Race report by Luke

I raced yesterday in Cardiff, which is the start of my build towards Europeans in September. After supporting Alice to race in Portugal, I was keen to get race ready myself. This race was my test to see where I’m at.

Swim 750m
I went out hard to the first buoy and was in the front pack. I settled in behind what I thought was another faster swimmer, unfortunately I noticed too late that he had let the front 4 go by midway. I overtook to try and close the gap but never caught back on. My swim time was 10:16, which as a time I’m happy with but it was still approx 20seconds off the front.

Bike
T1 started smoothly with a flying mount, but on my first pedal stroke I got calf cramp. Luckily after a quick stretch it went, never to be felt again. I managed to get in a 3 man bike pack, we worked well together and were taking fair turns. This turned into a 5 man group by the end of the bike. My speed was good at an average over 38kph but the gap did extend to the front 3 guys by approx 1min.

Run
I came into T2 in 5th place, managed another smooth transition. Onto the run, I was feeling the effort. I was struggling to get my heart rate down, my watch was reading 195bpm. Luckily this settled by half way and each km was faster than the last. Starting at 3:54/km and ending at 3:33/km. I did however lose positions, I ended the race 9th overall and P3 in my age group. The course was 4.7km so extrapolating my pace it would have been an 18:55 5k. I have ran 18:00 before in a race so planning to get back down to that. The upside is the guy I came into T2 with came 3rd overall running the pace I think I can run. Compared to the winner I was 2:13 behind. Total time for me 1:02:02.