So this week, I came back from Italy feeling on top of the world. My recovery was super- fast (possibly linked to the amount of great Italian food and wine I consumed post-race) and when my fantastic coach Tom Bennett (http://www.t2coaching.co.uk/) and I met up to discuss the race, he told me I was to have a light week, I admit to feeling rather disappointed.
Actually that's a lie, I was just belligerent. I really wanted to race again. I was on a roll, and I felt the need for more excitement and the adrenaline of racing. So, the text messages went like this:
Liz: I'm feeling really good today (Wednesday)
Tom: I hope its not your intention to race.
Liz: Damn, who told you that?
And I accidentally entered the USN Dorney lake sprint, run by the nice people at VOtwo events, who let me enter on the night, and were militarily well organised, and ran an excellent race.
Which I won. In a storming 1:07, with my fastest swim and run splits this season. So that was all great. But Tom didn't seem too pleased.....
Oh well, the next thing that happened was that the organisers of my planned next race, at Windsor, one of the biggest and most well-known events in the calendar, had to cancel the swim, and I made the decision to pull out. The race is tomorrow, and it will be an interesting time for all those involved, as it is a 1 km run to get your bike out of transition and onto the bike course. A bit Le Mans if you ask me. And the reason they stopped the run to the start at Le Mans in 1970? Safety.
Nuff said. My beautiful Blue bike does not like the idea of contact racing so she and I will wait til next week at the UK National Championships in Shropshire.
This is a decision I would never have made if I was working all summer. So it made me think that sometimes, you have to keep the bigger picture in mind, and of course a full time athlete may be juggling costs of getting to races with the likely prize money, and other reasons for racing. For me, its not a big enough incentive to risk injury for a race that's not a triathlon. A real shame that Human Race, the organisers didn't feel that, in order to maintain the prestige of the race, it would have been worth postponing it.
In the grand scheme of things, we only have the weather to blame and Windsor is just one of many UK races this year where the swim has been affected, shortened or cancelled. Is this really the country for me to be racing, I ask myself???
Actually that's a lie, I was just belligerent. I really wanted to race again. I was on a roll, and I felt the need for more excitement and the adrenaline of racing. So, the text messages went like this:
Liz: I'm feeling really good today (Wednesday)
Tom: I hope its not your intention to race.
Liz: Damn, who told you that?
And I accidentally entered the USN Dorney lake sprint, run by the nice people at VOtwo events, who let me enter on the night, and were militarily well organised, and ran an excellent race.
Which I won. In a storming 1:07, with my fastest swim and run splits this season. So that was all great. But Tom didn't seem too pleased.....
Oh well, the next thing that happened was that the organisers of my planned next race, at Windsor, one of the biggest and most well-known events in the calendar, had to cancel the swim, and I made the decision to pull out. The race is tomorrow, and it will be an interesting time for all those involved, as it is a 1 km run to get your bike out of transition and onto the bike course. A bit Le Mans if you ask me. And the reason they stopped the run to the start at Le Mans in 1970? Safety.
Nuff said. My beautiful Blue bike does not like the idea of contact racing so she and I will wait til next week at the UK National Championships in Shropshire.
This is a decision I would never have made if I was working all summer. So it made me think that sometimes, you have to keep the bigger picture in mind, and of course a full time athlete may be juggling costs of getting to races with the likely prize money, and other reasons for racing. For me, its not a big enough incentive to risk injury for a race that's not a triathlon. A real shame that Human Race, the organisers didn't feel that, in order to maintain the prestige of the race, it would have been worth postponing it.
In the grand scheme of things, we only have the weather to blame and Windsor is just one of many UK races this year where the swim has been affected, shortened or cancelled. Is this really the country for me to be racing, I ask myself???
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