Probably a famous quote once penned by someone somewhere, but a quote that I remember most infamously from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. That's how life seems at the moment, juggling family life with work and training and the odd race here and there, I haven't had the opportunity to update things since my last rescheduled duathlon at Clumber Park and the start of the Triathlon season.
I make no apologies for this delayed blog post, except that it becomes a bumper edition so grab the caffeine, strap yourself in and enjoy. You're in for a bumpy ride.
St Neots Triathlon was an event I targeted last year and punctured a few mile into the bike resulting in my race being over and a long walk back to transition. This year however I wasn't intending on repeating the same fate. I was targeting this race to qualify for the 2019 world championships which were once again to be held back in Europe in Lausanne on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. After a long haul spell away in Gold Coast this year, a young family meant it would have been very difficult to race due to the travelling and timings with school holidays, a European driving break once again seems far more of an appealing prospect at this moment in my life.
To my delight, what was to be a river swim in St Neots was rearranged back to Graffam Water due to previous weather conditions and issues with the transition site. This did not disappoint. I was far more familiar with Graffam Water and was looking forward to the event more and more come race weekend.
Any issues that I had had leading into Clumber duathlon with the niggling injury had completely disappeared and I was running well again, as well as maintaining full beans on the bike and being consistently poor in my swim. It had been a lovely week of weather leading up to the race and as usual we packed up the day before and headed down around lunchtime. A pretty straightforward journey all the way down to St Neots, we were treated with the heavens opening and a dumping of rain. This didn't dampen spirits, waking up on Sunday morning the weather was kind and the conditions had dried out just nicely.
The waves were set off at sufficient intervals that we didn’t get caught up on the bike with other age groups, and certainly for our race this seemed to work just fine. I was in a strong wave yet again with some extremely strong swimmers. The only problem I have with draft legal racing is that I need to have a good enough swim to set me up in good form to be able to pull back some places on the bike.
Now I’ve said this before but I’m not the strongest swimmer. I can swim, I can swim ok but I quite often end up leaving myself a lot to do. Hopefully this time round, the cyclists around me coming out of the water were up for a good race to help out to!
To close to catch the podium but with some individual runners yo-yo’ing in between, it was difficult to identify their age group by this point. Remember, as this was a world championship qualifier, every position made the difference. I was digging deep and closing back in on Jason. Passing him on his right and keeping the pressure on I knew I’d clawed back another place. Two more runners stood between me and the finish line. I was closing on them both but had to work extremely hard to do it! Catching and overtaking one I was now on the shoulder of the remaining athlete and was coming down to a sprint finish! I couldn’t tell if he was in my age group but had to go for it anyway. Rounding the final corner and up on to the grass we crossed the finish line. I just didn’t have that top end speed I’ve previously shown but was happy with my performance. Turns out he was in my age group and I was to finish 6th out of 36! With two of those above me leaving my age group next year and no one else coming in, this was a performance that secured me a place in the World Sprint Championship in Switzerland 2019......
Beautifully located in Roundhay Park just outside of Leeds, the event centre was a hive of activity on Saturday when we arrived to register for my early start on Sunday morning. The sun was shining and not a breath of wind promised for a fabulous event.
Split across two sites, logistically I was still trying to get my head around how my family would be able to travel around to watch the race. We settled on the easy life and made plans to have our base in the park as opposed to coming into the city for the finish line. The swim would be in the lake, and upon exit, there was a long run up to the cricket pitch where the massive transition was located. This run must have been all of 800m, but the positioning of my rack was straightforward as soon as we entered from the ‘Swim In’ gate.
I familiarised myself with the layout of transition and racked my bike that evening so there was nothing else to think about apart from navigating our way through road closures on race morning.
As I approached the lake, I could see the fog on the water and not much else. Yesterday’s beautiful blue sky had turned into pea soup! I noticed it was difficult to see the turn buoys and then over the P.A. The announce declared that the swim was going to be shortened. What was a 1500m swim had now been reduced to a Sprint Distance 750m! Something that you will never hear me complaining about.
A relatively slow 12 minute murky swim brought me out on to the blue carpet and that long run up to transition from the lake in 80th position overall. I felt ok and relaxed. Straight in and straight out, another long run to the mount line leading straight into the hill out of the park.
It was lumpy but nothing to challenging, fairly straightforward it was pretty uneventful apart from the obvious drafting by some competitors! It was blatant but missed by the Moto officials. I’ve talked about drafting on a number of occasions and not going to get into the same argument again. On this occasion it didn’t help them! Towards the end of lap one, I put the hammer down and went past the group leaving them behind. It was starting to get busier on the circuit and I was beginning to feel relieved that it was coming to an end. I’d had a good bike, I’d made up a good few places posting the 20th fastest bike time.
The event was huge, approaching 1000 athletes I’d had no idea of positioning but had a feeling that I was in the top 5 in my age group. As it was the British Championships and another qualifying event for the 2019 European Standard Champs, again every position mattered. Feeling fairly comfortable I had ran through a number of runners from the earlier waves and was only passed once by Paul Brown who I knew to be in my age group.
I tried to stay close but he was having an amazing run. It felt great to be arriving into the City Centre for the first of two laps on the finishing circuit that was to lead us into millennium square and across the same finish line as the elite ITU series race that afternoon.
The mist had cleared it was getting warmer and the atmosphere was brilliant all around the circuit. It is true to say that the residents of Leeds really have taken to their sport like they have with the cycling tour de Yorkshire. Lining the route carrying every athlete to the finish line.
A solid 37:57 10km Run following those efforts on the bike had brought me up to 26th overall. In a field closing in on 1000 competitors I can say I give it everything I had. More importantly when I got back to the park to my family and phone to check the results, 6th place in my age group with one already qualified and one leaving the age group had meant I had now reached my next goal of qualifying for the 2019 European Standard Triathlon in Holland.
2019 Euro Sprint Duathlon
2019 Euro Standard Duathlon
2019 Euro Standard Triathlon
2019 World Sprint Triathlon
Leaving me with two more to go, a place in the 2019 World Duathlon Sprint Distance, I will be racing in Oulton Park later in the year, and 2019 World Standard Triathlon.
That leads us nicely into Leeds Castle Standard race this weekend and an opportunity to wear my new red and blue RACESKIN kit, just preceding a small, well earned mid season break.