Yokohama World Series '14

What can I say, what an experience.

It was my 1st World Series Triathlon, racing with the guys that I am usually watching on my laptop, instead I was on that same start line with them.

This race was a little different, we tried something new in the form of me being there in a domestique type role, unfortunately it didn't go to plan and resulted in my race being over quite early.
 I still came away from it learning a lot and hungry for more, I know I can be up there with the best and its only a matter of time, I am happy with the direction I am going and cant wait to my next opportunity.

It was a great trip to Asia with two big races and I return home with a lot to think about and take forward into my training and racing in order to progress.

Chengdu World Cup '14

Chengdu , China; my 2nd triathlon of 2014 and it would be my 2^nd ever World Cup triathlon after having my 1^st at the end of last season in Alicante. This time I was looking forward to a better race and was ready to make more of an impact at this new, higher level of racing. Thankfully I can report that I had a much better race, probably actually one of my 1^st triathlons that I have managed to put all the pieces of puzzle together and performed across all disciplines.

It was a great adventure traveling to China for the 1^st time and racing on a course that had been designed and built specifically for triathlon. A man made lake, undulating bike course and even tunnels built underneath resulting in spectators never having to cross the field of play in order to reach a different vantage points. It was very impressing and a great atmosphere with the course being lined with spectators.

The hotel we were hosted in was amazing making our stay very comfortable, it was also fantastic to have a massive 8 lane 50m swimming pool right beside our hotel, even if the water temperature was only 20*C. (Its not often you bring a wetsuit to a race and only use it in the pool and not in the lake.)  

Onto the race- I finished 25^th in a field of 75, of which I went into ranked 67^th; its all about moving up in the world.  Resulting in me jumping up the world rankings 75 places, a trend I want to continue to replicate and better throughout the season in order to become a real contender on the world stage.

Besides being happy with my performance, mistakes were made and there is plenty more work to be done. I made a few tactical errors in the swim resulting in coming out of the water a lot lower than usual but thankfully still safely in the front pack. I cant really say much about the bike leg as the 40km went past at a pedestrian pace meaning that it all came down to a foot race.

I managed to avoid a crash at the end of the bike, which opened up a clear path for me to get up to the front of the pack coming into T2. This helped me to get out onto the run near the front and allowed for a more relaxed 1^st 1km without the usual mad scramble, I got straight into a good rhythm and managed to put together a decent run even though I started to find the heat a challenge near the end; it’s always going to be tough being a pasty white ginger boy.

The day after it was nice to relax and get the opportunity to be a bit of a tourist, it was an awesome experience to see panda’s in China.

It was then time to pack up again and fly to Japan for my next big experience, my biggest race to date my 1^st World Series Triathlon. On the start line with the big guns…