This year i have been really enjoying my running. I had a good spell of training which resulted in setting a new half marathon PB of 1:11:58 (Cambridge Half Marathon) and consistently going sub 16min for 5k. Running has been such a pleasure that i got slightly carried away and forgot that i had a full schedule of triathlon races this year!
I wanted to use the Monster Mojito as a much needed awakening of my triathlon season. It wasn't a very inspiring start with the weather on the morning of the race being so atrocious i was seriously considering the possibility of doing the bike in my wetsuit. I made the sensible decision to race on my training wheels. My race wheels (disc and tri spoke) may have been faster, but i was more worried about staying upright with all the water on the road.
Swimming…. I have been seriously neglecting my swimming, swim mojo just hasn't been there. I enjoy doing as much of my swim training in open water as i can, but this strategy does have some major weaknesses when living in ‘tropical’ Great Britain. The weather being the primary dictator of the temperature of open water and with me being a small, lean runner that lacks the ‘robustness’ of pure open water swimmers meant that the Monster Mojito swim was basically my first real swim of the year. Treading water on the start line i had nothing in my locker but hope and blind optimism that my body could still swim. Its turns out that 23min52sec is my default untrained swim speed.
The rest of the race was more promising. My bike power has started to return and once my legs had recovered from the swim ordeal and bike they carried me with speed and ease in the run. Giving away almost 5mins to the race winner (Thomas Davis) in the swim was going to be a very high hurdle to overcome. In the end i raced myself onto the podium placing 3rd overall.
On to the next training race Outlaw Half Nottingham. The half distance suits me far more than olympic, but even so i know i will be off the pace in this one. Im planning to be coming into form for Outlaw Holkham at the start of July. Just need to quickly bank some swimming miles if i want to stay in the race!
I wanted to use the Monster Mojito as a much needed awakening of my triathlon season. It wasn't a very inspiring start with the weather on the morning of the race being so atrocious i was seriously considering the possibility of doing the bike in my wetsuit. I made the sensible decision to race on my training wheels. My race wheels (disc and tri spoke) may have been faster, but i was more worried about staying upright with all the water on the road.
Swimming…. I have been seriously neglecting my swimming, swim mojo just hasn't been there. I enjoy doing as much of my swim training in open water as i can, but this strategy does have some major weaknesses when living in ‘tropical’ Great Britain. The weather being the primary dictator of the temperature of open water and with me being a small, lean runner that lacks the ‘robustness’ of pure open water swimmers meant that the Monster Mojito swim was basically my first real swim of the year. Treading water on the start line i had nothing in my locker but hope and blind optimism that my body could still swim. Its turns out that 23min52sec is my default untrained swim speed.
The rest of the race was more promising. My bike power has started to return and once my legs had recovered from the swim ordeal and bike they carried me with speed and ease in the run. Giving away almost 5mins to the race winner (Thomas Davis) in the swim was going to be a very high hurdle to overcome. In the end i raced myself onto the podium placing 3rd overall.
On to the next training race Outlaw Half Nottingham. The half distance suits me far more than olympic, but even so i know i will be off the pace in this one. Im planning to be coming into form for Outlaw Holkham at the start of July. Just need to quickly bank some swimming miles if i want to stay in the race!