This is a blog post that I have been thinking on doing for a few months, as lots of people have asked me about whether I'll be doing any tri's this season. As you know last year I participated in lots of triathlons and was keen to try and improve all three disciplines, although running has always been my favourite and I had always heavily prioritised it training wise, but I was enjoying the diversity of triathlon. After going on the England trial weekend (link to my blog post from it) a lot of things went through my head afterwards. Something that was clear to me, was that my swimming and cycling were far too slow but my running was the only thing that pulled me back into contention in the triathlons. The decision had to be made where I needed to go down one route or the other, because I just wasn't getting the all around training I needed for triathlon or benefits of committing to running fully. After thinking about everything there was a clear path that would be best for me to take... and that was the running one, and I haven't looked back since. As much as I enjoyed swimming and cycling it didn't fill me with joy, half as much as running did. I still swim and cycle now, but as cross training to help me with my running fitness and I really enjoy doing this. Don't get me wrong I still don't enjoy the 5:30am wake up for early morning swimming, but I just like to think about how I feel at 8:00am when I have achieved so much in my day, before most people have got to school. In addition to just preferring running over swimming and cycling, there was also the small... okay maybe not so small, issue of time. I am heading into my last year of school, where time is slightly tight and even writing blog posts is often something which is squeezed into an hour or two of free time, on a Friday or Saturday evening, but I certainly wouldn't change it for the world, because I love it. I was managing to fit in most of my swimming, however cycling I needed another 100km each week and I just had no where to fit this in. Cycling is my least favourite out of the three and there is something about being on a bike which makes me feel vulnerable. I think if there were cycle highways everywhere and if you didn't hurt yourself when you fall off, I would love it, but unfortunately it does not work like that. So, my bike remains in the garage and comes out for a slow cycle at quiet times of day, and I love that. Since making this big move to commit to running more, my love for running has grown and grown. I would now say I am definitely obsessed and striving to be better ever day. Some goals I make are realistic for each season and others seem crazy, so now I feel it is appropriate for some of my favourite quotes.
"Set a goal that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning" "It always seems impossible until it's done" "It's going to be hard, but hard is not impossible" I am now looking forward to cross country season, having come through summer with lots of pbs on track and I hope to improve my season this year from last year. I hope you have enjoyed this blog post and answered lots of your questions. Also I hope you like my new design of my blog, after trying lots of different themes I have settled with this one. Love G x
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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 It all started back on the 13th July, when I decided to take part in a fun aquathlon down in Lewes. This was one big learning curve, but the bug of the idea of triathlon really started then. 3 triathlons later, I am here where I am now, it is fair to say I have had a roller coaster ride with triathlons, from my bike breaking to cutting the course short but something has kept pulling me back to them, and maybe it is just because I love it. Sometimes (okay very rarely) I have doubts about why I'm doing this, normally when I am in the middle of a tough session or when I am 35km into a cycle ride and my toes are numb and I have 35km left. Even though these moments are hard I am always happy at the end and really I do love the feeling of numb toes and being exhausted. I thought it would be an appropriate time to look back at these 4 races and briefly look at how each one went and if I have improved over the season. After buying my new trisuit for this event, I had already sort of told myself that I was going to stick at this. The aquathlon went well but I knew there was lots to improve on and from there my triathlon training started. Swim:3/10 - Got caught up in the start, and basically didn't know how to swim in a girl in a lengths pool... it is a difficult concept I promise. Run:6/10 - my legs felt like jelly after swimming, this was a new feeling. The excitement of the day before Bewl Tri is still with me but the emotion of afterwards is too. I wouldn't say I am a particularly emotional person but `I will admit I had a fair few sobs over (and during...) this event. Firstly taking my hybrid bike to an adults tri was probably not my brightest moment, but that was my bike I had at the time, so I had to deal with it. Then it breaking after 5km and having to run 5km back to the start was also not in the plan. The run, I then had to hold myself back from crying for the whole thing, because all I was doing was feeling sorry for myself. Not ideal, and not very mature either! I learnt the most from this event and that I needed to grow up and get on with it. If triathlons were easy, everyone would be doing them! Swim: 7/10 - I surprised myself coming out the water 4th Bike: 1/10 - I think I've probably already summed this bit up Run: 4/10 - bad run as I was too caught up in all my emotions Edenbridge was the week after Bewl and I was certain to set things straight after my mishaps. I had got a new road bike at the beginning of the week and I had been practicing with my cleats every day. The swim was in the pool so not my personal favourite, then the cycle was out on the roads on a sort of flatish course, then the run was around the park. After having second place taken away from me this day, because I accidentally cut the cycle route short as there were no marshals or signs to guide me on a round about, it was getting to the point were I should have been thinking of giving up. But no... for some reason this didn't even cross my mind, to be perfectly honest it made me more determined than ever. Swim: 6/10 - pretty average, nothing special Bike: 7/10 - the bike actually went well apart from the fact I cut the course Run: 7/10 - it was my best run so far, and I felt like my brick had helped this. After over a month of no tri because of missing Bodium castle Tri because of illness, I was ready a raring to go. At this point I will admit all I wanted to do was complete a tri, but when I was standing (or should I say bobbing) on the start line in the water, I knew I wasn't just going to take it easy, I wanted to give it my best shot. 1:17:22 later I cross the line in 8th place out of 350 women and I was pretty happy! This was just the way I wanted to finish the season and it has given me even more motivation and confidence for winter training now.
