TRIATHLON, TRAINING & PREPARATIONS...

Working in London, I often hear a lot of comments of ‘I can’t believe it’s July!’  (sometimes happy as the summer is FINALLY here, but the majority because they know it is almost time for the empty-pocket month of December), and I told myself I would not be one of them.  However…
....I CANNOT BELIEVE IT IS JULY ALREADY!  It feels like only yesterday I was sitting in a hospital bed, wondering if I was going to be able to do the European Championships.  To that Kiera, it felt like a lifetime before she could get back to that level of training, let alone actually racing.  But for this Kiera, the one that is flying to Estonia tomorrow for the race this weekend, it feels like nothing could stop her!
My second Triathlon of the year, and just so happened to be my last before the Euros, was the Southend Triathlon.  When you think of a Triathlon, you probably imagine a cold and very early morning, huddled in transition with as many layers your body can allow. I HATE being cold.  But unusually it must have been my lucky weekend, as this race was both local AND an afternoon race and nice and warm, which any Triathlete knows is practically unheard of in the world of multisport!
The sea swim was very choppy, so much so that I couldn’t see any other competitor for several strokes before the waves dropped and I had a split second of seeing the buoys and other competitors, before it was just me in a cavern of water again.  Several people didn’t even get 50 metres before they pulled out as they were terrified.  In fact, the last couple of waves of competitors never got to swim as they cancelled the swim section of the race due to safety reasons!  Luckily I was in wave one.    
I previously had my reservations of the bike course (6 out-and-back loops, all self-counted, with over 100 people on the course at a time = recipe for disaster!), but it was a surprisingly a nice race and my bike responded really well to the course and the turns - and so did my body. 
My arm held well on that swim surprisingly and it did well on the bike even though I had to do a lot of gearing and turning so I think all the hard work with the physio, exercises and swim training has been worth it. 
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Final preparations are underway, bags are being packed, and flights are being checked in.  Pretty soon it'll be time for the hard part: trying to put my wonderfully-packed bike by Richardson’s back together! t.