For the last few months I’ve been really out of sorts with training, I’ve let all my races pass without attending and I’ve really struggled to get over the effect of having Covid19. However, during that time I have seen ASK really flourish in her triathlon training and this weekend saw the culmination of all the hard work come together as she took on the Peebles Triathlon (held in Galashiels) and did brilliantly.
It’s been really rewarding watching her transition, pun intended, from the excellent runner that she already is into this multi-sport athlete. She did a lot of her swim training in cold lochs, her running and biking was often on hilly, winding trails and it was all a bit cobbled together by the GingaNinja and I using what little we actually know to provide her with enough guidance to make the start line and be ready for it.
But as a spectator and, perhaps more pertinently, as a parent it’s hard to watch your child rock up and stand next to kids that are several centimetres taller than her and alongside some kids who looked like seasoned triathletes already! I’ll confess I didn’t get a good nights sleep before the race.
And even as she took her place in the water I was worried that she would get cut adrift from the rest – but as they started them off in two waves I was amazed at how quick she looked in the water. She certainly wasn’t being cut adrift, she was more than holding her own.
When she climbed out of the water and crossed the timing mat at 1 minute 41 seconds and did the couple of hundred metres run to transition I thought she looked tremendous. Sadly we then hit the one issue of her race, and the thing we had worked on a lot in the weeks leading up to the event, the transition.
The reality I suppose though is that all the work in the world though goes out of the window (sometimes) on a race day and this for ASK happened in T1. She forgot to put her t-shirt on before her helmet and so had to take it all off after being almost ready to bike and then her number came away from her shirt and she required a bit of assistance from a very supportive and helpful marshal to deal with it. But all of this took extra seconds and so her T1 was slow and accounted for a quarter of her entire race time.
However, despite the setback she came thundering into the bike section and was on the heels of the next competitor but was bizarrely refusing to overtake for whatever reason and whenever the athlete ahead slowed a little so did ASK. I did wonder if she was worried that she might get lost but whatever the issue she made good time on the bike and when I next saw her she was coming round the corner and into T2. She barely noticed either myself or the GingaNinja crying out support as she hurled her bike and helmet down – deciding sensibly to leave her bike gloves on for the run.
As I watched on and saw the pile of bikes at transition I noted that ASK, presumably because she was the shortest racer, was also using a smaller bike with smaller wheels than everyone else – made me wonder if I should have already upgraded her bike and I found myself immediately looking up Frog bikes to see if she would fit on the next wheel size up! (Not quite).
Out of T2 she was as quick as any of the racers in front of her and with just a 600 metre run to do I hoped that all those years of training would pay off for her. ASK runs at a consistent 5 minute kilometre pace over a 5km distance and is able to sustain a faster pace over shorter distances and so 600 metres here should have been under 3 minutes.
But I’d perhaps made a mistake of telling her to be sensible in the run, at least until she could see the finishing line and then give it some welly – advice she really did take to heart. Her run of 3 minutes and 20 seconds could be bettered but her sprint finish was stellar! Two feet off the ground for most of the sprint? Reminded me of myself in my younger days!
As I stood near the finish waiting for her I was stupidly nervous and when I saw her I called out to her but she sensibly ignored me and the GingaNinja and focused on the finish. She crossed the line and thought nothing of looking around for adults – she was far too busy with medals and bags of Tangtastics – but when she did finally catch our eye she was elated with having finished and finished so brilliantly.
No, she didn’t win but she also didn’t come last, nor finish miles behind everyone else – she finished in a way that will give her confidence to improve on some small errors and be a little more competitive when overtaking opportunities present themselves. The important thing though is that she’s very happy and super keen to go again and I’ll be encouraging that and hoping she can inspire me to a return to fitness!
The event itself was a brilliant and well organised day and I enjoyed it so much I’d consider the adult version next year. The guys at Live Borders deserve a massive round of applause for co-ordinating this and ASK is certainly eyeing up a return! Can’t wait!
You can find out more about Live Borders here
UltraBoyRuns 