Swim: 8/10 - surprised myself with the 2nd quickest swim time overall Bike: 7/10 - best bike so far, but still room for lots of improvement, especially on the downhills. Run: 7/10 - apart from the slow start because of a steep hill, I was pleased with a strong run. Don't get me wrong these scores out of 10 got to the 8s by Hever Tri but by next season I will be expecting more from myself and I won't be wanting to settle with 8th place, however pleased I was with it this time. I have now got my winter training ahead and cross-country season to look forward too. I also had my first club ride this morning and even though my toes and fingers got pretty numb and I could barely get up to walk to the fridge afterwards it was all worth it, as I had so much fun... yes every 75km of it was fun (minus one very long hill, where my gears on the back wheel stopped working so I was down to about 8 gears for the rest of the ride). I have been writing down some goals for the 2017 tri season which I will share with you later on, but for now its all about getting some good solid winter training in. G x The wait of over a month since my last triathlon was finally over, I was meant to have a triathlon two weeks ago but I had to pull out because of illness. To make my weekend even better, I had exeat this weekend, which means I have no Saturday school, which is why I could do this triathlon today. After spending most of my Friday being excited for today, I also managed to squeeze in some time to eat some pasta! My mum was not amused at having to make me a different tea to everyone else, I had to be pretty persuasive that the pasta will make a difference and I need the carbs! After not a ridiculously early start for once, we left at 7:20. Of course we could only leave, once I had had my porridge. Once we had parked up I made my way to the registration, I wasn't quite anticipating the long walk but 20 minutes later, I got to the sign in. After accidentally saying I was in wave 3 and not wave 5 (meaning that the organisers were faffing about everywhere because they couldn't find my race number) I got my race pack. They also pointed me towards big cardboard boxes full of free-bee gels and water bottles, it was fair to say I was in my element. Anyway after all this I had to go and set my transition up, which did take a while as I was making sure everything was in the right order, to save me as much time as possible. Eventually I did make it down to the lake with my wetsuit on all ready. Wetsuits were optional but I decided to wear one anyway, and almost everyone was thinking the same thing too. As we waited and had our pre race briefing, I was starting to get pretty hot in my wetsuit and all I wanted to do was get in the water. Also a lovely woman came up to me and asked if I had a blog, and that she recognised me from instagram and that she was a keen reader of my blog. This was so lovely to hear! Luckily soon enough we were walking towards the water to get in, so I jumped in pretty quick, however I was not expecting the water to be quite so cold. I had also heard some horrible stories of the lake at Hever Castle and had been told not to touch the floor, as it is really slimmy. I managed to avoid touching the floor, thankfully but I couldn't avoid the fact that the water was so murky. Personally I don't really mind that I can't see anything, I do really enjoy open water swimming, even though lots of people definitely do not agree with my opinion on it. Soon enough the swim was off and I was thankful for this, as I was slowly getting hypothermia. I had got a good place on the start line so I tried my usual tac-tic of sprinting the first 100m, to try and avoid all the argy bargy. Thankfully this worked and I found myself with the few girls leading the swim. When we got to the far buoy I found myself in second but the woman in front was slowly getting away from me, so I tried to speed up and I caught up to her, so I decided to sit on her hip for the rest of the swim. I found myself coming out the swim in second, which I was pleased about. However my mum on the other hand wasn't expecting this, so her photos are a bit of a mess because she didn't expect me to come out of the water so near the front. It was a nice short 100m run up to transition, which gave me some time to get my wetsuit off and of course catch my breath too and get my legs working. My transition was a little slow but I was off on my bike just after the woman who came out the water first. There were lots of people leaving transition when I was, because all the waves were merging together at this point, which did help make it clearer to know where to go on the bike. After passing my swimming coach, who was volunteering at the event I made my way off out onto the course. The bike course went surprisingly quickly, considering this is the bit I least enjoy and always worry about the most. The fact that the event was so well marshalled made it so easy to know where I was going. I found myself getting overtaken on the down hills and I was overtaking them back up the hills. I think this is because I don't have much confidence going crazy quick on the downhills, so hopefully this is something I can improve on. As I came towards the transition area, I definitely thought I was meant to be dismounting 10m too early, which is why in this photo my legs are all over the place. After a quick drop off of my bike, I was off on the run course and my legs didn't feel that bad... okay not as bad as my last triathlon that is, they still felt like jelly. I have recently been doing lots of cycle then running training to try and get my legs used to getting off a bike and to start running. The run was all around the grounds of Hever which was so beautiful, however the first 1km was not pretty. This was just one long slog up a