2016 Season in full Swing
The past month has been a very busy one and with my tri season in full swing and exams fast approaching, its flown by! Heres what I've been up to the past few weeks;
Performance assessment weekend
On the 16th/17th April I participated in the British Triathlon Performance assessment in loughborough. The weekend consisted of an 800m swim trial on the Saturday followed by a bike-run trial on the Sunday.
On Saturday afternoon, Angus (my boyfriend) and I headed to Welbeck Defence College for my 800m swim trial, the warm up was a 25m sprint then climb out walk back which is nothing like the swim warm ups I'm used to! The trials were done in heats of 12 with two swimming in each lane, the whistle went and everyone sprinted to the other end forgetting they had another 775m to swim but not long after that I got into a rhythm and swam a 10.57 for 800m, a little off my swimming pb, however that was expected with the conditions and I held my head up high ready for the second part of the trials the following day.
The bike-run trials were held at Prestwold racing circuit on the Sunday afternoon, after finishing 13th in the swim trials I was in a decent start position. For the bike-run trial we all had to line up around 100m from the transition in speed order from the swim trial, there was a timer going and as soon as your swim time came on the timer you started the race. After transition it was a 20km bike as 8 2.5km laps around the circuit, then a 2 lap 5km run. However if you got caught by the lead cyclist on the bike you had the go into a lap out group at the end of the bike who followed found the course at a steady speed before then getting to carry on with the run.
I lined up 13th and as soon as my swim time came off I sprinted to transition where I managed to make my first mistake of the race by putting on the wrong helmet, only I could do that haha! This cost valuable time and was not the speedy transition I was hoping for. I then got on my bike and pushed to try and find a group to work with, not being used to group riding I found this harder than I was expecting and it took me until the 4th lap to find a group of 3 other girls to latch onto. We were still in the top 25 girls riding but on our 7th lap we just got lapped by the lead cyclist and got told to pull to the side, we waited for over 4 minutes confused as to what was going on but as we saw the lap out group we followed behind. It was upsetting to then see the lap out group go straight into transition and start running before we had made it back, some of which had only done 5 bike laps but as we didn't have timing chips there was no recognition of who had done what. Frustrated and annoyed, two of the girls I was riding with didn't even bother to run but not liking to stop mid race I decided to do the run. It was an unfair trial and didn't reflect my ability.
After putting the trials behind me I completed a hard week of training and to my surprise I received an email from British Triathlon saying I'd made the super series :) This was good news, all I have to do now is up my training even more to prepare.
Aix-en-Provence
On the 25th April Angus and I flew to Marseille in the south of France after a very early start of 1.45am. When we arrived in Marseille we then got on a bus to travel to Aix-en-Provence, it was lovely and sunny on arrival but very chilly in the wind so was glad I packed my coat in the end.
We stayed in a small apartment in the centre of Aix-en-Provence which was very ideal being less than a mile from the finish for Angus' Ironman 70.3 on Sunday 1st May.
For the first day we got unpacked and looked around the area as well as doing a food shop for the week. We enjoyed an evening in with an unhealthy meal after lots of walking, and with a crepe shop not far from the apartment we couldn't resist a little holiday treat :)
On the Tuesday Angus went on a bike course recce to check out the route so I took the opportunity to stay in and do some maths revision. When Angus got back it looked like it had been a very eventful ride, he lost his drink so was very dehydrated, had blood all over his face from a nose bleed and then had lost his front brake pad. Not a great start to the holiday as we spent the afternoon looking for some new brake pads before coming back and making tea.
Wednesday we decided to spend the day in Peyrolles-en-Provence at the lake where Angus will swim on Sunday for his Ironman 70.3, it was a beautiful lake and a gorgeous sunny day, and I was very excited to try my new Zone3 vanquish wetsuit which Angus had bought for me at christmas. I was surprised by the flexibly of the suit and how fast it was in the water, definitely a good present :) Thanks Angus for spoiling me as usual, haha! After a lovely swim and picnic by the lake we headed back to Aix-en-Provence for an evening run :)
The next day I planned on hiring a bike from a local road bike hire shop in Aix-en-Provence but when we arrived at 9am the smallest bike available for hire was a 56cm frame, which is a bit too big considering I ride a 49cm frame normally. Unfortunately we couldn't find another bike hire shop in the area so I went back to the apartment to revise while Angus went out on his bike. As soon as Angus got back we decided to make the most of the sun and take a picnic to the local park. A lovely relaxing evening before we went out for a meal at a local restaurant.
