This weekend I have been in the Loughborough area, doing the England Talent Assessment weekend, for triathlon. I only found out that I got in to it, at the beginning of the week, and I knew that there was going to be some tough competition, and the best triathletes in my age group in England would be there! My age group was 17-19 and me being 16 but turning 17 later this year meant I was bottom of my age group. We travelled up on Friday as we would have had to wake up seriously early if we were going to travel straight there on the Saturday. We settled into our little hotel for the night after having some tasty dinner and then I got an early night in. Most of Friday night, I was thinking about my swim and if I didn't make my swim in under 12 minutes, I would be sent home, so I was pretty concerned as I had never swam 800m before against the clock... yes, I know it was a bit risky me coming all the way to Loughborough, if I didn't think I could swim the time. When I arrived on the Saturday I was instantly intimidated by everyone in their various different kit. Most of the people had British Triathlon hoodies, with various different academies or regional squads written on the back. I did not want to let this intimidate me though and after a bit of waiting we were soon sent into our first lecture. After a very interesting morning of lectures, and picking up some good knowledge on sleep, nutrition, selection policies and physio, we were finally sent off to do our swim... argggg the moment I had been waiting for. We did our swim in Loughborough university pool, which was amazing! It had been split in half so we had to do 32 laps, which sounds like lots, but I split it into 100s in my head, so it doesn't sound so long. The 30 second warning went, and then we were off. Up and down, up and down, up and down... with 400m done, I felt a sense of relief but I struggled to work out how fast I was going. Finally I came to the finish and the time keeper said '12:03,' my heart probably skipped a beat at this point, and I thought thats it... I'm going home. To add to this I was the last one to finish my swim out of the other 24 people in the pool... To be quite honest I didn't think I would get anywhere near this time, as I only started swimming less than a year ago and I think if I had done the 800m time trial, 6 months ago I would have struggles to even hit a sub 13:30 time. Anyway, onto Sunday. We were all set off from the start according to our swim times. So, lets just say I wasn't in the best of places at this point, I had a lot of catching up to do. The bike course was on an old air field and the course was made up of 4x 5km laps. Each lap had two dead turns, which you can see from this photo above. They meant that you had to slow down, to a snails pace to make sure you didn't go flying off course or end up on your bum. In the end, I got lapped... not ideal but I was close, so so close not to be. This just meant all lapped runners had to start once the last cyclist was back, and then start about a minute later. The run was tough, after having a break between the cycle and the run my legs had started to seize and go all stiff. The sun started powering down on us and I could feel my back burning, but nothing a glass of water chucked over it couldn't sort out. Okay so I might of finished near the end of the field, but I have taken so much from this weekend. I now know so much I can work on, and goals I want to set myself. I have had a great weekend away too, and visiting Loughborough uni. I am currently still on easter holidays which I am loving, although I have lots of work to do.
Love G x
1 Comment
Katie
4/4/2017 11:42:23 am
Hey, just wondered how you got considered for this. I'm not the best but sounds like a good experience !! Loving your blog x
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HelloI'm Grace, a 18 year old runner, and fitness fanatic. Join me on my crazy journey through life, squeezing in an adventure in every second of spare time I have. Archives
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