The 1st of june 2013 was a date that had been fixed in my mind for quite some time , it was of course the 1st of 3 World Championship qualifing races that would see age group triathletes from all over the uk fight for just 17 places per 5 year age band. All vying to win the right to represent GBR in the Grand Final in London in september. From my club there were also team mates Tom Stead , Chris Ritchie , Emma Ritchie and Mick Lawrence who like myself all had qualification on their minds . I personally felt that we could all qualify at some point over the coming 3 races such is the current standard within the Nicetri club but personally felt that my own chances would be better at bristol .
Arriving at the National Water Sports venue with my son Benjamin we saw that the 1st wave with team mate and training partner Tom stead in was already under way and I
had to smile as on the other side of the lake he was hammering the bike leg and obviously making very good progress , a discipline in which Tom has improved over the winter hugely.
had to smile as on the other side of the lake he was hammering the bike leg and obviously making very good progress , a discipline in which Tom has improved over the winter hugely.
A quick chat with Julia ( toms mum ) confirmed that he was in a qualification spot thereabouts against some very tough opposistion , by this time Tom was in and had started the run so we moved round to the finishing straight to shout him on for every last second , soon enough he came in to view and holding a very strong pace we all cheered him in and waited for the confirmation .... and Yes 6th place with a time of 1hr and 51 seconds , what a start for him and the club , he for sure was going to the worlds .
After a chat and congratulations we moved round to the start area to watch the 2nd wave Which had team mate Chris Ritchie in, with all of us wishing him luck he entered the water in what were for all of us 200+ swim waves . Chris is a great swimmer so it was a suprise to me that as people started to exit the water there was no sign of him . I mentioned this to Keith ( chris s dad ) and said to him that something must be wrong to which he showed me the stopwatch , it wasnt that chris was slower it was that the frontrunners were swimming 9 minute 750s !!!
Sure enough Chris exited the water with a fantastic 10.56 ( beyond my dreams !! ) and like Tom, Chris proceeded to smash the bike , the 3 of us have worked hard on the bike this winter and it has given me great pleasure to pass on some of my bike knowledge and see the big gains that they have made on the bike this year.
After a great bike time of 29.19 we again cheered Chris on the run as he came underneath us and with his usual light bouncy run style he had a fantastic run of 18.11 and smashed the hour with a finish time of 59.47 and as we waited for the all important qualification status it came back 7th place ( 25-29) Fantastic 2 out of 2 qualifiers 1st time out !!!! big handshakes all round and with Keiths words of " its your turn now " ringing in my ears I began to prepare.
After setting up all my kit in transistion and wishing team mate Mick Lawrence good luck I just tried to concentrate on not getting to spooked by the size of the swim pack , setting off with 230 fully charged up triathletes in what is my relativley weakest discipline takes some courage as I dont have the ability to stay out of trouble at the front and knew it was going to get physical !!!
After a short delay we were away and it was carnage !! ha ha I just tried to keep as even pace as possible and was very relieved to exit the water in about 40 th ish spot with a 13.28 not blistering but not bad given the pack size for me .
Wetsuit off and unracking the Giant Trinity felt sooo good as I knew i was going to move up the order rapidly as the bike is my strongest discipline and sure enough I started to pass people very quickly . I passed Mick on the bike and shouted to him and he looked to be going well . Each lap I heard the Nicetri crew cheering which spurred me on and I hammered the pedals to a bike split of 28.17 , to put that into perspective the outright winners time was a 28.10 so not to bad for an old guy !!
Onto the run and I just tried to focus on keeping things fast and even and began to pass some more people each one a potential qualification place . At half distance I glanced round to see Colin HInsley a gbr regular who caught and passed me on the run for 2nd place in my Euro qualifier at Rother Valley in 2012 on my shoulder . I had to smile at history repeating itself and just kept my head down and thought about all the hard run work id done with Tom since then and lifted the pace steadily for half a km , as I looked back again he had dropped back to another group and that gave me a real boost.
It was just a case then of holding the gap to the line and with one final push and with all the team there shouting me in i crossed the line in 1 hr 2min 27 sec utterly spent , but had i done it ?? not 3 in a row surely but yes Tom gave me the ticket , youve done it 7th place ( actually 6th later on ) it felt so good and what an achievement for the club , I was going to the Worlds .
Mick finished in 1 hr 05 .46 and 14th place in the 50 - 54 bracket a cracking race and time and im sure he will qualify in the remaining races with another 10 places up for grabs .
So last up was Emma Ritchey with all the pressure / support of us watching !! with a similar size wave group away she went and it certainly gave you a different perspective knowing what she was going through . After a great swim off 14.12 she soon settled into a good bike leg looking the part on a tt bike and produceing a very good bike split of 38.52.
Soon she was off on the run and with us all cheering her on she produced a great run of 22.11 and as we all moved round to the finishing shute she gave one last push to cross the line in 1 hr 17 .07 which gave her 10th place in the 20-24 group so close ... but a few days later it became apparent she had made it due to 3 people below her not having registered intent so fantastic she also had qualified !!! what a day .
So thats it 4 members going to London at the first time off asking to what must be the pinnacle of amateur racing triathlon , a fantastic race to look forward to and train for . Just to compete will be great but to medal !! impossible surely ?? but hang on didnt I think that about qualification ?? ha ha watch this space- Richard