August started off with a trip out to Romania for the Izvorani European junior triathlon cup; this being my first international race. I travelled to the race venue a few days before to get some course familiarisation and to get used to the warmer temperature. The race was a super sprint distance consisting of a 400m swim, 11km bike and a 2.5km run. Despite the short distances, it was important to keep on top of hydration and keep the body temperature down before the race to prevent overheating. 

The swim started off at a ferocious pace with 71 athletes racing to be first round the first buoy.

I got off to a good start but got held up round the first buoy. Once out of the carnage, I was able to make some time up by sprinting along the inside of others using the draft and going from hip to hip. I came out the water a bit further back than I would have hoped, unfortunately missing out on front pack. Once onto the bike I made my way to the front of the chasing pack and started to work to catch up. I had a really strong bike leg, catching time on front pack- but unfortunately the groups didn’t come together. My legs felt a bit dead going onto the run and I faded somewhat, but was still able to catch some of the athletes who were in front pack. Going into the race I was unsure what to expect in terms of placing and ended up 17th – which I felt was a strong result and, upon reflection, learned lots from the experience which I can hopefully use in the future at other international races. The next day I also came 3rd in the relay, putting in really strong 4th leg. Unfortunately as we were the second GB team on the podium we didn’t get a medal 🙁

The next day I headed back to Stirling for a few easy days of training. 

After a few easy training days I headed down to Leeds for a home nations Next Generation camp as a lead up to Eton super series. Down in Leeds we trained with the other Next Gen athletes as well as the Leeds Triathlon Centre. Most of my training was lower volume but still intense so I was fresh leading into the Eton race.

Into Eton I was feeling in good form and excited to race the tough eliminator format. Each race was a 400m swim, 5k bike and 1500m run. We raced 4 times and each race people got eliminated until everyone was in different finals. To make things more complicated they switched up the order of swim bike and run too. Racing with the juniors and seniors was tough, however I was able to make the B final along with 2 others on my age group (Youth B). In the final I had a strong swim – being just off the back of front pack. On the bike I was able to bridge up to the leaders. At that point no one else in my age group was in front pack however later in the bike it all joined together again. The final run was hard after a long day of racing, I felt really tight and unfortunately suffered cramp in my calves. I was still able to put in a solid performance to come 2nd Youth B, 6th Junior, and 25th overall.