Hello and welcome to my blog. I have not posted for a very long time and I do apologise. I have however written a few updates which have been backlogged rather than posted so if you are interested, they can be found in the ‘archives’. This post is a quick update and also has a race report from the Castle Combe 10km. I am currently in the process of creating a whole new website/blog which will look incredible, I can assure you! So please bear with me until then, it’ll be worth the wait! In September 2018 I started working at Hazlegrove Preparatory School in Sparkford, Somerset (the school is a turning off the McDonalds roundabout on the A303 so you may have passed it). I am currently living and working at the school as a Graduate Sports Assistant where I am teaching lessons, running clubs, helping at sporting events and working within the boarding school. I am having a brilliant time and I really do enjoy it. The main challenge I had to come to grips with was how to adapt my training to full-time working life. Generally, I complete my training by 7am so I need a very early alarm clock! My earliest wakeup time last week being 2:45am to fit in a 90-minute cycle and 90-minute swim before work starts! Throughout 2019 I will be racing for Zoot Athlos Racing Team. I was officially a part of the team last year however this season I have fully committed to the team and I think it is made up of a great bunch of athletes who are all very focused on achieving their goals. From November 2018 I started being coached by Harry Palmer. Harry is a professional triathlete performing at the top level over middle distance triathlon and his experience of the process going from age-group to pro has been very valuable to me. Many aspects of my training have improved as a result of his coaching. I look forward to seeing what we can achieve together throughout 2019. Castle Combe 10km If you can cast your minds back to 2018, Isaac McAdam and I ran this race and it turned out to be the best race of my life. Through 5km in 16:50 to finish in 34:20 official (although Strava says 33:50 10km). It was just one of those days where everything went perfectly which was brilliant. The only downside to this was that it was in February - 3 months before the triathlon season started! Shortly after this race I seemed to spend the rest of the season with niggling and persistent injuries, and only slightly managed to claim back some half decent results. This year however, things are shaping a little differently. I had a very slight Achilles niggle which started at the end of December. I could swim and bike fine, but chose to hold back a bit on the running. Due to having a very active job (avg 15,000 steps everyday) it took a little longer than I would’ve liked for it to have healed. Fortunately though I ran pain free for the first time on Sunday 10th Feb, a whole week before the 10k race! Midweek I ran a slow 7km with no pain at all and this gave me confidence that my Achilles could hold that distance. If you were to have genuinely asked me what time I would’ve expected to get pre-race, I would’ve had absolutely no idea. My legs could give out, resulting in 38mins+, I could smash it like last year and go sub 34 or I could race well and settle for 35-36 minutes. For me, that’s the beauty of triathlon, and in particular running. You can do hours of training and commit yourself to a perfect diet but still never really know for sure what time you will deliver on race day. No matter how perfect or not your preparation is, anything can happen on the day and you just have to take it. Back to racing- I toed the start line with my brother Ollie and various other athletes that I knew through running and triathlon. The race started and it was good, the first 100m were surprisingly slow, no one went sprinting off which was a surprise. The pace then increased with the distance and packs began to form. Ollie and I were in about 17/18th after 2km and I felt fresh. Everything felt perfect up until about 5km. I was surprised until I looked at my watch and saw that it had taken us 18:30 to get here, that explains it. We started to increase the pace and reel in runners ahead of us, all the way until about 8km where I sensed Ollie was feeling stronger than me. It wasn’t long before he kicked on and opened a gap which I just couldn’t close. He overtook two more people and crossed the finish line in place 8th in 36:00.1. I finished in 36:31 in 11th place. To be completely honest, I was over the moon. If you were to look at my recent training and see how much running I hadn’t been doing, it would be very clear that I did not really deserve this time. I raced completely pain and injury free with a big smile on my face, so I was happy. Even happier for Ollie who was also first junior. You can find the results from the race here. I have to give a big hand to Jack Hutchins for finishing 1st in 34:00, which I think was a fairly comfortable winning performance for him. Also well done to Gary O’Brien, Simon Gilbert, Craig Rumble, Ben Sommerville and Kirk Latham. It was great to catch up with so many more people that I have become good friends with through running. I am sure that I will see you all again throughout the year. As it is currently school half term, I am writing this before driving to Devon and Cornwall for a week to chill out and explore! Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! A huge thanks goes out to- Harry Palmer for coaching and mentoring me in all aspects of my triathlon life. Jason Tait for overlooking my swimming and building me up ready for the start of the season. Sarah Fellows at Dyer St Chiropractic for looking after me and healing my injured body. LPSEVENTS for sponsoring me financially and enabling me to race. Zoot Athlos Racing Team for being great support throughout the season. Finally, to Mum and Dad for helping with everything from behind the scenes!
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Luke CampbellHere will be a monthly review as well as occasional race updates Archives
April 2019
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