Tim Gray opened his season on Sunday at the English National Standard Distance Championships/ITU World Championship Qualification event held at Grafham Water. It had been planned to take place at nearby St Neots but due to a water logged running course, the race venue was changed – in Tim’s view though, the Grafham race course was actually better.

 ‘As a season opener, the stakes couldn’t really have been higher with both National honours and World Championship selection up for grabs. Preparation had been good over the winter so along with the inevitable pre-race butterflies, I was super keen to see how fast I could go! 

On a beautiful spring morning we slipped into the icy waters of Grafham and paddled out to the start line (it was proper cold!). I started in the second wave and after the usual ‘washing machine’ got into some clear water and started catching the stragglers from the earlier start. The course was a simple square layout but with the bright sunshine and splashing water, it was actually quite tough to sight the large red buoys. However, managed to catch a few fast feet and drafted my way around in a reasonable 23.37. It was a welcome relief to get out of the water and into T1 and see a lot of bikes still there! Grabbed the bike and was on my way – warming up all the time. Continue reading →