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.

The bike course was great. Excellent quality road surface, relatively flat and no wind meant super-fast bike times plus, I was feeling really strong and was holding a good cadence and speed. I parked the bike in T2 with a sub 60 minute bike split (course was about 38km I think), grabbed a gel and ran out on to the run course. The first few hundred metres was over uneven grass which I don’t really enjoy since I need to get up to run speed on a flat and level surface – with jelly legs, it’s really tough on a lumpy surface.

I went out at a good pace but with the heat starting to build, struggled a little to hold race pace. The run course though was lovely, a long out and back over the dam to start with and then a trail/lane section. I managed to hold on though and came in at 41.12 for the 10km, sprinting the last 100m to make sure that I came into the finishing shoot without anyone on my shoulder. Race over then. Finishing time was 2.06.32 and a respectable 6^th in Age Group. Not quite good enough for automatic qualification for the World Championships but a PB over the standard distance which I’m chuffed with.

 Recovery time now and then focus is on the European Championships at the end of May in Lisbon. ‘