London Triathlon 2014

 After a great two week training camp in France I was back in the UK training for my next race, the London triathlon. London triathlon is a two day event with the youth and Age group races on the first day and on the Sunday the junior, senior elite and Olympic distance. The London triathlon is a great event with over 13,000 people racing which meant lots of spectators for support.

My race was on the Sunday at 10:03am just 3mins behind the boys. The race was a 750m square swim in the docks, 20km bike which was 2 laps on main roads and to finish a 5km 2 laps run out and back. You also couldn’t forget the transition it was massive, taking around 3mins to complete definitely the biggest and longest transition I have been in.

After the long journey down and it was straight to transition to set up and the usually warm up before the race. I couldn’t believe after all the rain we have had this week it was non wetsuit at 21.3 degrees. I had a good swim but it took me a bit of time to get into my swimming luckily I felt stronger towards the end. Most races are different in many ways but this particular swim leg was because I was joined by a Go Pro camera directly in front of my face which made sighting a little more interesting. Exiting the water I was in 3rd, the first girl Rosie Lindsay had the fastest time in both junior races.

Exiting the Excel centre I didn’t realise how many age group athletes would still be on the course which added to the drama of the race as there was lots of shouting, passing and crashes, also it made it very difficult to spot where the other junior competitors were. Possibly it would have been better to set the junior and senior athletes off first before the age groupers as we could draft firstly and secondly many age groupers like to show each other moral support during their races; high fives, waving, passing gels. The bike was flat but technical with a dead turn, roundabouts and speed humps. Into T2 I had a much improved transition then the first one, running well with my bike and getting my running shoes quickly on, at this point I was in 2nd place.

The run leg has been a little disappointing so far this year due to having the winter off and limitations of running over spring but the main thing is I have slightly improved with each race and I’m injury free. This race was definitely a step in the right direction feeling tall and bouncy; I had a strong run and probably the best leg of the triathlon. I enjoyed running in such a big field of athletes, there was some much more to focus on, it does have a reflexion on your time but the experience was worth it. 

You can watch my race by the link below I am race number 87

http://www.thelondontriathlon.co.uk/myactivation?r=87&e=LO14ZOMIX&n=MEGAN%20MCDONALD&ct_s1=10:13:41&nt_f=01:11:40&ct_f=11:14:39&ct_s2=10:16:12&ct_s6=10:33:42&ct_s7=10:52:38&ct_s9=11:03:47&k=zoswimp&ks=92828687&b=720p&l=EN&gotostream=true

London triathlon was a great event and a brilliant warm up for next week, which is the National Champs at Liverpool.

Thanks to Huub Design, The bike Yard and Liv Bikes for their support this year.

Thanks for reading Megan McDonald