many cups of tea did that one take to get through!? Keep an eye out for my next post soon about the European Champs in Austria last September.

Until next time, happy training 😀

Deva Standard Distance Triathlon 2016

As mentioned at the end of my last blog about the ETU Champs in Lisbon (http://wp.me/p44X24-ew), my next race was 2 weeks later at the Deva standard distance triathlon in Chester on the 12th June. This is a race that I’ve previously done in 2014 as my first ever standard distance race and also in 2015 where it was National Champs, and I returned again this year – mainly because it’s such a well run event and one that I very much enjoy! 

The two weeks between Lisbon and Deva were a bit stuttered with training (as the whole year so far has been) and the week before I had some flu like symptoms on the Monday which led to a couple of days off work and no training at all that week. Luckily come the weekend I was feeling a bit better and although not in the best shape, thought I may as well turn up and see how I could get on. To save a bit of money and hassle with staying in a hotel the night before I decided to drive from Loughborough to Chester early on the Sunday morning and register on the day. This meant a nice early 2.30am alarm but I’m getting used to these now so getting up wasn’t too much of a problem! As soon as I had munched down a big bowl of porridge and checked my race kit one final time I packed up the car and set off on the ~2hr journey.

An uneventful 2 hours later I arrived in Chester, got my bike and kit out of the car, gave the bike a quick check over to make sure everything was running as smooth as possible and walked to registration. The forecast for the day had suggested it was going to be cloudy all day but that it wouldn’t start raining until about 11am, by which time I should be finished and packed everything back into the car again. However, as I arrived at registration I was sure I felt a drop or two of rain and by the time I came back out of the church that registration was in this had turned into a fair bit of drizzle. I don’t particularly mind racing in the rain, it just makes setting everything up beforehand very damp and miserable! 

Oh well, the show must go on, so I headed to transition and racked all my kit quickly. I didn’t bother putting any talc powder into my bike + run shoes as from previous experience this just turns into a mush anyway, so would just have to hope the blisters stayed away. I then went down to the start area to relax for a bit as I still had about 80 mins before I was due to start. There was also a middle distance race on the same day, and these athletes were off in the first and second waves, at 7am and 7.20am respectively. The first standard distance start was the third wave which I was in at 8am. 

After I’d watched the first middle distance wave go off and had my usual High5 EnergyBar about an hour before the start, I went back up to transition to get my trisuit and wetsuit on. I then dropped my bag off under a gazebo and headed down to the start, having a High5 IsoGel X’Treme on the way as it was about 15 mins until the start. I then put my Zone3 Vanquish wetsuit on over my shoulders and zipped it up and went to listen to the race briefing before jumping into the River Dee ready to start. 

I did a few quick sprints to get my arms warmed up and lined up at the front. We were given a few 60s, 30s, 10s etc time warnings before the horn sounded at 8am and we were off! I sprinted the first 50m as usual and apart from a few grabs at my heels there wasn’t too much of the usual washing machine effect going on. One chap the the right of me had shot off and already had a gap on the rest of us and I settled into 2nd in the ‘chase pack’. After ~200m I decided we weren’t going as fast as I wanted to be going so pulled out to the left of the front group (which had 3 of us in it by now) and dug deep for a couple of minutes, managing to gap the other two and get into clear water. I stayed on my own for the rest of the swim, pushing hard to extend the gap I’d opened over the others and to limit time losses to the leader, who was now well ahead. Coming out of the water I lifted my goggles onto my forehead before starting on the run up the hill and steps into transition. Whilst on the run I unzipped my wetsuit, slipped it off my shoulders and arms and pulled it down to my waist ready to take off in transition.

A quick 42s transition later (fastest of the day!) and I was onto the bike. The start of the bike course is quite windy around the streets in Chester and I faffed around with getting my feet into my bike shoes for far too long, losing a fair bit of time – I should have just waited until after I got out of the windy section to get them in. Oh well, having finally got my shoes on and tightened up I set about chasing down the athlete who had beaten me out of the swim. The middle distance race was around the same bike loop and after about 10km I began to catch some of the back markers from the second wave of that race. At about 13km I spotted the standard distance race leader just up the road and caught him within the next km. I then dug in and pushed on quite hard to try and get as much of a lead over him and anyone else as possible come the run, as I knew this was going to let me down a bit today. The rest of the bike course was spent overtaking quite a few of the middle distance athletes and I came back into transition without any issues. I later found that I had the fastest bike split of the day which I was pretty pleased with, especially as I didn’t put out anywhere near the power I’d have liked to and my legs didn’t feel terribly good for any of the 40km! 