When we woke up on Friday the weather was the best it had been all week so we packed up our swim kit and some lunch and spent the whole day at Lac de Peyrolles. After a bit of sunbathing we went into the lake to cool off and do a bit of racing against each other as usual.
Soon race day arrived for Angus! I was up just before 5am to wish Angus good luck before he left to catch the bus to the swim start. When Angus left I got my breakfast and put the live blog of the race start on our Laptop as I was unable to go and watch it.
Unfortunately the swim got cancelled with the air temperature being too cold which wasn't good news for Angus with him being a strong open water swimmer. Not knowing what was happening I kept looking out on the Ironman race live feed for any updates and finally the pros were off at 8 starting with a time trial start on the bike. I kept a look out on live tracking as I had no idea now when Angus would be starting so flicking between the live blog and the live tracking I looked out for any indication as to where he was. At around 9:30 the live tracking had got a time for Angus' first 30km on the bike which was good so I knew that I should head out of the apartment to find a good place to watch Angus come in off the bike. I found a good spot and sat at the side of the road and just after 10am the first pros were going past so I watched them whiz by as I kept refreshing the live tracking on Angus' phone.
...12:00pm... no sign of Angus and no more times clocked on live tracking. As lots of bikes kept going past I started to get worried as I knew Angus should have come past ages ago even on a bad bike day he wouldn't be this slow...
...1:00pm... still no Angus. I was getting very worried now as several Ambulances had gone past and I knew Angus wouldn't stop unless he had no choice...
...2:00pm... as the last few cyclists were going past now I had no idea where Angus was or what had happened and being the worrier I am all I could think of was the worst. I had a teary phone call with my parents but they managed to calm me down and told me to go and find an English Speaking Marshall.
3 Marshalls later and I found one who spoke English, he could see how worried I was so did everything he could to calm me down but couldn't seem to locate Angus. However he did clarify that Angus wasn't one of the athletes taken to Hospital so that did calm me down a lot. I went to the spot where I'd said to meet Angus after the race and he'd just got there the same time as me with a very flat disc wheel and an angry look on his face I was upset for him but at the same time so relived he was okay.
To read more about the event, check out Angus' blog - https://angussmithtriathlon.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/70-3-aix-en-provence/ - Its a great read!
British Sprint Triathlon Championships
After missing a week of training out in France this wasn't ideal with British Sprint Championships being only two weeks away and then a month until European Championships in Lisbon. Trying to make up for any lost time I had a good two weeks training and even treated my bike to a service at Cycle Mode in Grimsby. Great local shop now with a cafe, would highly recommend them to anyone in the Lincolnshire area!
Soon Sunday 15th May arrived and Angus woke me up at 4am to breakfast in bed which made getting up so early slightly better. After eating my porridge I got ready and my stuff loaded into the car ready to head to Milton Keynes.
When we arrived I registered and set up my transition and got my race nutrition sorted. A 500ml bottle with a Zero tab on my bike, a Energy gel taped to my top tube to have at about 15km on the bike and a IsoGel Xtreme 20 minutes before the swim. Thank you to High5 for your support and fuelling me through every race and training session!
With everything all set I headed to the swim start to get on my Zone3 Vanquish and wait for the race briefing.
At 8.40 the horn sounded for the swim start and everyone seemed to be all over the place with people still warming up fair out and some people only just getting in the lake. I was annoyed not to be in a good place for the start of the swim and a lesson was definitely learnt - In the future I must get in the water first to get in a good place for the swim start with it being my best discipline.
After swimming round people for the first half of the swim I'd just got into a good rhythm when I got to the second buoy to have someone place both their hands on my shoulders push me under and use me to push themselves forwards at the same time I was taking a breath, after a mouthful of lake water I brought back up my breakfast as I was sick in the lake. Definitely not used to the ways of open water swimming yet. After treading water for a bit I swam the rest of the swim as fast as I could, still managing to come out in the top 20 but knew it wasn't going to be a fast time for me.
Putting the swim behind me I was still determined to give it all on the bike and run, the race was far from over yet! I had a good first half of the bike averaging over 20mph but seemed to slow slightly on the second half as I struggled to maintain it, probably due to lack of fitness currently.
After working on my run form a lot lately I was interested to see how fast my run was going to be and knowing it was a long run my aim was to beat my time from 2014 when I did the same course.
I was glad to see the finish line after the end of the second lap but felt disappointed with how the race had turned out in the end.
