2016 Season so far

So far this season I have competed in 3 races and am currently in a bit of a break from racing.  Here is a brief overview of each race as well as details as to what I am doing now before my next race.

The first race was in Duston, this is a triathlon that I have now competed in for 3 years near Northampton.  It is a pool based sprint triathlon, there is a nasty hill about two thirds of the way around the cycle and it is finished with a 100% tarmaced run.  I finished 15^th although was a little bit disappointed as I messed up both transitions.  6 months since my last triathlon meant that my bike mount technique had slipped and I ended up having to stop to sort my shoes out rather than doing it on the bike whilst moving.  As for the second transition I had not taken proper note of where my racking place was and ran back in to the wrong spot which resulted in me having to duck under a set of racking to get to my area.  Whilst it is hard to calculate what cost if any these mistakes had I think they probably cost me a couple of places overall and just goes to show you that even if you think you know what you are doing you still need to be fully concentrating and have everything planned out.

The next race was at Southam which is very much my home race – the second half of the cycle route is actually my daily commute to work!  To make me even more motivated to do well was the fact that my mum was starting 16 minutes ahead of me and at the same race last year I had only beaten her by about 17 minutes and with the run being a 5 lap course it was set up for an exciting finish.  I had clearly learnt from the previous week and nailed both transitions with my total transition time coming in at under 1 minute.  As for whether I managed to catch mum – I caught her with 2 laps of the run to go.  I finished 6^th overall and was happy with my performance although I did feel that I could have pushed a little harder on the run.

My third race was at Stratford with their new reduced distance cycle route.  The start list was actually posted online before I entered which meant that rather than getting set off based on my start time I was given a start time at the end of the male sprint race.  This meant that I was starting about an hour later than I should have been which then resulted in time being lost on the way back into Stratford on the bike leg as I had to come off the aero bars to navigate traffic for the last mile.  Determined not to let this ruin my race and to learn from last week I set off on the run leg a man on a mission.  Second fastest on the run meant that I managed 8^th overall.

Lots of positives so far and a lot to work on before my next race which will is looking likely to be in July at the Sherborne Sprint Triathlon where I have unfinished business after my chain came off on the cycle leg last year.