European Middle Distance Aquabike Champs, Menen, Belgium

Multi sport is such adventure, the nerves, the stress, the highs and the lows and taking it abroad heightens all of these. Why do we do it, for the challenge, for the possibility of doing something great, beating previous times (PB) and perhaps proving you have what it takes to push yourself even further than you have ever done before.

So this is my 6th year of qualifying to represent GBR at age group level, but due to work and the pandemic it is only my second ever Champs. Previously I have always qualified for triathlon events but decided to give Aquabike a go this season as I had fallen out of love with running. Aquabike has grown in popularity over the last few years and has started to become very competitive and that was evident at the Champs from how many expensive bikes there were being racked. I love multi sport events and the privilege to be able to wear GBR kit with my name on is an unbelievable feeling, it’s not the pros but never in my life did I think I would get to wear such kit, really is a great honour.

Well where to start…….the journey to Belgium started on Wednesday with the race not actually until the Sunday, but we decided to make a holiday of it and travel well in advance and staying on after for a few days. The car journey was long, but worth driving in order to not have to worry about limiting the amount of kit to bring. We managed to find an Airbnb just over the border in France and this was a real god send as it was only 20 minutes away from the competition venue.

The event was spread over 4 days, with 3 different competitions of varying lengths. The first element was the swim familiarisation on the Thursday evening…….well what can I say, the water although warm was not the best quality, visibility was shocking, I have never swam in such dirty water and there was real concern about the water quality. I can thankfully say that I survived both swims I did, but I was one of the lucky ones, others were not so lucky. This is becoming a real theme in open water swimming with the poor water quality and I experienced it myself earlier in the season at another Aquabike event.

The weather was very up and down and heavy thunder storms in the afternoons since Thursday had been the standard, which concerned me as I don’t have the best bike handling skills and wet roads make me very nervous. Another feature had been the wind and although the rain didn’t make an appearance on race day, the wind was very much there. Head and harsh side winds were brutal, however, it felt like there weren’t that many tailwinds for the rest of the time lol

Next was Saturday and time for registration and racking. The whole process was very smooth. The goody bag was definitely a step above what you get for a normal race. Massage ball, swim kick board, compression socks, can of beer 🤷🏼‍♀️😂 Racking time and surprise surprise the heavens opened and everyone in there ran for cover under anything bigger than a £5 note lol Such a large transition area, but very well laid out and with 3 walks round I felt confident I knew where everything was. All items ticked off the to do list for the day, which meant it was time to head back to the accommodation to fuel and rest ready for the big day.

Nicely there was no early alarm for once on race day as I wasn’t off until 1250.

Swim - although a slightly different stretch of the river the water quality still wasn’t fantastic. It was a rolling start for the age groupers, which meant I got to practice my diving skills, not seen much since my youth and swimming for Workington town. The goggles stayed on and no water went up my nose so I will take that as a win lol. I went in right at the back as although I’m a good swimmer, open water swimming in the masses scares me and makes me nervous, this meant I got to pick lots of people off. I got into a rhythm but there were a lot of stretches were it was quite choppy which meant on the back straight I ended up taking a large gulp of water, not nice. By the last 500m I was starting to catch up to the men’s race which started 10 minutes earlier. So swim done and it was up and out up the steep steps into transition and what would be a 4 minutes affair due to how big it was and having to collect transition bags from the racking.

Bike - onto the bike and off we go, lots of mobile draft dusters on the course and within the first couple of miles I got a stern hand gesture to distance myself from the rider in front (young Polish guy from the open race) as I was too close….in my defence we had gone past each about 5 times at this point with neither of us being able to push on, I took the warning though and made sure I left plenty of room for the rest of the race, which at times was difficult with 1200 riders over a 27 mile course. As previously mentioned strong winds was a reoccurring theme throughout the race, head, harsh side and not very many tail winds, which made for tough racing at times. Also some dead end turns and technical sections kept the course interesting and although 90% of the road surface was really good, there was a particularly bad 1 mile section which made it impossible to stay in the bars unless I wanted to lose some fillings or shatter a elbow from the hard vibrations. I had set myself a time for the first loop and was very happy when I came in 3 minutes under this, however, I knew the second loop was definitely going to be tougher as my biking endurance still isn’t 100% where it needs to be for this length of race at high pace. By the time I got to 10 miles from the end I was starting to suffer and my concentration was starting to go which became quite evident when coming back onto the main drag after a technical section where I missed judged the bend by going to fast into it and nearly punching out onto the other side of the road and taking out a volunteer at the same time…..I managed to correct myself at the last minute and after about 3 shouting apologies to the volunteer (now behind me) I had a word with myself to get a grip as there was no way having come this far I was going to come off the bike with only 10 miles to go. The last section into the finish was thankfully uneventful, I pushed as hard as I could but remained safe and was stunned when I came across the line for the bike section in 2 hours 36 mins, smashed the time I had set myself of 2 hours 45 mins, amazing.

So the scores on the doors were as follows:

5th in age group out of 12, 1st GBR

14th female overall out of 104, 5th GBR

Such a great race and super happy with both my time, where I came and the fact that I also pre qualified for next years European Champs from my performance. A great end to the season, where I finished in much better shape than I started it and that is very much thanks to the coaching I’ve received and the support of family. Most notably my partner Lee, who as always throughout was chief pack horse, photographer and cheer leader, without his support there is no way I could achieve everything I do.