Look at those smiley happy faces! The winner's trophy and a 3rd place finish for the team at IM Lanzarote, as well as a 2nd place finish for team mate Will Clarke in Barcelona 70.3. My performance on the weekend was a credit to the work of my coaches and the team around me to get me back on the start line and in decent race shape. I honestly cannot thank the team enough for the support that they bring to me as an athlete and combined with Rob's unwavering faith in me, I'm in a very good place.
Overall Position: 3rd Pro-Female
Overall Time: 9:51:42
Swim: 0:56:24
Bike: 5:42:54
Run: 3:06:11 (fastest marathon split)
T1: 0:03:14 (fastest t1 split)
T2: 0:03:01 (fastest t2 split)
No prizes for the transition splits I know, but I do seem to razzle through them as the fastest fairly consistently - I'll take that!
It's pretty easy to see where work needs to be done (everywhere!) and I'll not do a full breakdown analysis, but overall, I'm happy with my performance. To come out of the race with no serious injury related aches or pains and with decent technical form through to the end of the marathon was a good result in its self. To be on the podium was a welcome bonus.
From an environment perspective I think that my race build up was good. (See previous blog entry). I spent some time in the UK four weeks out working with my physio (Alex Drummond), then it was team camp in Mallorca, where even though I was in the final weeks of my build up training, there was such a lot gained from being around the rest of the team that it was not a negative distraction. Then on to Sands Beach Active in Lanzarote, where I was able to soely focus in on my own game, and then closer to the race, again I had to good company of my team mates Ronnie and Romain, as well as Bob, Alex, Tom and all importantly, Rob. This could of course make everything very busy and distracting. However, the skills, the professionalism and attitude of everyone involved encourages me to trust my race preparations to them where appropriate, and releases me to focus my own mind on my own performance.
The benefit of being in the team also revealed its self to me out on the bike course. I'll be honest, it was pretty frustrating and demoralising to be going backwards on the bike. However, it turned around as these things do. Not so much as a turnaround for the performace, but more the mindset. It was the thought of all of the team around me, and thier fantastic support, professionalism, positivity and will for me to do well in my return to racing, that encouraged me to keep pushing the pedals and get myself to T2 as soon as I could. It might sound obvious, but the experience still brought this home to me.
So next step is IM Frankfurt on 6th July. A mere 7 weeks away and so I'll focus on recovery, head back to the UK for some more conditioning work with Alex for a few days and then all being well, look to start building my programme back up again for a few solid weeks of training. Roll-on!