This was my first European Triathlon Cup in a long time and I couldn’t wait to get stuck into it. After feeling good in the first 300m of the swim and getting to the first buoy in a good position and without any fighting I ended up fading really bad in the last 300m. I’m not sure why I started to feel as bad as I did but it meant I came out the water a lot further down than I would’ve liked. Running 300m to T1 was rough… but I got onto the bike and felt reasonably strong but after an all out first two minutes I missed the chase pack which was gutting. I quickly refocused myself and worked well in the third group, we eventually caught the chase group half way through the bike which meant there was now around 40 athletes riding around a very narrow race course. There was a nasty crash about 2km out from transition, luckily I was up near the front so I didn’t get caught up in anything. I came off the bike in a good place and headed out onto the run 2nd out of my group. In the end I ran the 4th fastest time to give me 12th place overall, a result I was happy with but also frustrated with at the same time. I know I am capable of so much more than this, but it was a massive learning experience and at the end of the day I came away with some points to boost my ITU ranking.
