Athlete Round up. Results and reflections

Whilst I sit here, waiting for IM Vichy to commence tomorrow, I felt it was time to post on how the Goalspecific  Team are performing throughout the UK and Europe! What is really important to remember is, whilst athletes are looking for podium places, WC slots and so forth, many athletes are also focused on the challenge of the distance, facing open water for the first time, reaching points before cut off, or getting back to racing post set back: So much of this is mental, as well as physical!  More on this to follow, first of all, whats been happening these last few months!

Post ETU Championship success, we had athletes racing all distances UK and beyond:

Swanage Triathlon : Sarah (2nd overall) Steve (1st overall) Samuel (3rd in sprint) Mike (1st AG 5th overall) Marta (3rd AG) Olivia (3rd AG)

Ironman Austria: Cath,(13:41) Rachael (13:28) Anthony (11:32) – wow, tough day out they had in tropical storms, on the end of sickness bugs, many challenges faced and overcome!

Ironman Hamburg: Paul (11:56) and Mark (12:25): Hot tough course for both here. Mark battled through sickness, Paul, solid as ever, though wasn’t a great fan of the bike course

Bowood Southwest Series Triathlon: Juniors Molly (1st place super sprint)  and Abbie (1st place Youth)

Alpe D’Huez Triathlon: Samuel and Annie in the duathlon, Tripurbeck Jane and me Short course!  Jane winning her AG, I came 2nd, pipped on the run….of course!

Oxley Olympic : Marianne (2nd overall)

Dorney Lake: Olivia. (3rd AG)

Windsor followed by Fugitive Olympic: Liam (solid performances all round)

Big Cow Calfman: Derek  (2nd AG)

Oxley Sprint: Gabriel and Rhydian (first EVER triathlon for both! loads of goals achieved here!)

BTF Elite Sprint Race: Becky (great result post ETU middle distance champs – one extreme to the other!!)

This weekend!

Jane has just finished 70.3 Vichy – first in AG, George is currently climbing a lot of mountains in France, racing in a local event of 1300m swim 52k bike (2200m of climbing) and a 8k run at the end!

Becky, George and Derek will be shortly flying to Luasanne for the ITU Champs, looking forward to heading over and supporting the team for the weekend.

Then September there is so many events! Bournemouth Tri, (Sarah, Steve, Mike, Olivia)  Brighton Qualifiers (Annie Samuel, Sarah) Weymouth 70.3 (lots!) Slovenia 70.3 (fair few!) then of course we couldn’t miss out on Challenge Paguera again to round off the season. (except that Anthony is prolonging the season with Florida IM in Nov!)

Its incredibly exciting and a privilege to be part of the journey with all our athletes, focusing on achieving the goals they have planned, and watching these evolving and changing over time. What is so important to remember is that actually what makes these achievements so rewarding is that it is a hard journey! Facebook, instagram etc etc are full of images of winning, success, pictures of hours logged, training completed, and its hard for anyone to keep up with this high standard of performance. However, it is not always like this, and if it was not for the set backs and challenges, the achievements would not be so rewarding. Remember your own goals, not others, and focus on just you, no one else!

Now, personally, I can most certainly empathize with those setbacks, as I have been on a roller coaster of them for the last few years.  I did say, going into this year, that if I could not achieve consistency and pain free training, I would step away from racing Triathlon and focus on coaching. 2 months ago, I was on that fence!  Still am to an extent, but, I have made the decision to step back from racing this year, focus on a completely different approach, and rebuild for my next attempt at racing next year – only if I can run pain free!!

I can see everyone’s confusion with that as I am lining up for Ironman Vichy tomorrow, and Slovenia in a few weeks. Well, these were entered the best part of a year ago, when I believed I would be free of this ankle injury…..and being very  expensive, I felt there was still lots to be gained by the process! Vichy was meant to be Nice, so I deferred as long as I as feasibly could, and here I am. So my goals are very much, process! No time driven goals, no pressure of podium places, just a long day out, testing out my bike, and nutrition plan, and fingers crossed, at least one lap of the run where I can put one foot in front of the other without issues. Hopefully it will be a day I can learn a lot from, and being race positive will be a biggie – been struggling with this one a lot!!

My long term goal?……Well we will have to see how the winter goes.