Luxembourg ETU junior cup

Raced my first international competition at the European junior cup in Echternach, Luxembourg, which was certainly a great experience. It was a non-wetsuit lake swim, technical 5 lap bike course around the lake and a two lap out and back run. I finished 10th which was disappointing, let down by a poor swim. I paid the price of not making the main pack out of the swim. However it is encouraging to see that if my swim was just 30secs quicker my race would be completely different.

I was a bit apprehensive about the waist deep dive start but surprisingly it went very well for me and I managed to stay at the front for about 100m or so. I hung on to the back of the pack until we reached the last buoy when I just lost touch with the group, I then lost 20secs in the last 200m of the swim. As a result I was on my own for the first lap of the bike with a lot of work to do until I caught 1 other rider and then another 2 at the end of the second lap. I tried to get them to work with me to make up some time on the lead pack who were working well together ahead but I ended up doing most of the work on the front. Hope they didn't mind me shouting shouting at them in English to work harder! Having towed them round I was NOT going to be pipped on the run, so pulled away from those 3 almost instantly on the run and managed to overtake one more but was eluded by the main pack.

All in all the experience was fantastic and I know what I need to work on. Its great to see British juniors performing so well in the European scene. Next up is British Junior Aquathlon champs at Hyde Park - no room for a slow swim there!

Roll on summer, time to clock up some serious mileage!