Following my 4th place at Strathclyde, which gave me a great boost following the ups and downs of the few weeks before, I was soon brought back down to earth with a bump again as I am finding the asthma is leaving me drained after events and it is taking me a few days before I can train properly again so I guess this is something I will just have to get used too going forward.
Training in the two weeks in between Strathclyde and Blenheim has been further disturbed by a trial run for my DofE silver award hike and GCSE module exams, although this is common for all athletes of my age, you cant stop thinking you are not as prepared as you might be or others are and given that Blenheim was a bigger field and had most of the missing competitors that could not make Strathclyde I was not as confident as I should have been but my nervousness may also been due to it also being an IRC selection race for those of us in Eastern Region.
Race day was good for me with it being cool, overcast and with just a hint of rain in the air. The swim went well untill the exit where I was almost on all fours up the exit ramp, then struggled to get my feet in my bike shoes at the start of the bike leg, so I could have saved time with both those errors so I was happy to be in the 2nd group on the bike, but I tailed off towards the end as I found it hard to catch my breath and my legs felt heavy. I had my pump with me but fortunately did not quite get to the point of stopping to use it and in the end had a reasonable and consistent run to finish 6th despite me wheezeing somewhat. Disappointed to drop a couple of places from Strathclyde, but given the larger field and knowing that apart from Miles Burton - who is an excellent all round athlete- who finished first all the other athletes ahead of me are all a year or so older than me I am pretty happy, plus I was further heartened by the comments from coaches and others saying that I looked quite strong at the end, so perhaps I am coming to terms with the physcological aspects of competing with the asthma and its impact on my breathing during extended exercise.
We now move on to Eton in another couple of weeks which will be really interesting as the 3 days prior to that race I will be trapsing around the south downs on my assessed Dof E silver award hike, so that race will be all down to adrenalin because there wont be much left in the tank at the start!
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