Sunday, May 29, 2016

Lisbon European Standard Triathlon Championships 2016

What a day it has been! A 5am start with a brilliant breakfast service laid on by Ibis hotels. Transition stocked, yoga with a German lady and a heron looking on by the Targus River. Had a chat with the lovely Louise Minchin from off of the TV before the start but I didn't realise at first who she was so we talked about wee. Dropped off the back of the swim but fought to stay with some feet all the way to around 1300m then powered through cold-hands to only be caught by the first of the MV40 wave behind with 50m to go. Unfortunately, he thought it a good idea to drag me under by the ankle! That wasn't going to take the shine off my 31:56 time (I thought 33 was realistic). Successfully onto the bike and over the speed humps though my saddle bag was dangling like a muppet but securely attached so I kept going. The hill on the bike course was brutal - like the Rivelin valley but 1500m and more exposed. The descent of the motorway the other side was to dream for so I set about pissing off guys by passing them back on the downhill. 2 laps of that at 18.2 mph average. Clearly the bike legs are behind! Then the run which hurt like hell but should have, given that my dream target was 7 miles an hour and I PB'd at 45:53 (8.3mph average) all confusion brought on by loss of satellite reception every time we went through the stadium making me push myself to achieve some theoretical line in the sand drawn last week. Thank you Portugal, Thank you Lisbon, Thank you medics, police, officials, marshals, water-giving-out people. Thank you team GB, Dawn and Nick and most of all Andrew Rodgers who ran around after me all week and the friends and family of complete strangers who kept me going through the toughest run I've done yet. All that with a cold!

Position - 176 / 224.women
23/29 FV40s

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