After coming through the Clacton triathlon in reasonable shape I had a couple of days rest before I flew out to Beijing for the final race of my season.

We arrived in Beijing on Wednesday so it would give us a good few days of acclimatisation and settle in to Sinopec Conference centre hotel, which would be our base until after the race.  Team GB were split across 3 hotels however we were lucky enough to be staying with many of the ITU Elites including the entire GB Elite team. What a fantastic experience to be sharing breakfast with the Brownlee’s and chatting to both Gomez and Frodeno.   

On Thursday we had the opportunity to try out the swim course and get a feel for the water as it was to be a non-wetsuit swim due to the bath like temperature of the water. 

The Event site was exactly as it was in the Olympics and the many statues and monuments only added to the sense of what it must have been like to compete in the games in 2008.

On Friday morning we were up early to ride the bike course and were helped by the fact the bike route was pretty much closed to public traffic.  The surface was fantastic and was the ideal course for a fast bike split. 

The course would be a 1500m metre swim in the warm waters of the Ming Tombs Reservoir, followed by an energy sapping 3 lap (42K) bike course around the undulating roads circling the reservoir.  The 3 lap 10k course would take you out of the reservoir and up a 200m climb and back round into the main grandstand area.  Much of the blue matting was still in place from the Olympics so it would be interesting to see how this would affect the athletes in the race.

Saturday morning was the turn of the Sprint Racers and they were greeted with almost monsoon conditions, which made for treturous racing.  The tight twisty corners would need good bike handling and a need for a cautious approach.

The course eventually started to clear in time for Alistair Brownlee to once again smash the field to take the World ITU title.

Race day arrived after a good night sleep and we headed into transition for a 6.50am start time.   We lined up on the pontoon for the non-wetsuit start and we were off.  The swim went well and found a good rhythm after pretty rough a tumble start as everyone battled for a good line into the turn buoy. 

I managed to keep chase with a couple of Mexican and Australian athletes which brought me out the water which seemed like a very long 1500m in 27^th place and a time of 25 minutes.  I had a fairly slow T1 after struggling with my helmet clip but was soon racing past the huge crowd, which were now cheering on their national teams.

The bike started with a big climb to get the legs going and was soon flattening out to reveal some fast and technical descents.  The roads were still greasy so it made for difficult corning, being highlighted by a number of nasty crashes and expensive carbon scattered across the road. 

I felt like I was going hard on the bike and was slightly disappointed only to be 30^th after the bike.  It was noticeable how strong everyone is on the bike at this level, including some impressive times posted by the Aussies and Americans.  Special mention defiantly goes to Darren Milne of Team GB who posted the second fastest time of the day across all age groups with a 1 hour split.  I came home in a slightly slower 1.06 and was soon running down the blue matting and onto the grandstand section and start of the 3 laps. 

My legs felt good so was able to keep a good pace and started to really enjoy the run.  There were 2 climbs on the run the 1^st of which being a good 200 meters and then the second being a short kick to get up level with the grandstand.  It was a tough course all round with a slightly longer swim, 42k bike and a run which had a couple of energy sapping climbs so was chuffed to finish in 2.17 and finish 28^th in my age group which was was a half decent result for my first world championships.

A fantastic experience and a privilege to be racing for your country against some amazing athletes from around the world. The atmosphere was amazing at the end as all the GB athletes were cheered over the finish line and is a great motivator to be fitter, faster on stronger next season.  

The Dambuster was my A race for the season and I was using it as a qualification race for the GB Age group team.  Notorious for the “Rutland Ripple” which was a 42K hilly bike course, I was confident that some strong bike training which hopefully gave me the edge of the other guys trying to qualify. For 3 days prior to the race it did not stop raining, and was worried race morning was going to be a total washout.  I wasup at 4am to have my bagels and cereal and it was still raining, so looking like a wet race.  The Dambuster was well organised so getting registered and into transition was an easy affair.  The first of my race setbacks occurred during transition racking. Unfortunately the car park had quite a large camber and the racking bars were not high enough to hook my seat over.  I ended up having to use an elastic band to secure my bike, which wasn’t ideal for a quick getaway out of T1.

The swim started well and I was in the lead group with conditions quite choppy, the choppy water pushed quite a few of the pack wide with one swimmer going so wide he had to stand up and walk back to deeper water.   I lost the lead pack and swam the remaining 700m on my own.  I exited the swim in 24 mins so slightly slower than I had hoped.  T1 didn’t go well as my helmet latch locked in the small setting so it didn’t fit on my head properly and then spent the whole bike leg with my helmet feeling like i have borrowed my 5 year old nephews and squashed it on.

The bike was tough and 42k of undulating hills was hard on the legs but the training seemed to be paying off.  My new Tri bike was making a big difference as I started picking people off especially on the downhill sections.  I was in a group of around 5 riders who seemed to be playing Cat and mouse and ultimately led to a talking to from on over enthusiastic motorbike steward!  T2 was much better and I raced through off the back of a bike time of 1hr 8 mins.  The run was a 2-lap course across the Dam and was much tougher than I expected.  The wind picked up pace across the reservoir and was slamming into competitors running in the opposite direction.  Being able to see all of the competition was certainly motivation to keep the pace up.  As I settled into the run I started to pick up pace and started setting myself little distance goals to make it easier.  I was looking for a sub 2.10 to qualify but started to realise that I would be just outside of this.

I pushed hard for the remaining 2k and wanted to make sure I had nothing left in the tank finishing in a time of 2.13.  I was disappointed with my time but as the dust settled on the results and I look back, I started to see that I have beaten many of the other guys who were also looking qualify for the GB team and ultimately bag a place in the GB team for the world tri champs in Beijing.