July built up for the first of my bigger goals for the year with the British Triathlon Super Series race at Bristol, acting as the qualifier for the European Junior Triathlon Champs.
Qualifying with at least top 3 was the aim, and after what has felt like a good deal of bad luck into and during races this season and a few difficult results, I was looking to try and turn things around here.
With a pretty physical swim, I thought I was in a decent position and was probably on the border line of getting into the main bike group nearly half way through, then my goggles got kicked off and filled up with water so made sighting a bit trickier. Unfortunately on the way back in a gap felt like it had suddenly appeared which I was trying to prevent. The field had gotten strung out, but obviously I had difficulty sighting and was too far back so missed this.
Trying to push on for any opportunity I found my bike on the floor in T1 which had just happened but luckily lost little time, and focused on early bike power but unfortunately was just under 10s too far back off the guys who got on the main group and in the ideal position to run at the front.
My group of 6 or so lost near to no time on the second and 3rd laps of 5 on the bike, so considering only two of us were working and despite trying to organise people we were not doing too bad given the size deficit. The gap kicked up pretty quickly soon after though, so gave myself the best opportunity to run well, by opening a small gap into T2 solo from my group and then through and out transition quickly.
Those ahead seemed to be suffering on the turns and short sharp climbs the course had, as well as some pretty intense heat but I managed to pull off the fastest run overall in 15.42 and take 8th Junior. I fell short of my goal by the end but again just a few seconds made such a big difference in result, from position out the swim.
With the positives to take and feeling the fittest I’ve been I don’t feel there is a massive gap for me and that getting that even slight bit quicker in the water will have a big difference. Ultimately the swim start cost me with some errors on my part in the opening 100m being the main reason, but I’ve found the last 3 weeks to have been the most progressive in my swimming by really taking a step back and dialling things in from a new perspective.
I hope to continue this before I get another opportunity to qualify for a junior championship, with the British Series Grand Final at Mallory Park, at the end of next month, acting as the Junior Worlds Qualifier.
Also this week I took a new 5k PB at Top Flight’s Battersea 5k in 14.37, so got my 5k time from March down another 12s. Simply it was a solid run out, and the training is getting better but just generally being able to be active and get out is nice. I look forward to trying to be a bit better each time, and help that towards my racing.
Thanks to Pedal Potential for the support, and you can also see my Instagram below for some more specifics, training, more updates and better quality video to see what I get up to:
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