British Champs

 Hallelujah! Finally a result to make me smile. This year the Blenheim triathlon doubled up as the British Youth and Junior triathlon champs and I'm pleased to say I came 5th junior, 8th overall. After a bit of a bleak winter I was so pleased to be able to deliver a good performance when its really needed, in my first elite race of the year. As always it wasn't  perfect and there are several obvious areas for improvement.

 The swim was the usual brutal mash up but I managed to exit in a time I was pleased with, enabling me to make the chase pack out of T1. With Jodie Stimpson leading the front pack we had our work cut out and never really closed the gap. In my mind this was because despite being a decent sized group we couldn't get everyone to work together and it was left to just a few of us to tow the group around. I made a few hopeless attempts to get a breakaway but obviously need to learn how to crack this. I led the chase pack out of T2 but was quickly overtaken by Maddy Winzer and Sophia Saller. I was neck and neck with Emily Mcloughlin for most of the run but managed to pull away on the second lap to secure 5th Junior in a time of 1.10.55.

It was great to see Jodie Stimpson put her Olympic disappointment to one side to pull out another powerful performance, winning in a time of 1.06.12.

I managed to continue my form through the week with a strong performance at the Lotus cycle race league on Wednesday evening and then again on Saturday at the Fritton lake sprint triathlon which was the Eastern Region Junior championships. Fellow HPU race team member Connor Delaney and I took both the male and female titles. I came in with over a 7minute lead on the next women and chicked the entire male field except Connor who beat me by 4seconds! The women were set off first which meant I had the novel experience of leading out of the swim and throughout the race. Its good to know I can deliver after a tough week and I'm just loving being back on the race scene!

British Age group sprint triathlon champs

Started the season with the British sprint champs at Emberton Park. The first race is always a bit of a wake up call and Im glad to have it in the bag. There's nothing like racing to really give you a measure of where you are really at and what you need to do.

 I came 5th overall with a time of 1.06.30, 1min, 3seconds behind 1st place. My swim was slow, it was a real vicious mash up and my goggles where knocked off. I recovered to exit the water in second but I wasn't happy with my time. A quick T1 enabled me to grab a small lead heading out onto the bike which was a nice 1 lap loop in the undulating Buckinghamshire countryside. I put my head down but didn't seem to be able to really get into a good pace. I was caught by about 4 chasers about 1mile from the bike finish and we stayed in close contention heading into T2. I manage to open up another small lead through T2 but then really struggled to settle in to the first lap of the run. I was overtaken by 4 women on the first lap before I settled into a slightly quicker pace and manged to maintain my position.

It was an okayish result but really not where I wanted to be. There are some clear lessons to take away, most obviously about getting my run speed up.