Blog #5

The first race of the season has been and gone already. I came away from it with the feeling of not a good race, but not a bad one.

The British Duathlon Championships was defiantly a tough season opener and the field actually became pretty stacked by the time the race came around. I didn’t quite have the first run I had thought I could produce. I was aiming to be on back end of the front pack which would have needed at worst a 15.15 5k. I came though in 15.54. This is still a 30 second improvement on last year, but I feel I can do better. Font pack was ahead then a very small group of about 4 riders and then my small pack of 3. After a lap we were caught by the large pack from behind and it worked reasonably well. By the end of the bike we were one and a half minutes down on the front pack and only about 5- 10 seconds away from the small pack of 4. I exited transition first from the pack and started of well but soon began to fade. I lost no places from coming out of transition, after overtaking two from the back ahead and being overtaken by two from behind. 

In the end I finished in 19th overall and 8th Under 23. So it was an ok start to the season.

My next race will be over here in Spain on May 13th as a prep for the British Triathlon Championships at Blenheim in June. It is a race which is equivalent to our Super Series back in England so their is some good competition and hopefully I can get a positive result out of it and go into Blenheim with confidence.

A little story from my time out here in Spain. I was riding home to Banyoles from work in my work clothes and saw a rider from Cannondale (it looked like Alex Howes, who does live in Girona) looping round a bridge that would join onto my road that I was coming down. I was only about 2k from home and I decided in the moment that I didn’t want him catching me. So I floored it. As soon as I had said ‘there is no way he’ll catch me’ WHOOSH! He flew by even saying ‘hola’. I will never know to this day how hard he was trying but I have a feeling he saw me go and defiantly put the hammer down himself. I tried to get into his wheel, but he was motoring. I have until this time defiantly highly underestimated how good these riders really are, and I will forever look up in awe of the kind of pace they are going at.

Thanks for reading 

Luke