hill, not what my legs wanted. Once I made it to the top of this I started to pick up the pace and overtake people, which was a nice confidence boost. My last 200m I was pleased with because I could finish strong, even though my legs felt like logs by this point. The last 2km went surprisingly quickly, even though I kept looking out for the 3km sign but it never came, I was soon cheered on by the marshall saying, final sprint. Perhaps I just completely missed the '3km' sign. At the end I was offered a glass of coke and took it immediately as I had been told by so many people to drink coke after swimming in Hever Lake because otherwise you get sick. I then munched down my banana and then a mini soreen loaf, followed by a whole bottle of water.... oh and then some free water melon which was handed out, I also managed to get this all over me! Afterwards mum and I went for a walk around looking at all the stores, and I was keen to pop into the castle triathlon merchandise store and I came out with a finisher top! I then went to the timing tent, were I could print off my ticket with all my splits on. My final times were:
Swim (400m): 8:32 T1:1:38 Cycle (20km): 46:57 T2: 1:18 Run (4km): 18:57 Total: 1:17:22 It was called a super sprint but they didn't have the option of a sprint, so I went for this one, as it is only a bit shorter than a sprint. When I was looking at all the break downs afterwards, I saw that my swim was the second fastest overall, which I was really pleased with as my swim I have been working on a lot recently. However my bike time is in need of some improvement, compared to the rest of the top 10. I came 8th out of 346 women, and it is fair to say I am so chuffed with this result! The professional photographs aren't out yet, but when I get them, I will post them on twitter and instagram and add them onto this blog post. Love G x 6:00am my alarm rang and with tired eyes I made it downstairs to make my porridge. Last night I had a large bowl of carbonara followed by a large glass of strawberry milk, my typical pre race dinner. I had packed my bags the night before so all I had to do was get my bike in the car and we were off. It wasn't long before we reached the leisure centre and after setting up my transition area, as shown below, the whole crowd gathered together for a pre race briefing. The swim was split into waves and there were two in a lane and you just kept to your side, which was a bit of a squeeze, which meant you couldn't tumble turn. At 8:10am my wave started and I was off for my 16 lengths which I finished in 6:55, which is pretty slow but my swim had its problems, because my goggle kept letting water in so I think they must have a hole in. Once I jumped out the pool I made a speedy walk out the side door and then broke into a run once I was out the pool and made it to the transition area. With a quick transition I was off on my bike quickly and off out on to the course after a quick sip of lucozade. I haven't started to keep a water bottle on my bike yet, as I am a bit wobbly on my new bike with one hand, so I just try and rehydrate in the transitions. The bike ride was 25km but I started my watch a bit late so I wasn't sure how much further I had left for most of. The cycle ride was along lovely roads which were pretty hilly in parts but my new bike made it all so much easier. The route it is fair to say, was poorly marked with signs and marshalls and at one round about I circled it several times, then decided it must be the far point in which you head back from so I made my journey back to the leisure centre from there which was about 12km. The first km of my run was pretty slow because my legs felt like jelly and I thought they were going to collapse but the more I ran the more they realised that they were running and weren't on a bike anymore. The run was 5.3km and I did it in 25:20, which I was pleased with as my legs felt exhausted after the cycle. When I finally reached the end I was exhausted and happy to have finished. I was just so pleased that I made it around the whole course. After a short race they made a presentation for the top 3 men and woman and I was thrilled to have come second, I was so so happy. After a bit of stretching we then jumped back in the car and made our way home. My mood was so happy and I couldn't have been more pleased until I received an email from the organiser to say that I had left my helmet there and more importantly that he thinks I cut my course short... I was like what! After a conversation with him he said I should have carried on for half a mile more after the round about, which I circled many times. I was pretty angry at this because the course was badly marked and I had no idea which way to go. I had also previously looked at the course on google maps, but they had screens hotted such a blurry image of it, that it was hard to understand. I also felt pretty embarrassed as I had received my second prize trophy in front of everyone and actually I didn't deserve it. At this point you could think why do I keep trying triathlons as all it is doing is making me upset when things go wrong, but there is something which makes me want to keep doing them because I love them! Looking back at what has happened today at the triathlon, it makes me think that a lot of people went wrong on this turning because they only realised that I had gone wrong because someone told the organiser, I'm not sure how but he knew I had gone wrong. The official times have come out and I had a look and the person who officially came second now and she was 2.5mins slower than me and third was over 4 mins slower, which does give me some consolation that if I had just realised to do that extra bit of the cycle, I could have still got 2nd or 3rd, because it wouldn't have taken me long to do an extra mile.
