After a good long winter of training and living under the sun at Club LaSanta, I had my first race of the season this weekend. Because I am now 100% on the Olympic distance (1500-40-10), I started out in the European Cup in Quartaria, Portugal.
I was travelling straight from Lanzarote, so my out flight was a bit different from what I am usually doing. I left from Lanzarote friday evening to Sevilla, and from there on by car to Quartaria. Not the ideal travel so close to the race which was Saturdayevening, but I have before had travels the day before a race, and performed really well, therefore I thought, that I could give it a tryagain. I met up with coach Kasper Gejl and my teammates Andreas Schilling, Emil Deleuran and Thomas Strange, and we stayed together in an apartment.
I was really excited to get in the game again, after my good preparations and training I have done. It is always difficult at the first race of the season, so my primary goal was basically to see where my fitness is at the moment.
My swimming was good, I managed to stay among the first group all the way, but was exactly the meter behind so that I couldn’t get with the group on the bike (rookie mistake). The group got away, and no one seemed to be willing to work our way back. It was a really passive bike, until the next group caught us. In the beginning we worked on catching the first group, but it slowly died, when the tactics began.
We came to the second transition with a big group, about 1 min behind the front. I had a really good bike, where I felt strong all the way, and felt ready for the run. My plan was to take it a bit easy in the beginning, and then try to keep the same speed all the way.
Once again I had a really bad transition, where my feet again caused problems. Already from the swimming, my feet had been numb, and I didn’t manage to get the feeling back at all, until late in the run. Besides that, my run went as I planned - with a good feeling on the way out and keep the pace on the last 5 km. It felt like that.
I finished as nr. 25 and had overall a good race. I will defiantlywork on the small things that didn’t work 100% and then I just need to build up the speed on my run. I am happy to have a good experience in my first race, and I feel comfortable that I can do a lot better when I keep working as I have done until now.
Next race is the 27nd of April, at the Volcano Triathlon, where Iwill defend my title from the last two years.
Stay tuned until then....
Petræus.
