My Triathlon Journey

With a chance to qualify for my first international (road) triathlon championship, at the Youth European Champs in Austria this September, I was able to deliver a strong performance when it mattered.

Two days of racing was made up of heats and finals format. 3 heats and 3 finals; A, B and C:

Saturday:

• Evening (Heats) – 350m swim, 6k bike, 1.5k run. (Heat 2, top 9 into A final)

Sunday:

• Morning (A Final) – 400m swim (more like 500m), 8k bike, 2k run.

Heats

My aim for the heats was to make the A final, but doing so meant doing things well and going hard on the swim and bike to make sure I was in good enough a position to get myself in the front pack on the bike and be able to run well.

I exited the swim 9th, 10s off the front, bar 1 out solo. I messed up my mount with my right foot into the shoe, but pretty quickly corrected it, got the power down and was 3rd in the front group by the top of the hill, half a minute later, having picked up some more places previously through T1.

At the front on the bike I was able to position myself where I wanted, and come into T2 with the 10 man pack strung out a bit, joint in the lead. Out onto the run I got a small gap out of T2, which stuck. With 1 lap down, at a decent pace but controlled, I could see I had top 9 practically sealed and could take the last lap quite aerobically, but still set the quickest time across all heats, so it set me up well for the A final the next day.

(A) Final

Having recovered well from the heats the night before, I got ready and prepared, and at 10am the gun went off and my final, with the spots for Youth Euros on offer, was underway.

It was a non-wetsuit swim like the heats, but I went hard off the gun and was on fast feet when I got to the first buoy, just over a couple hundred metres out. Swinging two lefts to head back towards transition, I was towards the front and in good draft. I kept it strong to T1, ran hard through both transition and the swim, to gain as much valuable time as possible, exiting the water 9s from the front bar 2, and was at the front of the front bike group by the top of the hill less than a minute into the bike. The transition was clean and so was the mount, which was an improvement from the heats, getting me up to speed and set up well.

Onto the bike, pace increased at times, meaning quick action to close or bridge gaps but I reacted to everything I needed to, and we caught the guy out solo, so I was in a good position at the front.

Into T2, I got a little boxed in and was trying to push my way up as far as possible, but came in around 5th, only a second or so off the leader, however I was quick in T2 and exited in the lead and ran hard out of T2. I created a gap quickly which stuck. I kept on pushing and in the end it paid off. With the gap not being closed and running strong over the 2 lap 2km course, to come in 1st, in the automatic selection spot for the Youth European Triathlon Championship in Austria, this September.

Yesterday was a performance I can be very happy with where I was able to execute a race performance I wanted.

MTR

I had a short mixed relay in the afternoon on Sunday too, over a very brief 200m swim, 2k bike and 600m run, which I managed to bring our youth team from about 9th/10th overall (youth and junior teams) to 1st in the last 100m, finishing 3rd overall in the end for another good race effort to cap off the weekend, with a strong team.

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Thanks for reading and organisers for a good event and well done to everyone racing