Well it’s only the end of October and while we have few races left to do (cross country mainly), we thought this would be a good time to do a summary of this year (with a few of our favourite photos). What we’ve been up to as athletes but more importantly what our athletes have been doing.
We think it’s reasonable to say that whilst Covid is far from over we are all in a much better place than we were in January of this year. We’ve all managed to complete a fair few races and it has felt a bit more like a “normal” year.
Our athletes
Our Elswick coached swim sessions have been proven to be very popular and we’re about to expand to three groups to cope with demand.
We continue to hopefully make these sessions fun and disguise the fact that the athletes are actually working really hard whilst also getting better swim technique (best to ask them how well we actually disguise this!)
The athletes that we’ve coached on 1:1 plans have all done really well this year and there are too many achievements to list in much detail but in summary:
- Two of our athletes qualified for the Standard Distance World Championships in Abu Dhabi
- One of these athletes also qualified for the European Sprint Championships in Munich and completed their first (of many?) Ironman races
- One athlete got “back on track” and competed again at 70.3 distance
- One athlete completed their first open water triathlon overcoming significant barriers in order to do so
Well done to all of you – you did the hard work and we were delighted to help you achieve your goals.
David finally got to race for GB this year having qualified in 2019 for the European Standard Distance Championships. Valencia was the chosen location and we managed to make it part of a bigger holiday – cycling in Andorra and also getting to cheer on friends and one of our athletes at Ironman Barcelona.
For Sarah this was a real breakthrough season. Having really struggled with open water swimming in recent times, she took several brave pills, borrowed an old wetsuit and took the plunge (yes literally) into some lakes.
As someone with a strong endurance background in cycling and running this really was the missing link to longer course triathlons and she has now already completed two 70.3 races with some big plans for next year.
So what about 2022?
Well, plans are starting to take shape.
We’ve already entered a few races and have also recently taken on a number of new athletes on coached plans who we’re looking forward to working with throughout the year.
Sarah has some really big plans (Ironman Switzerland!) and will try to blog about her “journey to Thun” over the coming months.
So we’ll do some base fitness work over the winter months, work on our technique and skills, dust down the indoor bike trainer and look forward to the warmer months when we can start racing all over again.
How was your year? Got plans for 2022 already? Get in touch if you think we can help you achieve your goals.
