Blog
World Cross-Tri Champs, Sardinia
4th Oct 2015
I enjoyed my first Elite World Champs - awesome being part of Elite Team GB with Jacqui, Llewellyn & Rory - and knowing BTF was supporting us here!
I had a pretty good race to finish 15th, despite a few mistakes and my first ever penalty (for an untidy transition area)!
I had a great build up to the race getting to the venue early with plenty of time to acclimatise and get over the journey. The bike route was not a course you could really benefit from riding dozens of times, so I made the most of additional rest, practicing the sea swim, and hanging out with friends from the British team as well as my Aloha Racing teammates.
Before we knew it, race day arrived! It was fun doing the call-up where all our names were announced and we each ran forward to choose a space on the starting mat.
My biggest concern before the race was the swim start and exit (which had to be done twice for a 2-lap swim). The sea was quite shallow for a long way - a depth of only 2 feet for maybe 100m out. Too deep to easily run, too shallow to swim, but too exhausting to dolphin dive the whole way at race intensity. Even lined up for the start, I wasn't sure what strategy I was going to use, I would just see what everyone else did!
It was probably inevitable, I didn't have a great start, some of the others seemed much better at running / diving through the water! The girls I can swim with on a good day got away; I was in no-mans land with no-one to draft, and I made things worse in the Australian exit by getting confused which way to run for lap 2! In the heat of competition, it's these small parts of the course you can't practise (as they are not set up) where you can mess up!
Anyhow, by running the wrong way, I was caught by the entire Swiss team who were swimming together just behind. Maybe this wasn't a bad thing as I could settle in with my good friends Karin & Renata to draft the second lap.
I felt great heading out on the bike, having saved all that energy by drafting, but I was a minute down on where I wanted to be. Soon I started passing lots of girls, which is unusual for me - but a nice change! On the second lap I had to do a double-take when I saw Kathrin Mueller - the defending champion - just ahead. I heard she was not well, having just finished a 5-day adventure race in China followed by the long journey and jetlag to get here - it may be the only time I will be captured in the same photo with Kathrin during a race! (If only I could find that photo online!) But great credit to her for fighting to the end - a true champion.
I enjoyed the bike course more than expected, especially the bridge crossing, and the final technical climb which was lined with spectators shouting encouragement! That was a tough climb - especially second time round, but I was determined not to put a foot down in front of an audience ;)
The only bits I didn't like were the two long hike-a-bike sections. It's not that fun carrying instead of riding, nor something I really practise at home! Maybe why I lose too much time. Kathrin finally pulled away from me at the 'wall of tears', then I dropped my chain on the descent, allowing Betta to close the gap while I stopped to fix it (the boys at Mountain Trax think I'm 'riding the sh*t out of a hardtail' to rattle the chain off - but I guess that's progress on my descending!).
After a good bike, T2 was not the best part of my race! I couldn't get one of my shoes off when the ratchet got stuck, and then I had to do my run shoes slowly to avoid aggravating any cramp. All the time I could see other girls coming in from the bike, you panic that you're losing time, this made me lose focus and forget to put everything in the transition box. For this I picked up a penalty, though I didn't realise it at the time! I then ran the wrong way looking for the exit, all of which schoolgirl errors cost me 4 places in T2! Some were fast runners, who may have caught me anyway, one I managed to overtake again on the run, but overall I'm disappointed the errors and time penalty may have cost me 1-2 places in the final standings.
I enjoyed the run once I finally got there - even though I wasn't looking forward to all that sand! I was happy to be in the middle of the field and no pressure of anyone chasing me down, with a big gap behind. It was only on the very last lap when I was about to run down the finish chute, I noticed the penalty box. It wasn't even on my mind that I could have got one, but something made me check the numbers (there were a lot!) and oh sh*t!, 509 that's me?! (double checking the tattoos on my arm!) If I'd noticed earlier, I'd have hammered lap 2 of the run and taken a strategic break before the last lap! But as it was, I had to do a u-turn into the box, take my time penalty and then sprint to the line - looking far too fresh after my rest! At least I had noticed otherwise it would have been a DQ...
So despite the mistakes, it was a great day, and amazing experience lining up against the best girls in the world, so many of whom I'm happy to call my friends. Support on the course from our friends and families was awesome, not to mention the enthusiastic GB Age Group Team - thanks everyone!! Huge congrats to the medallists - Flora Duffy, Barbara Riveros and Brigitta Poor, as well as Jacqui just missing out on the medals in 4th.
I know I always thank my sponsors, but special mention must go to Mountain Trax - going above and beyond to service my bike ready for these champs, and lending me equipment when replacement parts I ordered didn't arrive in time!
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