My Triathlon Journey

I qualified for British Champs under the South-East England region earlier in the year. 2022’s race weekend took place in Sunderland, staged at Roker Beach, at the end of last month. The IRC’s stands for Inter Regional Championships and is the British Champs (as well as Jersey) for Tristar 2 (11-12) and Tristar 3 (13-14). Being 14 I was in the last year possible to compete in IRC’s as a top end Tristar 3.

IRC’s is a weekend of racing with the individual on the Saturday and the mixed team relay on the Sunday. The individual works as a 2 separate heats of 24 athletes each, 10 of which, from each heat, qualify for the ‘A’ final plus the 6 fastest times between heats. The rest enter the ‘B’ final.

Saturday (Individual)

Heat

My heat started at 8:35am with a 300m swim, 3km bike and 1.25km run. I had a good swim coming out the water 8th which was a big improvement from last year’s IRCs coming out at the back. I caught up 4 places through T1 and came onto the bike 4th. There was a steep hill just after transition and I attacked there and got to the front bike group of top 3. I stayed with them the way round and came into T2 just 2nd. I wore cleats on the bike leg whilst the other wore their run trainers with flat pedals or toeclips so they gained time over me in transition. The gap was 5-10 seconds coming out of T2 and I caught up to them 2/3 of the way through the run. The group of us 4 split a bit and I put in a small effort, but big enough to get past by the final corner. I won the heat in the end so had 3 hours to prepare and recover for the ‘A’ final.

‘A’ Final

My swim was decent coming out 15th from the water but 10 seconds down slower than my heat, so I had a bit more catching up to do. Again I gained a good amount of places early on, through T1, going onto the bike leg in about 7th or 8th position. I was on my own and there was a main group just ahead which I caught at the beginning of the bike, as I pushed really hard on the hill, trying to gain time in the most beneficial places possible and get to the group as soon as possible. On the final dead turn I attacked up the hill that followed and dropped the group. I had a swift T2 and exited 4th (again). I ran as hard as I could and the gap was bigger than in my heat as I tried to catch. I reached 3rd place and passed with 250m-300m. Going onto the final straight it was a sprint finish for second and in the end I got there, just 2 or 3 seconds of 1st place.

I was incredibly happy with how I raced and that I managed a podium finish and my region (South East) won the overall, as well.

Sunday (Mixed Relay)

Sunday’s mixed relay was a bit shorter with a 150m swim, 3km bike and 1.5km run. I went of as the third leg and by the time it came to my handover we were in 3rd place, a second behind South Central, but a larger gap to 1st, South West. I felt like I had a really good swim and came onto the bike alone, chasing hard to 1st. I made up majority of time on the bike and ended up catching 1st at halfway through the run. We stayed together through the remainder until I attacked on the last straight, gaining a few seconds, to hand over to my team’s final leg. On the last leg we moved back to 2nd but then opened it up amazingly on the run coming in to take gold for our team!

The weekend went really well and I was not disappointed at all. I was glad to have raced as hard as I could and leave it all out there and super happy with my podium finish and team result!