August 2013

A very late entry this month - I am not sure why I just don't seem to have had any spare time to sit down and write recently. Anyway I very much doubt that there are many who are sitting on the edge of their seats just waiting for my latest triathlon ramblings! But if you have been, I apologise. August has been quiet in terms of racing as much of my time is now taken with training leading up to the World Champs in September. My training partner Sam has been a big help, joining me for some hard run intervals and dragging me round some very fast TT rides. I am not totally convinced that training with someone so much younger is a brilliant idea (oh, do I ache!) but it has been fun! My first race back after my holidays was Blithfield Sprint and I think I must have still been in holiday mode as I made a complete mess of it. It is the England Triathlon sprint championships and faily local so I thought it would be a good one to get back into the swing of things. Everything started quite well - the swim was cold and choppy which I don't like but I seemed to be out of the water quite well up so that was good. The bike also went well - I felt strong and came into T2 just in front of Emily Whitmore (very young) and Maria Powell (my age) and felt good. I was hopeful of maybe winning my age group as I know that Maria normally does the standard distance so I was banking on her not having a sprint in her. Anyway we flew into T2 together and I could see her in the corner of my eye as I took my helmet off .......only it wouldn't come off! Maria ran off and I still couldn't get my helmet off. Maria was now a speck in the distance and I still couldn't get it off! I even thought about running in it for a second and got a bit panicky but eventually I found the clasp and finally got my trainers on. By this time I was a good 30 seconds behind Maria and even though I tried to catch her I just ran out of time. I have to admit I gave up with about a kilometre to go and just resigned myself to silver. I was so cross with myself but put it down to being out of race practice. Mark and Tony met me at the finish line and they had really funny looks on their faces. I complained about 'my bloody helmet' and they just fell about laughing. Then Mark told me (really nervously) that I had done the whole bike ride with my helmet on back to front! I could have died - he even showed me a photo and I look a complete muppet! Looking back, I thought that some of the marshalls looked at me a bit funny. I looked ridiculous! It just shows though that it doesn't matter how experienced you are, you can still make big mistakes! At least I can see the funny side of things now. My next race was the National Relays, which I love as our club always get lots of teams together and we all camp and generally have a good time. Its so nice not to have to stress too much about where you finish and of course, given my last race, no transitions!! I was in the TRiKS ladies team (the TriKettes) with Sam, Caroline and Lenka and we were all up for racing hard and enjoying it. Sam got us off to a flying start with a 7 min swim and we managed to stay well placed with us all having strong bike legs, despite it getting windier and windier as the day went on. I was last off in the run and I think we were about 10th female team. I normally dread the run at Holme Pierrepoint as it seems to be at least 5 miles each way up and back down that lake. But I felt good so the training is obviously paying off. All our club mates were on the finish straight and we high fived all the way down. What a great feeling - I am really starting to like that finish straight and once again I finished with a big smile on my face. We later found out that we were 7th female team so were over the moon with that. We didn't quite get on the podium but decided to have a team photo on it anyway. We'll do it next year! Then it was back to the campsite for a club BBQ and a round up of the day. All our teams had done well, with everyone racing hard and really enjoying it. A nice end to August but now the pressure is really on as its only 2 weeks to the Worlds!