English
Yay! My favourite race of the year !- The British National Aquathlon Champs takes place at Parc Bryn Bach near Tredeagar in Wales. It was the same course as last year so I felt that I was pretty familiar with it, maybe that was my mistake?
The deep water start is quite magic – floating in the lake waiting between the islands is a lovely experience.
The Temperature in the lake was 15 degrees this year – two degrees colder than last year, which meant I could wear my new Aquasphere Ironman Wracer Pro wetsuit – which is awesome and so comfortable to swim in! My race, the Youth Girls was the second race of the day which started just two minutes after the boys. The swim was a 500m loop around a small island in the lake…. followed by a 2.5 km run on the lakeside track.
I got a good start and came out of the swim 4th but managed to pull back two places by the time I left transition! ;-) Transition went well and I found the Velcro ‘keeper’ pad on the back of the wetsuit very handy as sometimes I find it hard to find the tag to pull the wetsuit zip undone. I shed it smoothly without incident this time.
The run was quite undulating in parts but I managed to gradually overtake the two girls in front of me as they wilted around the 1km point. I couldn’t believe I was leading! I got a bit excited so I had to tell myself to focus and keep a rhythm to my running as I still had another 1.5k to go. At the turn around point I found a hill that I’d forgotten about and was over taken there, but luckily the trailing athlete was about 20m behind me and I managed to keep the gap – eventually finishing 2nd. Note to self: Walking the course is a good idea !
Funnily the mother of the winner is my brother’s God mother who we haven’t seen for ages ! So it didn’t feel too bad adding another chunky silver medal to my collection – and on the podium it was Wales, England and Scotland – result ! The medals were presented by local girl Helen Jenkins (nee Tucker) – 2008 ITU World Champion and we were surrounded by the press – paparazzi?
I stayed on to see the Corus Elite Women’s race, and got to see Wiggle Team Mate Emma-Kate Lidburyin action: though not to chat with. Unfortunately we had to shoot off home after that so I didn’t get to see the Men’s race: they were very impressive last year. I think we may be on TV next week: though I imagine that the seniors will probably get all the coverage – I’ll catch the Men’s race then (set the video now)! This is still my favourite event at the moment: just a pity the weather wasn’t as glorious as last year – but at least it didn’t rain, and I didn’t get sun burnt like last year!