Another speedy 41s transition later (also fastest of the day) and I was onto the 3 lap 10km run to finish the race. I really like the run course here as it’s very spectator friendly and is fairly flat with just a couple of small climbs. I was the first athlete out onto the run course and surprised a few of the marshalls, with others saying it was nice to finally see someone! The marshalls at this race are all amazing, with every one of them cheering you on and making the event that little bit more enjoyable. On one section of the first lap I saw the second place athlete was about 1km behind me, which was reassuring but I knew I’d have to run as fast as my legs would let me to try and keep the lead. After some very inconsistent run training since about March my running has been going downhill so I knew I wasn’t going to post a very fast time but wanted to do all I could to keep the lead until the finish. 

The rest of the run went by without too many issues and it was nice to have some company on the run on the second and third laps giving me a few people to try and chase down. Coming across the bridge the final time I knew I just had to turn right at the end and then it was pretty much straight to the finish line. It was a great feeling leading a race again and a great experience with everyone cheering as I was the first person across the line! I did a half hearted jump as I finished which led to the two photos below – one very camp pose and one nearly falling over as my legs cramped up on landing – but all good fun!

It stayed around the finish area to congratulate the next few finishers and then had a lovely massage by the kind volunteers, thank you very much! I then waited around to see whether anyone in the second standard distance wave (20mins after mine) would beat my time – and unfortunately one person did, moving me down to 2nd place. Damn it! On speaking to the winner afterwards it turned out he used to be a track runner and has run a sub 30min 10km in the past which that made me feel slightly better about coming 2nd to him, especially as all the time he beat me by was taken out on the run. 

After packing up my kit in transition and getting changed it was time for the presentations for both the middle distance race and the standard distance. In coming 2nd overall I also won the M20-24 AG so had 2 trips up to the bandstand to make to pick up some great High5 goodies, a great trophy for 2nd overall and most importantly a £150 cheque for 2nd place – my first prize money from a race! Very exciting 😀 

After the presentations had finished I went back to the car and began the journey home at about 2pm, meaning I should have been home by about 4pm and have some time to sort my kit out that afternoon. However, due to a rather inconsiderate man climbing up onto a gantry over the M1 just south of Loughborough and the subsequent closure of the M1 at the L’boro junction (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/13/traffic-chaos-as-m1-is-closed-for-more-than-28-hours-after-man-s/), my journey home took 6 hours, of which 4 hours was spent within 5 miles of home. I very nearly ditched the car at the side of the road and got my bike out of the car to cycle home as it would have been a lot quicker!! This meant I didn’t get home until about 8pm, by which time I was shattered and my legs weren’t thanking me at all for being sat in a car for 6 hours, so I headed straight for bed after a long and successful, but frustrating, day!

I’m pretty happy with how this race went and was very pleased to pick up my first overall podium at a standard distance race! It was great to get my first prize money which is pretty cool – guess I’m a pro now? 😉 I had the 4th fastest swim overall, fastest T1, fastest bike, fastest T2 and 10th fastest run, not bad considering how inconsistent my training has been so far this year! It was also great experience to cross the line first (even if I didn’t win in the end!) and I enjoyed pretty much every minute of the race. I loved racing at Deva once again and credit must go to Chester Tri for putting on another fantastic event – I’ll be back for sure next year if it fits in with uni etc 🙂 

A final thank you to my sponsors Pedal Potential, High5, Zone3, Bounce Foods, Compressport and Nature’s Kiss for all the help and support you give me 🙂 Thank you to Chester Tri for another great race and also to all the marshals and supporters who made it such a great atmosphere to race in.

You may have noticed a lack of mentioning Emily in this race report, who is usually at all my races with me – that’s because she was over at WTS Leeds having a double race weekend! This comprised of the Junior Elite British Aquathlon Champs on the Saturday and the open sprint distance triathlon on the Sunday. Emily did really well in both of these events, especially coming 11th overall in the sprint race – I wish I could have been there to support her and am very proud of how she got on in both of the races 🙂 

Next race for us both was at Woodhall Spa Sprint Triathlon on the 26th June, and I hope to have a report from that up very soon after I’ve posted this one so keep an eye out for that 🙂 

Thank you all for reading my reports and for the support and congratulations you give me on social media, I really appreciate it all 🙂 

Happy training 😀

Angus.