Echternach Junior European Triathlon Cup.

My first Junior European Cup, have mixed emotions about it, it was a fabulous experience and I have taken a lot of positives from it, the only think is that it wasn’t the outcome that I was wishing for. I finished 29^th but I believe I should have been much higher up, but unfortunately it didn’t all click together yet again, just gotta keep plugging away.

I was actually pleased with my swim for once, I was still abit off the mark but its getting there, I was really high up going into the 1^st buoy, my start position was 10 so I was at the right hand side of the pontoon, I was the fastest out of the 1^st ten and went into the 1^st buoy as the 1^st inside man and had nowhere to go- it was a smash fest, I got pulled under when someone yanked my feet and when I came up got hit in the face and smacked my goggles off, I lost I few positions due to that and then it was hard to sight and swim comfortable when my goggles where hanging on my face and full of water, so I was extremely happy to still make front pack.

The bike was pretty uneventful apart from being extremely sketchy, I don’t know how there wasn’t a crash. Managed to get into T2 safely and in the top 15, going onto the run and had a massive stitch because unlike the Europeans I took too much fluid on during the bike as I was conscious of the mistake I had made in Spain. When I took water on at the water station I ended up throwing everything up, I was sick four or five times, so that lost me a lot of time, and fell through the field. Once I was finished being sick I actually felt much better and was able to run properly on the 2^nd lap of the run. I had to make up as many places as I could, I caught 8 people infont of me in 2km, but a little too late.

So ended up pretty disappointed, I believe if I had run the whole run like I was able to on the last 2Km I would have had a good race but I just have to learn from it and focus on my next race.

Next race I have is a domestic race; the Big Splash Triathlon in Portglenone in the morning, and then next weekend I travel over to London to compete in the Junior Elite London Triathlon at the Docklands. Hopefully everything should click together over in London and I can get a good result against the best Juniors in Britain.