It's been a few weeks since my last blog update, and in that time I have raced, trained hard and am currently sat writing this on a few days break away with my friends in the north of France.
St Neots triathlon was on the agenda for a few weeks and I was really looking forward to racing again after having not raced since the end of last year, but also was the first outing for Fruit Salad! Will and I rocked up to St Neots Riverside park (with the usual early start, early breakfast, and hour long drive there). It was to be a lovely day with the weather, but also was a great opportunity to catch up with the tri community, seeing our racing friends Alex and Michelle of course, but also Jono and Kat, Andrea and Sam Anderson. With such a lovely race spot, transition right next to the water, it was bound to be a good race. I had met Keith the organiser a few weeks earlier and he reassured me about the water temperature and the race being well organised (biased of course!). Having racked and wetsuited up it was time for my first Open Water swim of the year (in a race!). It was bloody freezing, and the obvious signs of this was the fact that NO-ONE put their faces in the water until the hooter went off! I managed to get near the front, however I seemingly increasingly so find myself just off the back of the leading pack of swimmers, but ahead of the majority of the pack. Anyway I soon managed to find a few feet to draft off, and before we knew it we were swimming back towards the exit and out of the water in no time. Wetsuit was off in a flash (quick for me) and I was soon hot on the heels of Andrea out of T1. The bike course was lovely fast and flat, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, soon thinking to myself that I was placed highly as there was hardly any ladies that I passed, mainly men, and I was making great time coming into T2 after 46 minutes! It was however the run that I was most dreading. Having not really run for a long long while properly, and still having issues, I knew that the swim and bike were all I had to base the majority of the race on, with the running training being so limited. Another weird thing that I did at this race was not use a watch so was all on feel. Still I managed to finish well (despite the vomiting again at the end!) and placed around 13th! Happy with the result, with Sam winning the race, Michelle coming a very close second (and feeling rotten ill with cold!) and Kat and Andrea both finishing in the top ten! A great first race back in the game. Not a good race for Will however, as he managed to come out the swim first, but in the confusion of the super sprint race happening first, he managed to end up riding on the super sprint course, adding another 2-3 miles onto his route! Mistake learnt and not forgotten by all of his friends!
The past couple of weeks have been all about the bike really! Although this week having been stationed in a beautiful French house with friends I have been running both days and really enjoyed it! I have run 3 miles each day and not seen more than three cars (total!). It has been lovely to relax in the run up to this weekend which will be my first Olympic distance triathlon at Grafham water again with Nicetri events. I found their organisation and their friendliness second to none, and with the water warming up nicely, I have planned to swim at Rutland Water with Mary (Inspire2tri) Saturday morning in my nice new Helix Wetsuit that I purchased last week. Hopefully the swim times will steadily improve, but I have to work hard on the swim training, which I have had to painfully say has been really neglected of late. I am not really massively motivated to swim (and get up early to do so) where as I am loving the cycling training and the strength that I am getting from cycling so much. I have enjoyed the running here in France, but I am unsure whether the injury is getting worse on my ankle. It seems to be ok... but I am keeping the runs short and simple.
A shortish blog but we are just enjoying the last evening in the sunshine here and my G&T is calling me..... Happy training until next time!
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