Season second half & a National Champ!

Onto the second half of the season! I made a discovery this year, one which I'm sure many other people already know about, but nonetheless new to me. Air bnb is an app that allows nearly anyone to advertise rooms to stay in for 1 night+, and as a result means they have rooms all across the country. This has made finding cheap accommodation near races a breeze, and all the hosts we have stayed with so far have been super friendly and helpful with regards to bikes and early starts. I'm sure the warning we have given them all them also helped them to prepare and not get too stressed as they wonder how these guests can have so many things for an overnight stay!

For Castle Howard we stayed in another of these air bnb locations, and the night before the race I went to do an easy spin and check out the bike lap. This started great, it was a beautiful evening and the course was hilly but good fun. I watched the kilometre signs go by, expecting the lap to be little bit long at perhaps 21-22km. As I passed the kilometre 28 sign having not seen the end of the first lap, I figured something wasn't quite right. I pulled over and phoned Kathryn who was at race check in, only to be told the course had been changed this year to one 42km lap instead of two shorted laps! Having ridden for longer than I'd planned, I waited to be picked up and then we headed back to where we were staying for the night.

Before the race in the morning went as well as it could have with the exception being how dreadful I felt on my warm-up jog. This feeling of fatigue may have had something to do with a night celebrating my university graduation the weekend before, something not I would not recommend in the middle of race season, but not a night I would have missed out on! The swim started off fine, I settled into a good pace in around 3rd place, but as we turned the furthest buoy and headed back towards t1 the sun decided it would do its best to make things as difficult as possible. The extreme glare made navigation extremely difficult, and I will be looking into (no pun intended) polarised goggles in the future for days like this. I exited the swim around 20 secs down on the leaders and headed up the hill to t1. This 400m uphill run into t1 was my first problem of the day, as my legs thought this would be a great time to stop working. I lost around 20 seconds to the people I came out of the water with as I struggled up the hill, and headed out onto the bike. This was when the next minor disaster happened; I was looking down to get my feet in and didn't realise there was quite an aggressive speed bump on the road out of transition. I hit this going faster than I would have liked with one hand on the handlebars, and my head looking down. Whilst I managed to stay upright, my drinks bottle flew off the front of my bike and I made the decision to stop and retrieve it given the warm conditions and hard course that lay ahead. The rest of the bike was relatively uneventful, and I found myself at the front of the race after around 30km. A few steep hills before the finish saw two of the other guys, who I'd earlier caught, move away and open up a 30 second gap by t2. As I got off my bike and ran out of transition, I knew it was not going to be a good run. I felt a stitch come on after 1km which reduced me to a jog, and the relentlessly hilly run course (more of an xc course) meant this stitch got so bad at around 6km that I was forced to walk for a couple of hundred metres. I got myself going again and settled into a pace that wasn't what I would have liked to have been running, but not too slow either. A few more people passed me and I ended up 7th, somehow managing to make it up the final hill (the sting in the tail of the castle Howard tri!). Not a performance I am particularly proud of, but highlighted to me the need to remain consistent with training and looking after myself.

The week following Howard I eased myself back into training and managed to get in a really solid 20+ hour week with some quality sessions before a small taper into my first and only draft legal race of the year at the London Triathlon. This race was more about having fun, with my goals this season being focused around non drafting performances.

We drove to London the day before and stayed with one of Kathryn's friends who lived just round the corner from Kings Cross Station. An easy spin to the DLR station at Bank in the morning with old school friend Tom saw me arrive at the race with plenty of time to set up and warm up. As the start horn sounded I prepared myself for what I knew would be a hectic swim, and after the first couple hundred metres I had been dunked as well as having my goggles hit off my face. This is pretty standard treatment in a draft legal swim, as position is everything when coming out onto the bike. I came out of the swim with a group which ultimately ended up at the front of the race, but a lack of practice taking my wetsuit off quickly meant I ended up in the first group to miss the front of the pack. This unfortunately led to the bike being spent watching the front group move further and further up the road, due to larger numbers and a better average standard of rider. The proximity of the camera bike to the front riders can't have been too detrimental to the average speed of the first pack either, but this is something that is almost part of the race and highlights the need to swim well in draft legal events! I finished the race strong, running faster than everyone else I came off of the bike with, which to me indicated I must have some decent fitness to take forward as a positive into my last races of the season.

