Training, travel and turning 25!

It has been nearly eight weeks since I last wrote an update but honestly, it feels like only a couple of weeks and then I start to think of everything I have done in the past two months and I don’t even know where to begin!

So on a very broad scale, training itself has been going really well. I am putting in some great consistency with all three disciplines and seeing improvements. I am so appreciative of the group of girls I train with each day. Everyone has their own individual goals, strengths and personalities but we have enough in common that we can push each other all the time and also have a bit of fun doing it!

Speaking of having fun, in cased you missed my copious Instagram posts, I hit the quarter of a century on June 18! This coincided with one of the best Basque Triathlons in a town called Lekeitioko. about an hour drive from Vitoria-Gasteiz. A whole group of us packed the vans for a Saturday afternoon sprint distance race. Basque races ALWAYS have challenging courses and amid a hard training block, we all enjoyed the race.

With this year being the 25th anniversary of this race, the triathlon club put us up for a night in a hotel in Leketioko and invited us to a big celebration dinner. We weren’t sure exactly what this entailed but we put on some nice clothes and joined the party! It turned out to be a crazy and fun night with the highlight definitely being the whole party singing me Happy Birthday at 12am on the dot! I was definitely made special and the centre of attention ;)

The next weekend we backed up for another Basque race on the coast in the famous town of San Sebastian! This was an Olympic distance race with yet another very hilly and challenging bike course! Again, we trained hard all the way up to Saturday afternoon and went in to this questioning how our bodies were going to manage over 2 hours of pain early on a Sunday morning?! Races like this always remind me why I love the sport so much which is why I like to add a few in to my race schedule each season!

A week later I saw myself on the coast again, but this time not swimming in the Bay of Biscay but instead the Balearic Sea in a town called Altafulla, a one hour drive south of Barcelona. This was an ITU European Sprint distance race with yet again another hilly course! I have started to really enjoy these tougher bike courses. I finished this race in 19th place, not very satisfied, as I felt not much of my training translated in to the race.

I stepped straight back in to training in preparation for my next race Istanbul European Cup. I raced in Turkey my very first year in Europe so I had a little idea of what to expect. In saying this, you can’t control the uncontrollables such as arriving in Istanbul on Friday without your bicycle. To the spend the whole of Saturday unsure of where your bike is, when it will arrive, IF it arrives! I ended up having to drive to Istanbul airport Saturday night to pick up my bike and with a population of 15 million people, it’s impossible to make a quick trip anywhere!

After building my bike at 11pm at night, I lined up 11 hours later for the Olympic Distance race. A group of four of us got away in the swim and put in a decent gap on the bike. Once we started the 10km run I felt horrendous. I ran in 3rd place the whole run but with no shade and no wind in 30 degree + temperatures it was a very tough day. I crossed the line in 3rd, not satisfied with my performance but happy to be on the podium!

This weekend I will race for my German team in Tubingen and the following weekend for my French team in Embrun!

Thank you again to everyone who continues to support me in this long process. I know I have so much more to show and I am looking for things to start clicking a little better!

I hope you enjoyed the (long) read J

Grace