National Champion
I won my first national title this weekend, the National Middle Distance Championships in Bala North Wales.
The lake was very cold and my feet went numb but I had a good 2km swim coming out 2nd right behind Richard Jones, the 2 of us stayed together for the whole 78.5km bike with Andy Blow not far behind in 3rd. I got a bit of a gap on Richard through transition 2 but he soon caught me and went past at which point I thought, "hey he's running well!" and so was quite worried. I stuck with him and then took to the front after about 3miles of the run but Richard was right with me. At the turn around at half way I dug in and put a good gap between Richard and myself on the long downhill but I could see Andy was not far behind. I was running scared all the way back to the finish (last year I was winning until 2 miles to go so was worried about the same thing happening), I didn't look back and just kept running hard and was so pleased to see the finish and at last give a victory salute for a National Championship. What a great feeling. From Youth triathlons, duathlons, Junior Cyclo Cross races, road races and mountain bike races I've been close to a national championship including silver and bronze medals so it was really satisfying to win a Senior Elite National Championship.
In the end I ran 4mins quicker than anybody else, and broke the old course record by about 7mins! So was over the moon with how the race went in all.
I celebrated with a Sausage sandwich and a Mr whippy Ice cream, mmmm mmmmm mmmm!
I do know that to get up there in the World Champs I'm gonna have to get quicker on the bike but that will come with so more hard training.
Next weekend is the national Dualthlon Champs, then Windsor the weekend after.
The lake was very cold and my feet went numb but I had a good 2km swim coming out 2nd right behind Richard Jones, the 2 of us stayed together for the whole 78.5km bike with Andy Blow not far behind in 3rd. I got a bit of a gap on Richard through transition 2 but he soon caught me and went past at which point I thought, "hey he's running well!" and so was quite worried. I stuck with him and then took to the front after about 3miles of the run but Richard was right with me. At the turn around at half way I dug in and put a good gap between Richard and myself on the long downhill but I could see Andy was not far behind. I was running scared all the way back to the finish (last year I was winning until 2 miles to go so was worried about the same thing happening), I didn't look back and just kept running hard and was so pleased to see the finish and at last give a victory salute for a National Championship. What a great feeling. From Youth triathlons, duathlons, Junior Cyclo Cross races, road races and mountain bike races I've been close to a national championship including silver and bronze medals so it was really satisfying to win a Senior Elite National Championship.
In the end I ran 4mins quicker than anybody else, and broke the old course record by about 7mins! So was over the moon with how the race went in all.
I celebrated with a Sausage sandwich and a Mr whippy Ice cream, mmmm mmmmm mmmm!
I do know that to get up there in the World Champs I'm gonna have to get quicker on the bike but that will come with so more hard training.
Next weekend is the national Dualthlon Champs, then Windsor the weekend after.
posted by Stephen at 10:28 AM
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