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.

Athlone 2011 (Irish Sprint Champs)

If anyone was to ask me what my favourite race is; I would have to say Athlone.

I loved the race last year when I raced the Junior Europeans, (even though I crashed on the bike), its just a great course and the atmosphere is brilliant.

One year on and it was now Irish Sprint Champs, I still felt rather sluggish and tired from my awful race the weekend before in Pontevedra (previous post) but really looking forward to it. I knew it was going to be really tough as it was going to be the best competition possible in Ireland. The start sheet proved it with the Elites racing in the form and Gavin, Bryan and Conor, as well as all of the top age-groupers.

The main aim for the race was to get a bit of confidence back after the shocker the week before, to finish top Junior and have a good solid run.

I was in the 1^st of the sprint waves which was an incredibly strong wave. I had a good swim in my sailfish G-Range (picture above). 750m in a straight line is a very long way and the swim proved it, it just seemed to go on forever. I came out of the swim in 2^nd with Conor on my feet so I knew if I could stay with him the whole way I would have a good race and that’s just what happened, we stayed together throughout the cycle, (a legal distance) but never too far from each other. I was really pleased with the bike leg, it was full on the whole way, a lot different than a draft legal race, I was pleased how I was able to hold my own against some pretty amazing TT bikes.

On to the run I was still with Conor, but he raced into a lead coming out of transition putting distance between us. Since coming back from my 8 months off running I have been pleased how well my running has progressed, but I am still missing that zip and change of pace needed. During the run I tried to close the gap on Conor but couldn’t, it remained the same distance throughout the run, but I was very pleased with that in itself. Conor is running very well at the moment and to be able to run a similar sort of pace gave me a lot of confidence that my running is getting back to where it needs to be.

I ended up coming 5^th overall and 1^st junior, by 9mins, which I was incredibly happy with. This has given me a great confidence boost going into my next challenge.

My next challenge being a European Junior Cup in Echternach, Luxemburg next Sunday, so hopefully I can put in a real good performance and redeem myself after the Europeans. It will be a very strong field and a few countries are using it as a selection race for World Juniors including GB, so it will be a tough day at the office, but I can’t wait.

European Junior Triathlon Championships, Pontevedra, Spain.

Well what can I say… basically, it was a bit of a disaster!

It is extremely frustrating, I worked so hard to get back from 8months off running to be ready for this and threw it away because of stupid mistakes.

On the swim I chose a bad starting position which could be the reason for what had to follow, in the lead up to the race I had been advised to go as far left on the pontoon as this was the shortest line. When I was called onto the pontoon I did just that I went as far left as I could only to look up and notice that there was a large lane rope straight ahead in my direct line to the 1^st buoy. This was because it was shallow during the junior girls before hand and they were able to stand up. Unfortunately once I had choosen my position I had to stick with it. I should have checked this out during my swim warm up but it never crossed my mind, a lesson learnt the hard way.

I have been having problems with open water swimming and have put it down to not going out fast enough and then ending up in the fighting costing my vital time and coming out not doing my strong swimming any justice, for once I went out hard and it worked, I was pretty high up at the front of the pack, but then I hit the ropes I was forced to climb over, I had nowhere else to go. I was convinced I would get DSQ’ed but I had no choice, this cost me huge amounts of time, I lost even more time trying to get back across further up, by this stage I was well down and had lost so many positions.

Unfortunately in open water swim the positions going into the 1^st buoy aren’t very different than the positions leaving the water.

T1 wasn’t great either I threw my hat and goggles and missed my box which I had to do unless I wanted a 15sec penalty, so sorting that out cost me more time. Due to the bad swim and T1 I missed the pack and it was a chasing game from there onwards.

I was basically the only person working in my group and I was even making time on the group by myself lossing my group on most of the couners, I was really cycling strong for the first 3 out of the 4laps and them BOOM, I was gone! 4^th lap I couldn’t doing anything more, it was so frustraing I had basically pulled a group upto within under 10sec of the lead group for three laps and I had nothing left to bridge that final gap. In my efforts I was so busy chasing that I wasn’t drinking enough and in 38*C temperatures that is a major major mistake.

I went on to the run already zapped, but was determined to finish. I can truthfully only remember the 1^st 800 meters of the 5km run, I was a goner, I was extremly dehydrated and had nothing left.

Aileen Morrison told me that I probably ran(stumbled) 10km due to the fact that I was swaying from one side of the road to the other, I still don’t know how I finished.

After the race I was rushed to the medical tent and received two IV drips, to get fluids and glucose into my system because I was in such a bad way. I was covered in bags of ice to try and get my core body temperature down. All this because I had a bad swim, forced to chase down the pack and most importantly of all I didn’t drink enough.

They say that everything happens for a reason and I supose that there are many lessons to be learnt from this experience. I need to respect my body and nutrition is vitally important, I also need to check everything before the race, and I also still have a lot to do if I want to make a career out of Triathlon. Even though this went very wrong it has gave me the hunger to get where I want.

In the words of … Yazz and the Plastic Population “THE ONLY WAY IS UP!”

Strathclyde Park Triathlon.

It is strange to go into a race knowing that you don’t intend to finish, well this was the case with the Strathclyde Elite Men’s Triathlon at the end of May. I entered the race knowing that I wouldn’t do the run leg because I had not started back to running this year, the height of my running involved 15mins easy on grass to build up a little impact into my leg. This would have been a major jump if I was to go from that to a 5km max off a bike. Never the less I still did the swim and bike because I believed that I would gain invaluable experience, especially elite open water swimming.

I was very pleased with how my race went, my swim may not have been exactly how I would have like, this was because the way pontoon was positioned compared to the first buoy. There is an extreme disadvantage to someone with a name like ‘WHITE’ being at the end of the alphabet. The buoy was inline with left hand edge of the pontoon where as I was positioned on the far right meaning I had a good bit further to swim across. It just means that in the future I will have to be good enough to be seeded in the top ten because I can’t exactly change my name.

On top of this I have to admit I had missed a lot of swimming the week before resulting in losing a bit of an edge which all added up to be missing front pack on the bike. The bike leg was ok, the group wasn’t catching the leaders and wasn’t working overly fantastic, as I wasn’t doing the run I decided to do a lot of work on the bike to see what level my biking was at, so I did a lot of work on the front of the pack. Was very pleased with my new bike, very reactive looking forward to racing on it much more.

I ran out of transition, and was fighting with myself telling myself that I need to stop and not do any damage to the leg but with my competitive personality made this extremely difficult, I ended up stepping off because I have been so patient with the injury it would be such a waste to ruin it all now by doing something stupid.

A very enjoyable race, just would have loved to do the full thing. Not long now!

Dream Machine

Finally got myself a new bike. :)

So happy with it is very light, fast and extremely comfortable to ride, what more can I ask for.

Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in trying to get a sponsored bike which meant that I bought this bike myself, but hopefully it will be money well spent if it helps me to get some more good results and help me secure sponsors in the near future.