As a First Time Age Grouper, Competing for TEAM GB in both Sprint and Olympic events, Pete advises that you choose your races carefully and learn to love Cheap Hotels!

What made you want to commit to world champs qualification?

I recall Mark’s email late last year encouraging everyone to have a go – I though why not…with a bit of effort it might be possible.

What were the best and worst bits about qualifying and how did you qualify?

The best bits were meeting so many fellow Viceroys at each race – in addition I built up camararderie with other participants who I saw at every race. The worst? All the qualifying races were close to one another (if you tried Sprint and Olympic as I did) so there was little recovery time; they were all early in the season (cold water) and there was a lot of travelling and staying in cheap motorway hotels the night before each race. I qualified via the roll-down places – I was 4th roll-down on the Sprint courtesy of my best race at Nottingham…i.e. 4 people didn’t want to take up their qualifying slots I was offered a place

What have you done training wise since your qualification? That’s been tough – all the effort and build up was towards qualification. After the last race (Dambuster for me) I felt like my season was complete – then the realisation comes that the training needs to up a gear and continue through until September! And the nervousness builds as you don’t want to push yourself too hard and get injured…also don’t come near me if you’ve got a cold!

What distance/date is your race? Currently I plan to race both the Sprint (17th September) and Olympic (19th September) – but we’ll see how well I recover from the Sprint…

 Any tips for other wannabe AgeGroupers? Choose your timing carefully: often the best chance to qualify is when you move up from one age category to the next. It’s also great to race the qualifiers (many of which are also English or British national championships) to judge yourself against the best in the country.