Going on from this I am just going to get some more training in and book another triathlon for in September as I am still on a mission to complete one. I am sitting here writing this feeling pretty upset about todays triathlon because I couldn't be happier with the way I performed but I just wish they had had a few more marshals out on the bike course. It was the first time this triathlon has been run so hopefully next year that they will have picked up that the need more marshals as I would like to return to this course again next year. Onwards and Upwards, G x The day I booked into this Bewl Triathlon I was super excited for it so when it was the evening before it, I was sure to be filling up with lots of fuel. My dinner was a rather large portion of carbonara pasta, followed by a glass of strawberry milk and an energy bar. I packed my bag the night before as it was a 5:15am wake up in the morning. That night it took me a while to get to sleep as I found myself going through my transitions in my head. Soon enough I found myself on my way to Bewl water for the triathlon, I had had a light breakfast of some porridge and a bit of an energy bar at 5:20 but I did't want to eat much more as I didn't have that long to digest before the race. When I got there, I quickly picked up my race pack including my new Bewl top and it also came with a bright pink swimming cap, which I was rather pleased with. I then went down to the water for a warm up and the officials also announced wetsuits were optional but I decided to wear mine in the end and so did most people, because the water was pretty cold. Once I had got over the fact that the water was pretty murky, I worked out a good technic on swimming fast but also seeing were I am going, as open water in slightly different to lane swimming. After a quick last announcement, I walked up to the waters edge with the rest of the sprint tri women. We were soon told to get into the water and get to the start and before I knew it we were off. After swimming for what did feel like a long time in the water, I made it back to the shore and I was pretty happy with how the swim went. I aimed to get off fast to try and avoid the barging at the beginning. This was the first time I've swam open water and it was definitely a great experience, and I loved it! The run up from the reservoir to the transition was definitely longer than expected and one part was across a car park, which was just a little bit painful on my feet and not to mention that it was uphill... my favourite! I was really pleased with my first transition and I was quickly off on my bike. It wasn't far into my bike ride that I knew something wasn't right. Apart from the fact that everyone on their pro road race bikes were flying past me but something wasn't right, it felt like I was cycling really hard but moving no where. I couldn't work it out... then thats when my chain fell off. So, I quickly jumped off and sorted it out but I hadn't cycled far until it fell off again, so this time I walked it up to the marshals and they said they had sorted it out, so off I went again. At this point I had lost a considerable amount of places, but that didn't really bother me at this point, I wanted to get around this course. but when my chain fell off for the forth time, I knew something was wrong with my bike. I got off my bike and knew it was the end of my race and I would be lying if I said I didn't shed a tear. In the end me and my bike were put in a van and taken back to Bewl at this point I thought that I wouldn't be aloud to do the run and I was gutted and yes very emotional again. Suddenly I realised that I could go and do my run but at this point I was mentally in a bad place and the first 1km of my run was pretty bad because I was pretty upset but soon I told myself to get on with it. At half way I was in a much better place and even though I still look a little shaken in these photos, I felt good and I was in my rhythm and over taking people, even though it didn't matter at this point whether I over took people, but I still wanted to run my hardest and give it my best shot. The views across the reservoir when running along the dam were amazing and definitely helped me! The finish was definitely was a happy sight because it felt like I had been on an emotional rollercoaster but at the end I was sad but happy! Sad because I wanted to have completed each section of it but happy because I loved it and found it so much fun (excluding the fact I had to run with my bike for 5km to the man who took me back in the van, but I now think of it as I ran nearly 10km, so just some extra training). I have so much to take away from my first triathlon, things which went well and things which didn't go so well. I am so excited for my next triathlon as I think I have really found what I love and what I really want to be good at and train for! I really inspire to be like Gwen Jorgensen, not to mention because she is the favourite at winning the women's triathlon in Rio but because her strongest part is the run and she just chases down the field in her run and often goes on to win and this really truly inspires me because obviously running is my favourite part of the triathlon. I hope you have all had a great weekend, Love G x |
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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