Having been back home for 2 weeks since my race in Las Vegas, I decided to have a crack at the BSG Energade race held in Worcester in the Cape. My coach advised a layoff of 2 weeks for recovery and so entering a sprint distance race where the distance is short enough to give everything for an hour of intense racing was going to be interesting!
I was upgraded to race with the elites and so our distance was a little further than the rest of the field. This was my first race as an elite and I noticed the difference between athletes that train full time to race professionally and myself who works in the “real world” during the day. The event was held at the Brandvlei Dam in Worcester where on a good day, the weather plays a huge role.
Unfortunately the weather was really challenging with 40km head winds and heavy rain. The photo above was at the end of my race where it seems fairly pleasant, but the bike ride was anything but that!
I missed the main pack in T1 as I was 30 sec behind the elite group after the swim. I knew how tough it was going to be as I had no one to work with on the bike.
My cycling has got stronger over the last season and I managed to catch an athlete who had also dropped off the pack at the 7km mark. The two of us worked together for the rest of the bike but the initial catching up into severe winds had had an effect on my legs already!
In T2, I struggled with my running shoes and ended up 20 sec behind, this was to be the gap that I couldn’t close and so ended up 10th in elite out of 11 athletes. I was quite chuffed considering I had done no training for two weeks and look forward to the famous Jailbreak Triathlon at the same venue in two weeks time...
I was upgraded to race with the elites and so our distance was a little further than the rest of the field. This was my first race as an elite and I noticed the difference between athletes that train full time to race professionally and myself who works in the “real world” during the day. The event was held at the Brandvlei Dam in Worcester where on a good day, the weather plays a huge role.
Unfortunately the weather was really challenging with 40km head winds and heavy rain. The photo above was at the end of my race where it seems fairly pleasant, but the bike ride was anything but that!
I missed the main pack in T1 as I was 30 sec behind the elite group after the swim. I knew how tough it was going to be as I had no one to work with on the bike.
My cycling has got stronger over the last season and I managed to catch an athlete who had also dropped off the pack at the 7km mark. The two of us worked together for the rest of the bike but the initial catching up into severe winds had had an effect on my legs already!
In T2, I struggled with my running shoes and ended up 20 sec behind, this was to be the gap that I couldn’t close and so ended up 10th in elite out of 11 athletes. I was quite chuffed considering I had done no training for two weeks and look forward to the famous Jailbreak Triathlon at the same venue in two weeks time...
Hi Ben,
ReplyDeleteI was looking for info on the Jailbreak triathlon next weekend and came across your blog. Great stuff and great info you have here. I will make sure to stop by more often. Good luck net week at the Jailbreak.
http://roadtoironmandaddy.blogspot.co.uk/
Ahh... I just noticed you have My Training Day on your site! You guys are my local triathlon club in Tokai. :)
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