This was my first ever British super series event as I’ve now moved up an age group to the 15-16 one which allows me to race this now. I’d had a good bit of training leading up to this, although I did get sore knees about a month before, but that was due to overtraining and cleared up quite quickly. Two days before the race I went to the venue to see what the course was and to see how warm the water was and whether it was worth wearing a wetsuit. It was great to have a super series race in Scotland, as this has never happened recently and it was nice to be able to drive there from our house rather than stay in a hotel.
This event was compromised of 3 races, and the results were based off your points from your best 2 races. The person with the lowest points won and your finish position was your number of points. In the first race (800m swim, 1km run) I came out of the swim in the front group, with one guy up ahead. I ran well managing to drop all the group on the run, except from one guy, Rory, but I bet him in a sprint finish so was second in the first race. Th real challenge from this format was recovering between races as we had about an hour or just over.
The second round had a 500m swim and a 1500m run. Coming out of the swim the situation was the same as the first- one guy out front and a small group behind. This time on the run everyone was dropped again, apart from rory. We caught the guy who was leading meaning we would be sprinting for the win. I went early as I had done in the previous race and got a gap, but when I thought I had won and slowed slightly he came back very quickly and got me on the line, well done to him on that great sprint.
I wasn’t happy with my mistake in the second race so was determined to take the win on the last race (300m swim, 2km run). Going into the last race there were 3 of us on 4 points, meaning the winner of this one would win overall. I took a gamble and didn’t wear a wetsuit as i thought that would be faster and the water wasn’t too cold, but the cold did affect me and I came out of the swim in about 6th, a bit behind the other 2. Maybe my Huub wetsuit was faster than I thought. I managed to run through to 3rd which gave me joint second overall. I was very happy to medal in my first super series event as I was in the bottom half of the age group. Well done to Rory on the win ( he is also in the bottom half). After that race I was sitting in joint 3rd overall in the series, because there was also a race in England for the people who lived more to the south, so there were technically only half of the people at my race. Next race 1 week after-> British super series performance assessments.
Alex Robin Triathlon blog 