ETU Junior European Cup - Vierzon

It's been quite a drag up to my first triathlon of the season. I started my season off end of March in the British Duathlon... But now the season has truly kicked off for me.

To start my tri season I headed to Vierzon, France for the ETU Junior European Cup.

I travelled down with other athletes... which for me was a 19 hour journey from home to the hotel! Talk about shattered! Not to worry though, I had good lie in on the Saturday morning. Saturday was the course familiarisation and briefing. I headed out with my friends and did 3 laps of the bike course to get a good feel of it and to notice the more technical parts of the course. The bike had a slight hill for around 200m then the rest was a bit twisty turny and one 90 degree turn. I then did an easy run which was around the run course. The run had one quite huge hill in it, which you ran up twice. I didn't really mind the hill, it was quite nice to have something different to a flat course. To finish I did a swim recce, I looked along the pontoon to where I thought the best place to start. The swim was literally all one straight line to the other side of the river. I did a quick wetsuit change at the other end and then that was my course familiarisation done for the day. We had our briefing and got out race packs then it was time to get a good rest before the big day.

The morning of the race I was actually really, really nervous! I don't usually get big nerves, I put it down to it being the first race, just wanting to get it out of the way in the best way possible!

I was number 5, this gave me a good choice when being called out on to the pontoon of where I wanted to start. It was raining before the race and the winds were quite high, the current was going to be against us during the race.
Everyone had lined up on the pontoon and at this point I was suddenly calm and relaxed, even the heart beat didn't make me nervous! Now the funny part:

As the women said 'on your marks' usually the hooter is quite long and loud. In the briefing they said if there was a false start, depending on how many people false started, would depend on if they restarted the race. In the race, the hooter was really quiet and short, because of this, I was the only one left on the pontoon when everyone else started the race. I heard someone say false start but I was so confused, I watched my race dive in and I was just a spectator on the pontoon. Someone had false started but because it was only a few people the race carried on. So, whilst stood there like a bit of a lemon when my race had well and truly got under way, I just had to dive in and do what I do best; which is the swim! I literally dodged my way through the field and after a blistering 150m, I found myself at the front and pushing the pace... I think I was so scared of not making the pack from being left behind so early in the race!
I was out of the water first, and out of T1 3rd. For the first lap I worked with a french athlete which was good, but it wasn't holding the chase pack of 12 behind off. We got caught after the first lap of 5km and then we stayed together for the rest of the race. For the hill, I lead twice so I could take it at my own pace and to stay out of trouble! The ground was wet so this just made me extra cautious, especially when athletes to my left went down on a corner!
Going into T2 I felt quite good and for the duration of the run I genuinely felt okay, I just got in to a slow rhythm which I couldn't get myself out of. I had a few stitches but you just have to run through them which I tried to. In to the last 300m I literally flew in to the finish, not realising how much I had in reserve and finished in 9th place.

I was happy with my result. I didn't expect much from my run, however, even though you get told not to, I had the 'what if' in my head of if I'd just picked my rhythm up like I did for the last bit.
I got a top 10 which I can't complain with for my first race of the season and I will take the positives in to my next race and work on my negatives... and actually start instead of being an up close spectator!

Well done to Megan who did ace and finished 7th! great work on the bike and strong running.

I would like to thank Blueseventy for the support of my new wetsuit... really worked a treat for me!!

Next race for me is the Aquathlon held at Hyde Park.

Update soon

Leah x