After racing I am very good at just looking at the negatives from the race and ignoring the positives but Angus always reminds me that there is always positives to come from a race. Being positive and looking at what went well and what went wrong is something I need to start doing after competing.
Positives and Negatives from British Sprint Championships:
Positives:
Looking back at what I thought were the negative aspects of the race they are mainly down to not being back at my full fitness yet and down to my lack of winter training form being ill for 3 months. I can use my disappointment from the race to train harder to get to where I want to be. I am improving but there is still lots of work to be done. Looking at my 5km run alone I couldn't run a whole 5km without stopping and walking in February, then in March I ran a 24 minute 5km at Clumber Park Duathlon and a 23 minute 5km at East Leake Triathlon to a 22 minute 5km time currently. Every run I have got faster and I will continue to work hard to knock off time until I can get back to running a sub 20 minute 5km.
I just want to end my blog by saying a massive thank you to everyone who supports me. Recently I've had a lot of people knock my confidence and bring me down but the people who back me have been there to support me and motivate me onto the next step of my journey. (Special mention to my best friend Sam Adamson for all your support and motivation from the very start on my triathlon journey and onwards - Thank you!)
Thanks for reading :) - Keep an eye out for my next blog about European Championships in Lisbon which will be posted this week!
Emily Patch
I lined up 13th and as soon as my swim time came off I sprinted to transition where I managed to make my first mistake of the race by putting on the wrong helmet, only I could do that haha! This cost valuable time and was not the speedy transition I was hoping for. I then got on my bike and pushed to try and find a group to work with, not being used to group riding I found this harder than I was expecting and it took me until the 4th lap to find a group of 3 other girls to latch onto. We were still in the top 25 girls riding but on our 7th lap we just got lapped by the lead cyclist and got told to pull to the side, we waited for over 4 minutes confused as to what was going on but as we saw the lap out group we followed behind. It was upsetting to then see the lap out group go straight into transition and start running before we had made it back, some of which had only done 5 bike laps but as we didn't have timing chips there was no recognition of who had done what. Frustrated and annoyed, two of the girls I was riding with didn't even bother to run but not liking to stop mid race I decided to do the run. It was an unfair trial and didn't reflect my ability.
After putting the trials behind me I completed a hard week of training and to my surprise I received an email from British Triathlon saying I'd made the super series :) This was good news, all I have to do now is up my training even more to prepare.
Aix-en-Provence
On the 25th April Angus and I flew to Marseille in the south of France after a very early start of 1.45am. When we arrived in Marseille we then got on a bus to travel to Aix-en-Provence, it was lovely and sunny on arrival but very chilly in the wind so was glad I packed my coat in the end.
On the Tuesday Angus went on a bike course recce to check out the route so I took the opportunity to stay in and do some maths revision. When Angus got back it looked like it had been a very eventful ride, he lost his drink so was very dehydrated, had blood all over his face from a nose bleed and then had lost his front brake pad. Not a great start to the holiday as we spent the afternoon looking for some new brake pads before coming back and making tea.
Wednesday we decided to spend the day in Peyrolles-en-Provence at the lake where Angus will swim on Sunday for his Ironman 70.3, it was a beautiful lake and a gorgeous sunny day, and I was very excited to try my new Zone3 vanquish wetsuit which Angus had bought for me at christmas. I was surprised by the flexibly of the suit and how fast it was in the water, definitely a good present :) Thanks Angus for spoiling me as usual, haha! After a lovely swim and picnic by the lake we headed back to Aix-en-Provence for an evening run :)
Unfortunately the swim got cancelled with the air temperature being too cold which wasn't good news for Angus with him being a strong open water swimmer. Not knowing what was happening I kept looking out on the Ironman race live feed for any updates and finally the pros were off at 8 starting with a time trial start on the bike. I kept a look out on live tracking as I had no idea now when Angus would be starting so flicking between the live blog and the live tracking I looked out for any indication as to where he was. At around 9:30 the live tracking had got a time for Angus' first 30km on the bike which was good so I knew that I should head out of the apartment to find a good place to watch Angus come in off the bike. I found a good spot and sat at the side of the road and just after 10am the first pros were going past so I watched them whiz by as I kept refreshing the live tracking on Angus' phone.
...12:00pm... no sign of Angus and no more times clocked on live tracking. As lots of bikes kept going past I started to get worried as I knew Angus should have come past ages ago even on a bad bike day he wouldn't be this slow...
...1:00pm... still no Angus. I was getting very worried now as several Ambulances had gone past and I knew Angus wouldn't stop unless he had no choice...
