It's all too easy to remember how good it feels when you cross the finish line of any race you do. But race day is the easy part, right? Triathlon is tough. Three very different disciplines back-to-back and hundreds of hours of training just to get on the start line. Up and coming #TeamTCUK athlete, 17 year-old Reece Allen, offers his hugely insightful reflections on his 2018 season.
 

This time last year (October) I restarted training again after my break. Last season had been tough as a first year elite junior racing in the super series stepping up from youth races. However, it was a season where I learnt a lot about tactics in a drafting environment and it allowed me to race the sprint distance instead of the super sprint.

My winter training started off well doing cross country as well as a lot of my base training. In mid-November I was out on my bike in greasy conditions. Just as I was only five minutes away from home I took the corner too fast for the conditions and ended up having a long day in hospital getting stitches put into my lip along with a new tooth! This was frustrating as I couldn’t swim or go out in the wet conditions for a few weeks leaving me stuck in the gym. Later in the season this lead to more frustrations as I lost my nerve for cornering leaving me vulnerable in races and often being spat out of the group after dead turns.

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To start the New Year I raced in the Derbyshire XC championships. A few days later I was left in bed for three weeks with Aussie flu. This completely destroyed my entire winter training. Even after I was out of bed it took me weeks to be able to get back on any sort of training program.

I raced my first race of the season, the Bedford duathlon (end of March). This was the first race in the super series, we raced with the elite men including Adam Bowden. As I expected I underperformed massively but I finished which I was pleased with, it gave me something to build upon for the rest of the season.

Before I was ready to race again, it was time to qualify for the super series. I went along to the qualifier where I underperformed (April). This was a qualifier where I emptied the tank and had nothing left at the end. When this happens it’s a massive blow to the system. Fortunately I was granted a wildcard entry into the series.

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It is always difficult to find people to race open water against, this is why I love the Matlock River Swim! This year I only got the chance to swim one of the three races in the Matlock River series. During this I raced all three races the 250m, 500m and 1500m. It was a nice surprise at the end of the year to find out I’d achieved second overall throughout the year.

I decided not to compete in the first race of the series and instead try to get myself back onto form ready for the rest of the season. I then raced Blenheim Palace triathlon the week before Leeds to test my form (June). This was my first triathlon against elite men which taught me a lot. I had the best swim start ever! Then about 400m into the 800m swim I was passed by a large group of men and I couldn’t hold on to the back of the group. This showed me just how important it was to pace the swim. It doesn’t matter if you’re not at the pointy end until you cross that finish line.

In July I raced at Super Tri, this has to be my favourite course as you can see everyone the entire way around. Even more of a bonus it had the least amount of technical corners on the bike. I started with a strong swim and then was in a large peloton, which then lead me to finish on a strong run. This is a race I felt I performed the best at all season.

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After this strong race I was feeling positive going to race at Hetton. This was a race with a small field, with an aggressive style of racing with two heats of racing over a super sprint distance. I had a good swim in both of the races coming out around 8^th in the first race and 3^rd in the second race. In the first race I just missed the front group, this made the bike hard work trying to chase on. In the second race I wasn’t going to make the same mistake! I secured my bike position after my strong swim by leading everyone away out of transition. I then finished off with a strong run in both of the races. At the end of the day I was also involved in a relay for fun, this involved a 150m swim 2.5k bike and 800m run.

Then it was time for my last race of the season. I thought I was fitter than I had been all year approaching the race. How wrong could I have been! It went wrong from the gun! It was a dead start in the water, 80 junior males lined up shoulder to shoulder no room for error. The gun goes, I get a perfect 10m leading out the swim from the front. Then what happened next can only be described as if you could imagine you’re in a washing machine being pushed down not able to breathe. I stood up splattered out a cough, looked around I’d gone from first all the way to last in seconds. I took a deep breath and went after the group, after all there was still 790m left to swim! I caught the back of the group and made my way up to about the back end of the third group. Then I had a decent transition and got on my bike where things only got worse. I was quickly spat out the back of the group and it soon became a 20k solo ride which was not enjoyable. On my fifth lap I was given the hurry up by the referee as I was in danger of being lapped out, I never thought that would happen! I soldiered on and finished the race with an average run.

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At many moments during this race it would have been easy to drop out, but a key thing I believe in is NEVER, EVER DNF. I may have felt it was my worst race but I didn’t give up and finished in spite of how it all panned out – I’m sure many of you with empathise with this!

I’m now looking ahead to next season and working through my bespoke weekly training programme from TCUK. Triathlon is all about experience and learning from that experience. Some of our training and racing experiences aren’t what we expect but they really do make us stronger and wiser. Looking forward to a positive 2019.

N.B. from Reece’s coach Matt: “Last week Reece hit a PB on his FTP test AND ran a 10k race in 37 minutes with no issues – result!”