3rd at Beauvais French Grand Prix
June 16th, 2009 by Will
Another race down and it was yet another good hit out in France and a big confidence booster for myself enabling me to have a bit more relaxation with my racing programme and practice some vital racing scenarios. It was spoiled a little bit by the ending but I was happy to rock up get a good result, take home a bit of cash, race wise I took a lot of positives from this one.
Since Madrid as you have seen I have been cracking on with that old swimming chestnut! I’m delighted to report that at the weekend I dived in the water and felt fantastic…I just wasn’t getting as tired as I used to and felt stronger with every stroke! As I predicted and it seems to be a definite pattern this year, there was another lead group of 10 guys hammering it at the front of the race and a big chase pack…normally I am part of this chase pack but on Sunday I was up there mixing it up with the gun swimmers. I am so happy that the hard work I put in has finally payed off and it felt so good to be swimming with those guys at the front!
The bike was pretty fast! In fact, I think everyone who made the front bike pack had to work for it in the first 5k. If I hadn’t good riding form I would have missed it for sure because it was a long line out of the transition. The first two laps were fast and the 10 of us who eventually established ourselves in that lead group put 45 into the chase pack which dropped off to about 30 by the end when we eased off the pace a tad.
I hit transition first and came out with a small lead. I decided to run hard for the first kilometer to put a bit of pressure on the other boys but sure enough, Alistair Brownlee and Javier Gomez are class acts and they caught me after about 800m and we ran together to the finish line.
I got a very confused at the finish line…there was an extra out and back that I was told we had to do…It would have ended up being about 400m extra. So when Alistair started sprinting early, I thought it was 600m out, but in fact it was only 200m to go. No excuses…I should have known! I didn’t feel too good on the run anyway so when Washington comes around hopefully I will know the course and I will have more of a sprint in me! There was nothing in it really, we ran together the whole way and the best man on the day won, I’m happy taking that knowledge away with me.
I spent a bit of time in Paris after the race, it’s a beautiful city and was a good to unwind after the race. I actually got back today…and I am off again to Washington tomorrow morning! It’s going to be great out there, the course is amazing and I had better get packing!!!
| Stressful couple of days! | Arrived in DC! |
