ETU Duathlon Championships Road Trip

  A few photos from our little road trip – was an incredible experience to represent Team GB at ETU Duathlon Championships, but possibly the toughest race I have ever done. On paper, everything looked great and even to the eye it looked pretty good – did a warm up on the run course and was feeling confident about it all ….. then the run started and I appeared to have left my legs at the start line. However, was buoyed by the looks of anguish on everyone else’s faces (that and my mantra for the race – “you’re racing for GB, go for it and enjoy every part of the experience”). Then onto the bike – getting out of T1 was a run up a long drag slightly uphill – it felt like an eternity, but then onto the bike and some fun – hilly, slightly technical and VERY windy bike course – had a couple of bottom clenching moments with the bike jumping to one side with the wind, but hit the turn point on the first lap and it turned from a tough race into a lot of fun – proper weeeeee downhill and some decent speed and finally I was into the race. Into T2 and the 2nd run went in a blur and the most incredible experience picking up a GB flag on the way to the finishing line and running over that line a GB athlete. After the race, I did the usual beating myself up that I could have done better, but after some reflection and looking at my times, I’m happy with what I did – and, as I said before, I didn’t come last.

After the race it was back to the lovely Abalos – everyone in the hotel wanted to know how I got on and they made me feel very special. We picked Abalos after visiting a couple of times and whilst, it was a bit of a trek to get to Soria for the race, another lovely visit – I just love that despite the fact that our Spanish is virtually non-existence and the villager’s English is of the same level, so many people still wanted to talk to us and join us in what was going on in the village (we even got “kidnapped” by a local Bodega owner so we could try his “friends” wine – not sure if we were scared or excited about being taken to a cellar of someone we had just met in the bar, but the wine was fabulous!). #Team Cherwell