Having raced at the Blenheim Elite Sprint Champs the weekend before, and having a disturbed week of training (combination of work and injury) in the lead up to this race, I didn’t know what to expect from myself.
On Sunday morning after my normal first breakfast of banana and honey on toast, 2 hours before racing, I had my energy bar one hour prior to the swim start.

My swim went well, and I exited the water over a minute in front of the next female. T1 while long (400+m) went smoothly, and I mounted my bike with a good lead.

Throughout the bike I focused on working the climbs and completing the technical parts of the course safely. I lead the race throughout the bike (later finding out I had the 3rd fastest bike split overall), went through a windy transition and into the beast that was the run.

Starting up a long slog of an uphill climb, my legs were knackered from the word go. I struggled throughout the run, both physically and psychologically, and have never felt so close to quitting a race in my life. But that’s just not what we do.
So I kept going, knowing I was in for a slow run, and was only overtaken in the last kilometre by the amazing Emma Dixon (who ran an incredible 37.41 on a hilly course!) to take 2nd female overall and 1st in my AG.

Apart from the run, I was happy with how I raced, and there are lots of things to take away from this event and process before racing in the Europeans next weekend in Kitzbuhel, Austria – and that’s going to be a hilly one!