Now at the end of second semester of my first year of university and its starting to hit me how quickly the year is going and soon enough I will be sitting my end of year exams and having summer. With summer quickly approaching, also means the arrival of the triathlon season and that kicked off partially this weekend just gone at the Triathlon England Performance assessment weekend. This consisted of an 800m swim Time Trial on the Saturday and a 20km bike to 5km run race on the Sunday, starting at your swim time (e.g. I was 13 seconds slower than the fastest swimmer, so started the bike-run 13 seconds after they did). Saturday also consisted of talks and informative sessions: about physiology, nutrition, selection policies and I also gave a presentation as Female England talent squad captain, along with the male captain Alex Yee, about the ETS from an athletes perspective. Hopefully we gave a good insight to the amount of support we get from the programme, as well as a little peak into all the fun and good experiences we get up to. I was happy with my swim, being 15 seconds faster than last year and finished ranked second fastest swimmer. This left me in a good position going into Sunday, with the possibility of a breakaway on the cards. I had a very smooth first transition, and soon found myself past the first swimmer, and out front on my own, I knew Liz Hood wasn't far behind me on the swim and knew I would soon find her with myself on the bike. We worked well together to maintain a 40-50 second lead on a large chase pack of 8 going into T2. I felt pretty tired off the hard bike, very heavy legs and heavy breathing but slowly got myself into a rhythm. I had a solid run, nothing special and I know I can definitely run better than that and it is just about getting into race mode again, but managed to hold onto 3rd still, which I am very pleased with after not having the best of seasons last year. It has definitely given me some of my confidence back and I am excited to crack on with the next month of training before BUCS sprint triathlon and then Llanelli. I have the next 3 weeks at home, out of the bubble that is Loughborough and spend some quality time training and relaxing with my family and friends, but I am certain after these 3 weeks are up I will be itching to get back to Loughborough and into my normal routine and studies again
