My Triathlon Journey

I’m writing this a bit late for February considering we’re nearly a third of the way through March but I had a couple races last month including some good cross-country performances so I didn’t want to not write about it.

I finished the Sussex cross country series this month with a 1st and took the overall win as well with 4 wins out of 4 races. I was part of a team overall win also so it was good to have a strong county xc running season with a fast team.

I haven’t done as many cyclocross races this autumn/winter but did the london x league end of season Team Champs race. The course, at the South of England Showground, went through the sand arena and on the tarmac outside so made for a different terrain to usual. The format basically goes as teams of 3 or 4 riders setting off at separate 30 second intervals. It was quite wet on the day but didn’t affect the sand as it was inside a building.. After so many people riding the same route through the sand a kind of rut gets created. I went into the tape once flicking my back wheel up coming onto the sand but luckily didn’t lose too much time. The result was a win for my team so it was good to get a top podium finish after a quite a cold morning of racing.

On the 24th towards the end of the month I travelled up England for my main race of the month, to Chester, to race at Bolesworth Castle the next day for the ECCA English National Cross Country Championship. The course was basically entirely flat, ironic due to everywhere you looked around you you could see hills looming in the near distance and in the other parts of the grounds. My one lap 4.5km course had a wide start line like they had always had since I’d been doing the National xc’s. I had a good start and was well to the front of the race. After racing in national races last year, I learnt just how crucial a good start is otherwise you just have to keep moving and trying to make places through the field constantly, having to go way faster than the leaders in order to catch up. I stayed with the front for about 3kms and then dropped off a little bit but still trying to stay in touching distance. With the remainder left I was in 8th and was hurting quite bad by now but was determined not to be over-taken and hang on to my position. I gained a place up to the finish line to come 7th, after a 15th last year being over a minute behind 1st, however this time just 20 seconds off the leader and a lot closer than that to top five. I was really happy with my performance and that I kept going even when it really hurt to get a finish result I was really pleased with. I came 11th my first year, 15th my second time and 7th now. A top 10 was my aim and so I wasn’t disappointed at all with 7th.