St Neots Sprint Triathlon, 16 Jul 2023

The aim of this one was a course recce for a world qualifier race in September on the same course. It also happened to be the Cambridge Triathlon Club championships, but as the only female member entered into the sprint distance, I fancied my chances. I repeatedly checked the weather all week, but thankfully the 50mph winds scheduled passed overnight and we "only" had to contend with 25mph winds.

With it being the club champs, we'd requested a Cambridge Tri club wave, which was set off about a minute after the main sprint wave. In hindsight, this probably wasn't the best idea, which was instantly realised as 15-20 seasoned triathletes ploughed straight into the slower swimmers of the main pack. This made it challenging for us, trying to negotiate our way through the masses, but it was probably worse for the swimmers we were fighting through. Sorry! I managed a decent swim though and despite being set off a minute later, I was still 2nd woman out of the water and got myself into 1st with a speedy T1.

The bike was where I really did the damage though. It was a bit of a battle against the wind, but I had no problem holding my position and I managed the fastest female bike split of the day by 5 whole minutes! Although it was only a local race and I had a TT bike to my advantage, I'm really happy with that. The hard work is paying off. It was nice to have Tim cheering us on as well, and knowing he was at the top of the hill definitely made me push harder up the one (short) climb! There was one sketchy moment coming back into St Neots when a motorbike marshall overtook me but then instantly had to slow down for some speed bumps that I could cruise straight over. I had to brake pretty hard and I lost my back wheel a bit, but thankfully stayed upright - a moment that Tim managed to capture on camera! Anyway, it made me feel like I was Pogacar racing in the TDF.

Onto the run and I hadn't quite appreciated the lead that I had given myself, so I set off at my normal pace. Annoyingly, I missed a right hand turn on the first lap and carried on over a bridge instead, losing myself about a minute whilst I worked out why there were no course arrows anymore and tried to retrace my steps. Turns out I wasn't the only one of the day to do that, so I'm glad the course recce served its purpose.

I took the win by 7 minutes in the end, which I'm still absolutely amazed by. It's funny to think that I'm now that annoying person that shows up at a local race and absolutely smashes it, I'm not sure I would have believed you if you'd said I'd do that a few years ago! Progress.

Emily Young