Well, not exactly the first week of the year I was
expecting. Getting a roll down spot for the AG European Triathlon Championships
in Turkey via email on the 1st day of the year has thrown me a
little. I’d spent time over Xmas planning my assault, sorry, I mean training,
to try and get an automatic qualifying spot for the AG World Champs in London
and also setting up this blog for the same reasons. Getting the spot for Alanya
wasn’t in the planning.
The target was getting an automatic spot for London. I never
actually thought about how I would approach an actual championship race. Now I
have to and it’s quite hard. I suppose I have to do this slot in the Euro’s
some justice. I know I shouldn’t be so
surprised after all I did enter a qualifying race, I did register with British
Triathlon and I did manage to do the % time. It’s just that after so many
months since the last qualifying race in 2012 I assumed the chance of a roll
down spot had gone and hence the focus on qualifying for London. It also really shouldn’t change much with my
training as Alanya is mid June and the London qualifiers start a few weeks
before and then some after. So it’s right in the mix, time wise. I’m now
actually getting used to it. My mentality has moved from - not make a fool of myself, to – do the best
I can. I’m obviously aware that, based on 2012 races, I’m one of the slowest
GB’s in my age group. So my target race
has now changed to Alanya!
Then the logistics of getting to the race kicked in. It’s
not the international travel, that’s what I’ve been doing with my job all my
life. My initial thoughts were to do the
official British Tri travel package on my own with bike. However my family, in-laws
and some friends have, I suppose quite naturally, expressed and interest in
witnessing this great event. So we are now talking of organising a team trip
within a team trip. I’m not complaining. One of the friends is Turkish and will
obviously be very helpful. This might even become our families summer holiday. We will see how this develops as, as I came
late to the party, things will have to be booked pretty quickly and this all
could change.
One another positive note I have also managed to achieve
some sponsorship (my first) from The Bike Shed Wales in Cardiff http://www.bikeshedwales.com/index/. I’m happy
about this as John and JP were particularly helpful to me in sourcing my target
new Tri Bike. Whereas some other bike outlets in Cardiff, let’s say, were not
so helpful. I’ll blog about these experiences and my new sponsors later, but in
the mean time in need to work out how to get there logo and a link up on the
front page of the blog.
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