This was my first time representing Great Britain and one of
my main target races this season so nerves were running high going into the
event.
After arriving late in the afternoon on Wednesday I had just
enough time to build my bike and register. Thursday was a busy day with an
early morning bike recce when the roads were quiet and I could take in the
climb and descent on the course. This was followed by some breakfast and the
team briefing which was informative but definitely added some pressure! It was
then time to rack my bike, remembering to deflate the tyres to make sure they
didn’t explode from the heat. I spent the rest of the day hugging shade and
jumping between Wimbledon and the Tour in my hotel room.
Race day came around quickly and it was set to be a hot one
from start to finish. With an 11:00 start time, the morning was relaxed with
time for a foam roll, some stretching and mobility work before breakfast, then
it was off to transition to get set-up and pump my tyres back up. This all went
quickly and smoothly but the sun was beating down already and I went in search
of some shade to get ready.
We were told to be at the race pens 30 minutes
before the start, so at 10:30 I was outside in my wetsuit and everyone was soon
cooking as we were ushered into a small penned area to wait till the start.
With 5 minutes to go we were moved along the pier towards the starting platform.
Unfortunately we weren’t allowed any warm-up time in the water and were made to
wait on the starting platform and then given a 30 second warning to wade waist
deep to the start line.
As soon as the horn went it was carnage. Arms and legs were
flying everywhere and I completely out of my comfort zone so it was just time
to put my head down, swim hard and hope for the best. Luckily I managed to stay
out of trouble and we were round the first buoy and into the main straight in
no time. The rest of the swim was more
of the same with arms, legs, choppy waters and current making it hard work and
relatively slow for all swimmers. I was
soon rounding the final buoy and heading for the huge blue carpeted bridge into
transition.
Transition was ~400m from the man-made bridge, which made
for a long run to my bike but I found it easily and had my wetsuit off and
helmet on in no time.
The bike course a made of 3 loops which incorporated some
minor inclines, one significant climb, a long decent with a sharp turn at the
bottom and a full dead turn. Once out on the bike I put my head down and focused
on getting my legs spinning! Riding on closed roads was great and made for one
less thing to worry about. The climb comes quickly on each lap and after
recceing it I wasn’t too worried but when you’re racing it’s a different story,
each lap I put a lot into the climb and it seemed to be paying off, I just
hoped my run legs would still be there! There was one scary moment when my
bottle, held between my aero bars bounced out on the decent at 40+mph; somehow
I managed to catch the bottle mid fall before it went straight under my front
wheel and would have probably led to a serious problem. It was really hard to
tell how I was doing on the bike because each lap brought more waves of
athletes onto the course but I wasn’t too concerned and was just focusing on my
race. I chose not to use any bike computer or watch for the race because I didn’t
want the distraction and was hoping to be racing for position. I knew that if
someone was in front of me I just had to go harder regardless of time.
I was soon onto my final lap and heading back to transition
which was another long run to my rack.
I usually like to attack the run hard from the start but out
of transition it was straight into a 1km dragging hill which really sapped my
legs and left me unsure how I was going to cope with the rest of the run. The
course then led into a park, and the sharp turns of the route constantly upset
any kind of rhythm. The heat was relentless and it was clear some athletes were
struggling. Although I was hot and suffering I wasn’t experiencing any ill
effect directly from the heat and was just doing what I could working my way up
the field passing athlete after athlete. After my second lap I took the turn
down to the finish which was an 800m a tunnel of supporters cheering which gave
me a final boost and kept me going strong, although I wasn’t able to catch the
athlete 100m down the road I soaked up the atmosphere and absolutely loved that
final stretch. Turning onto the finishing carpet I was overwhelmed by what I’d
just been through and the incredible journey that had brought me here, I
crossed the line still unsure of my position or performance I was just happy to
of been there and got through it all.
It soon dawned on me that very few athletes had finished ahead
of me and a number of spectators told me I was the first British athlete to
finish. My mind was running and I really wanted to find out the result but they
weren’t being printed until the last athlete finished! Luckily I found the team
manager who had access to the results on which were live online.
To my absolute disbelief the results read that I was 2nd!
I couldn’t quite believe what I was reading and was overwhelmed by emotion.
This was my best result to date and more than I was hoping for, the icing on
the cake came later when I found out that I had set the fastest British time of
the event and the 6th fastest time overall!
Later that day I attended the medal ceremony which was
another amazing and new experience, wearing my Great Britain tracksuit, draped
in a British flag and stood on a real podium felt distinctly different to my
previous experiences where I’ve stood in wet and cold field waiting for someone
to read out the results.
I had the most incredible experience and one that I will
remember for years to come. Although I am really pleased with my result and it
is by far my greatest achievement to date, I know that there is still plenty of
room for improvement and I plan to do exactly that! I’m already back training
hard and working to do one better next time.
