In the following blog I am going to talk about my sprint triathlon on the 30th April and then do a monthly review of April. Sunday 30th April Oldbury White Horse Sprint Triathlon Today has been a long time coming, after very successful winter training, a new coach and a new bike, I went into the race feeling very confident about how things were going to pan out. A swim start at 12:06 meant I could have a small lie in before Dad and I headed over to Calne for the race. My nutrition was set out perfectly, my legs felt brilliant and my equipment was all prepared and ready to go. We arrive at the venue and the weather was overcast with some seriously strong winds, hopefully this shouldn’t be a problem as I would be tucked away in the aero position. Setting up in transition and I’m surrounded by people on TT bikes with full disk rear wheels. I guess it’s going to require me buying another bike before I could say I have the nicest one in the race (I’m open for sponsorship Argon 18;)) Realistically it would be less of a benefit having a full disk wheel in these winds. Anyway I set the bike up and started on my warmup, I felt very strong and no pain anywhere. Today was looking to be a good day. Standing at the end of the pool with 10 seconds to go and my heart was racing, I wasn’t exactly nervous I just knew everything would have to go well for me to get the result I wanted. The 400m swim passed by like nothing at all, I finished in 5:25 and ran out towards T1, first in my wave. *side note- now that I have a new bike I figured I would have to learn the ‘flying mount’ onto the bike (if you don’t know what this is, search it up on YouTube) so the day before I had tried it out for the first time ever using elastic bands. It didn’t work particularly well so I decided I would use thread today…big mistake. I slotted on my helmet, slid on my race belt and then picked up the bike and headed towards T1. Only problem was that both bits of thread had already snapped and the shoes were knocking the ground. I jumped on the bike and the shoes jammed against the floor completely stopping the bike so I had to flip them around and pedal with my feet on top. Now to attempt sliding my feet inside the pedals. My right foot went it perfectly, my left not so much. Being tri shoes they have a Velcro strap and while rushing to get them on I had pulled the strap out so I couldn’t hook it back around onto the pad. This meant my foot was inside the shoe with nothing keeping it in. There was nothing I could do so I carried on and it didn’t seem to be a huge problem. Now out on the cycle and there was a very strong wind all the way to the turnaround point. I was overtaking people the whole way and luckily didn’t manage to get overtaken myself. I got to the turnaround point, a big roundabout, flew around then started the journey back which was brilliant, the strong winds on my back practically pushed my all the way up. I was averaging around 50kph consistently and even completed 5km in 5:38. The dismount was smooth and I headed into T2 feeling strong. (A very important triathlon tip- always remember where your bike was racked) I came sprinting into transition with the bike and ran straight past my racking spot which lost me probably around 5 seconds…more of a psychological loss than a physical one, and then headed out onto the run course. I started off very strong, I ran the first 500m averaging around 3:10/km and then slowed it down, the rapid bike section had taken its toll. I continued on strong, targeting the athletes ahead and then overtaking them when the chance came. There was a mean wind on the way out towards the turn point which made coming back in very enjoyable, I was on for sub 60 minutes, I just needed to keep pushing. After 5km of hard running I finished in an overall time of 58:19 and in SECOND POSITION OVERALL!!!!!!! This was my first ever official podium finish and I am absolutely over the moon. I also recorded the 3rd fastest swim, 3rd fastest T1, 6th fastest cycle and 1st fastest run (great to know that recently changing my running style has paid off). The race was absolutely phenomenal and I loved it, even more so the position. I completed this race in 2016 and finished in 1:02:45 which just shows how the training and the new bike have made such an impact on my speeds. There’s still a lot of work to be done but I’m getting there slowly. My committed blog readers will remember that back in February I predicted a time of 58:59 which you can read about HERE. The following is a quote taken from that specific blog “This year I’m hoping for another age group win but to finish in at least the top 10, maybe even top 5 overall. Target time- 58:59.99” I clearly smashed that target. I also managed to beat the female course record set by my coach Katie Synge last year, maybe she regrets pushing me so hard :P. Only 7 weeks until my international debut at the European Championships in Dusseldorf, all paths lead to this race! #bigthingsarecoming (Also I would definitely recommend checking out LPSEVENTS, they run some of my favorite races of the year) APRIL Thursday 6th April Today was my third and final session with Dyer St Chiropractors. Sarah tested my flexibility, strength and stability and could see that I have improve considerably since our first session midway through February. My Achilles are no longer a problem. I am confident that with the consistent stretching and conditioning regime I am completing, there will be little chance for injury. Thursday 13th April The lake has been warming up quickly this year, it was around 15 degrees today and so I decided to swim 5km nonstop. It was at no particular pace with no specific goal, I just wanted to see what the time would be. After 5000m meters of constant swimming, I finished in 1:13.43 which I’m very happy with. It was an experience I won’t forget but one I do not wish to do again soon. Saturday 15th-Saturday 22rd April The family and I travelled over to Club La Santa in Lanzarote for a week of hard training and racing. Read about it in a previous blog HERE. Thank you very much for reading this, I hope you have enjoyed it. I would appreciate any feedback so hit me up on my social media. Please go check out my Facebook page Luke Campbell Triathlon, I would really appreciate it if you could go and give it a like. Also please check out my Strava- Luke Campbell Triathlon Twitter- @lukecampbell246 Instagram- @lukecampbell246 Make sure to like, comment and share my posts! As always, big thanks to my sponsors and the people who support me- Pedal Potential South West Swim Performance Cycles
0 Comments
|
Luke CampbellHere will be a monthly review as well as occasional race updates Archives
April 2019
Categories |