...2:00pm... as the last few cyclists were going past now I had no idea where Angus was or what had happened and being the worrier I am all I could think of was the worst. I had a teary phone call with my parents but they managed to calm me down and told me to go and find an English Speaking Marshall.
3 Marshalls later and I found one who spoke English, he could see how worried I was so did everything he could to calm me down but couldn't seem to locate Angus. However he did clarify that Angus wasn't one of the athletes taken to Hospital so that did calm me down a lot. I went to the spot where I'd said to meet Angus after the race and he'd just got there the same time as me with a very flat disc wheel and an angry look on his face I was upset for him but at the same time so relived he was okay.
To read more about the event, check out Angus' blog - https://angussmithtriathlon.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/70-3-aix-en-provence/ - Its a great read!
British Sprint Triathlon Championships
After missing a week of training out in France this wasn't ideal with British Sprint Championships being only two weeks away and then a month until European Championships in Lisbon. Trying to make up for any lost time I had a good two weeks training and even treated my bike to a service at Cycle Mode in Grimsby. Great local shop now with a cafe, would highly recommend them to anyone in the Lincolnshire area!
Soon Sunday 15th May arrived and Angus woke me up at 4am to breakfast in bed which made getting up so early slightly better. After eating my porridge I got ready and my stuff loaded into the car ready to head to Milton Keynes.
When we arrived I registered and set up my transition and got my race nutrition sorted. A 500ml bottle with a Zero tab on my bike, a Energy gel taped to my top tube to have at about 15km on the bike and a IsoGel Xtreme 20 minutes before the swim. Thank you to High5 for your support and fuelling me through every race and training session!
With everything all set I headed to the swim start to get on my Zone3 Vanquish and wait for the race briefing.
At 8.40 the horn sounded for the swim start and everyone seemed to be all over the place with people still warming up fair out and some people only just getting in the lake. I was annoyed not to be in a good place for the start of the swim and a lesson was definitely learnt - In the future I must get in the water first to get in a good place for the swim start with it being my best discipline.
After swimming round people for the first half of the swim I'd just got into a good rhythm when I got to the second buoy to have someone place both their hands on my shoulders push me under and use me to push themselves forwards at the same time I was taking a breath, after a mouthful of lake water I brought back up my breakfast as I was sick in the lake. Definitely not used to the ways of open water swimming yet. After treading water for a bit I swam the rest of the swim as fast as I could, still managing to come out in the top 20 but knew it wasn't going to be a fast time for me.
Putting the swim behind me I was still determined to give it all on the bike and run, the race was far from over yet! I had a good first half of the bike averaging over 20mph but seemed to slow slightly on the second half as I struggled to maintain it, probably due to lack of fitness currently.
I was glad to see the finish line after the end of the second lap but felt disappointed with how the race had turned out in the end.
After racing I am very good at just looking at the negatives from the race and ignoring the positives but Angus always reminds me that there is always positives to come from a race. Being positive and looking at what went well and what went wrong is something I need to start doing after competing.
Positives and Negatives from British Sprint Championships:
Positives:
- I ran over 1 minute faster than I did in 2014
- I beat my overall time from 2014 by over 2 minutes
- My bike split was 1 minute faster from 2014
- Big improvements in my run form
- ...
Negatives:
- Slower swim than 2014
- Didn't get a medal (one of my aims for the race)
- still not hitting up pb times from last year
- Not as fast a time as I was aiming for overall
- ...
Looking back at what I thought were the negative aspects of the race they are mainly down to not being back at my full fitness yet and down to my lack of winter training form being ill for 3 months. I can use my disappointment from the race to train harder to get to where I want to be. I am improving but there is still lots of work to be done. Looking at my 5km run alone I couldn't run a whole 5km without stopping and walking in February, then in March I ran a 24 minute 5km at Clumber Park Duathlon and a 23 minute 5km at East Leake Triathlon to a 22 minute 5km time currently. Every run I have got faster and I will continue to work hard to knock off time until I can get back to running a sub 20 minute 5km.
I just want to end my blog by saying a massive thank you to everyone who supports me. Recently I've had a lot of people knock my confidence and bring me down but the people who back me have been there to support me and motivate me onto the next step of my journey. (Special mention to my best friend Sam Adamson for all your support and motivation from the very start on my triathlon journey and onwards - Thank you!)
Thanks for reading :) - Keep an eye out for my next blog about European Championships in Lisbon which will be posted this week!
Emily Patch
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