Congratulations...

 

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 1^st 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.