Under-20's Festival

The under 20’s festival was the last race of the British super series. It also doubled up as World Championship qualifiers. I felt good going into the race, well rested and prepared to give it all I had. The race unfolded well. Livvy led out the swim at such a fast pace, but I got on the feet of Lissie and we managed to get a large gap to the next group, with Leah also. Once out of the water, I had a really snappy transition to go out onto the bike 1^st , right next to Livvy. We all got together and worked well, getting into a good formation pretty much straight away. On the second lap, I had a very close call. I’m still not quite sure what happened but all I remember is taking a corner and my bike jolting underneath me, causing it, and myself, to nearly hit the floor. I saved it and then I ended up on my small chain ring. Luckily I was near the back, with just Leah behind me, but we both lost quite a bit of speed and a gap opened up between us and the other 2 girls. Luckily I felt quite good and managed to really work to get back on the back of them. Unfortunately Leah didn’t quite have enough in her legs, after just coming back to racing, to bridge the gap and she dropped off our group. We worked well though for the 7 laps and I felt pretty comfortable, plus we were putting in time to people behind us. Going out onto the run I felt really strong, taking off quickly. It was just me and Lissie together now and it remained like that for the 3 out of 4 laps. Lissie made one surge and I managed to cover it, but once she made another I couldn’t quite hold on and just dropped off. I was still gritting my teeth and working as hard as I could because I knew that if I wanted to be selected for worlds a fast run time would need to be recorded. I finished 2^nd and was really pleased as for one of the first times this season I actually felt like myself whilst running. This also got me a second in the super series overall which I was really pleased with. Unfortunately I didn’t make the Worlds team, but if you’d have asked me at the beginning of the year my targets, I would have thought that Worlds was an unrealistic goal for myself, but after coming so close I was and still am genuinely gutted. I can’t look back at the race though and feel disappointed because remembering how I felt when I crossed the finish line, pure happiness, is really the thing I need to take away from the race. I can’t let not qualifying make me forget how delighted I was about the race. I can use this though; I now know exactly how much I want this and how much I am willing to do. I will use this ambition to fuel myself over the winter months and come back next year more than ready to attack the season head on. 

Thank you to all of my sponsors for helping me thorughout the year and enabling me to achieve all I have: BNY Mellon and SportsAid, Vision for sport, H2pro precision hydration, Zone 3, Carl Goose, Copy IT, Velocity Norwich and Swimzi.