After London another good couple weeks of training was coincided by the temperature slowly increasing, and reaching a toasty 25 degrees celsius on the last few rides before leaving to get the euro-tunnel to France. My swim training had been a tad inconsistent since London, so a set of 10x100s off 1.20 LCM holding 1.11 to 1.13 gave me the much needed confidence boost, as well as being my last session before racing in Chantilly. Chantilly castle was to be my final Olympic distance race of the season and my last Castle series event of the year. I would recommend this series to anyone looking for a great platform from which to start racing non drafting races at a higher level. Prize money and hard courses ensure a solid field at all of their races, something which can be a rarity especially in the UK.

The course recce I did two days before the race once again didn't go entirely to plan, an unfortunate theme this season. I started nice and early, but by 9am the temperature on my garmin had already reached 33 degrees. I think this and the week of hot temperature in the UK before leaving, meant that I wasn't quite feeling my usual self. I still need to figure out how to make sure I can get the best out of myself in warmer conditions, something I haven't had much practice at living and racing in the UK! The bike course was a solid rolling 44km course, and totally different to any course you would ride in the UK.

Race day saw the first slightly cooler day for a while, and the cool water of the lake was a refreshing change to the humid and warm conditions on land. I exited the swim first, however I lost the foot race to the timing matt which was around 50m from the waters edge- losing the £100 swim prime in the process. Slightly annoying (read: extremely). My legs played their post swim cramp card again and made the 300m long stair set to t1 a struggle. Combined with a stitch, I ended up leaving t1 in 5th place, having exited the water first. Not my finest transition and something I need to find a way to train for in future. With this not being the first time I have experienced these symptoms leaving a swim this year, I will be looking into alternative breakfasts & warm ups to better prepare me for the demands of racing. A poor bike by my standards (NP291w) saw me somehow leave t2 in 2nd place, however the another stitch at around 3km into the run saw any hopes of a podium vanish, with a slight pause seeing another 3 athletes pass me. This is where I would end up in the race with 5th place being held all the way until the line.

Two weeks later I had the National Middle Distance championships at the Vitruvian race which is held on the same course as the Dambuster at Rutland Water. A few easy days after Chantilly was followed by a big couple of days running and a 90 min main block at 300 watts (planned Vitruvian pace) in a 4 hour ride . These few days training felt comfortable and with them banked I had a bit more confidence heading into the race the following weekend. The week before the race I had a loose plan but ultimately made sure to listen to my body, as a long season of racing meant that being fresh was going to ultimately be of more importance than the fitness I now knew I had.

The morning of the race arrived and the events proximity to my parent's house meant a good night's sleep and a relatively stress free drive to the race at 5.15. The weather was abysmal with heavy rain forecast to continue throughout the race, however the temperature wasn't too cold so no extra clothing would be needed. The race started at 6.30 and I swam on the feet of good friend Chris Hine and came out second. I led out of t1 as my transition spot (randomly allocated) happened to make for the shortest route in and out possible. I got out on the course and settled down straight away to my target power. I had a good first lap- knowing the course helped massively in the wet, and I managed to stay on top of my nutrition plan and not get too carried away at this early stage of the race. On the second lap I had a few sketchy moments with traffic but got round safely and held my pre-race plan power, leaving myself in as good as position as possible to start the run. Out of transition I settled down to 3.50 pace on the run. At this point I was leading the race overall, including women and relay teams. I was not expecting to see another athlete for a while, so you can imagine the scare I had at around 3km when another person came flying past me. Luckily I was told by the lead cyclist that he was part of a relay team, which was a relief as there was no way I could have matched his pace! Another relay runner passed me after around 9km but I held the individual race lead until the end. This was even with the totally new to me feeling of not being able to run any faster than 4min/km in last 5km- despite feeling like I was sprinting. I was really happy to win and can now call myself the 'national middle distance champ'. It was great to run down the finishing chute with friends and family cheering me on- as there is no way I'd be able to do what I do without their support and help.

The next month or so I have very little planned in the way of triathlon related activities- I will recover from what has been a long and busy 2016 (by my standards) and then look forward to 2017 and what I will want to achieve next year. Enjoy the video of these races as well as a bit of off season fun thrown in!