The weather was against every participant at this year's ETU Middle Distance Triathlon European Championships. Unseasonable storms and torrential rain hit the White Isle of Ibiza on race day but that didn't stop #TeamTCUK athlete, Flo Greatrix, smashing her way to the finish line!

Pre-race

I had struggled with the build up to this race as it was so late in the season and my body and mind were ready for a break well before October 27^th! My immune system had started to let me down too but under the circumstances, I felt like I’d done as much as I could.

I had missed a couple of bike rides so my confidence on the bike was a bit lower than earlier in the year. I think the spring training camp boosts my confidence and endurance on the bike no end so I felt better ahead of my June 70.3 than this race! I will definitely consider race timings more in future seasons because it had a bigger effect than I managed.

Swim

Time: 33:17

Third in AG – so not bad! The time isn’t my best but considering it was a sea swim and apparently longer than 1900m I’m pleased.

Positives: Didn’t panic, goggles didn’t leak, found some space.
Negatives: Could have swum harder I think. Sewage in the water, catching men from the previous wave (only 1 minute between waves).

T1

Time: 4:08

Second in AG!
It was a weird transition where you had to put your wetsuit in a bag, put your helmet on and run miles to your bike then uphill with it, so really chuffed to have been second fastest at that! One of my elastic bands had snapped getting on the bike too but I didn’t panic.

Bike

Time: 1:30:47 (45km)

17^th in AG

Positives: Didn’t crash (!) and fuelled well
Negatives: It was cut short! Couldn’t see very well through my glasses and lost a bit of confidence when I skidded on a roundabout so I took it quite steady.

T2

Time: 3:14

6^th in AG

Run

Time: 1:51

Not sure about position as the results site is wrong for our run times! But It was 7/8 minutes quicker than my previous two half ironman runs (one of which had a run that was slightly short) so that’s good. But obviously I’d done 45k rather than 90 on the bike! My run was also quite slow compared to the other girls.

Positives: I fuelled well and kept my pace nice and even throughout. Stayed positive and enjoyed the run (all of these are the opposite to Cotswold 113!) According to my spectators I looked strong and ‘sort of happy’ through the run which again is not normally the case.

Negatives: There were several girls in my AG who swam and biked slower than me but just had more to give on the run. Need to work on this next year!

Post-race

For the two days immediately after the race my quads were so sore that I was struggling with stairs and this pain did not go away for a week! I imagine a combination of the long season and travelling and not doing a proper foam roll after the race took its toll. I did not do any exercise for an entire week and had no desire to!

In the second week I have cycled to work, done a couple of short runs and been to the gym. I will do this for another week before doing anything bigger.

Next year my plans are to go short and fast! I will be racing at the sprint world champs in Lausanne in September and I want to leave 70.3 behind for a season and see how I fare focusing on sprint and Olympic. I think my run needs the biggest improvement, so I would like to focus on that and also make some gains on the bike and get stronger in the gym. I would like to see what kind of AG positions I can get at big races – I have entered WTS Leeds, but also want to do some smaller races in exciting places.

Disregarding the ‘not going long’ bit, I would like to get a half marathon PB (sub 1:40) that I’ve been wanting for a while but missed the opportunity at Bath this year – I have my eyes on Barcelona half…