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World Championships 2010 – Budapest by Clare Cunningham
Congratulations to Clare Cunningham on her Silver Medal.
This is Clare’s report of the race:
I can’t believe my 2010 triathlon season has now come to an end. It feels like only a month ago that I stood, freezing, waiting to start my first triathlon of the season at Thames Turbo back in April. It has certainly been an interesting season and was capped off at the weekend with a silver medal at the Paratriathlon World Championships in Budapest.
The last couple of weeks leading up to the race had gone well. I was feeling strong in all three disciplines and was getting excited to race as I could see all the training I had done start to come together. I had a little hiccup during my final turbo session the Tuesday before. I was struggling to hit power that should have been well within me. Midway through the session I made myself relax and the final few reps were so much easier – just shows what a difference nerves and tension can make and I was pleased to have realised this during this training session rather than during my race.
The couple of days in Budapest before the race were full of briefings, race prep and resting. It poured with rain non-stop on the Friday before the race and when I went to rack my bike in transition that evening the grass in the transition area was waterlogged. At this stage I was grateful we were the first wave as I could see it getting very muddy after several hundred age group athletes had run across it.
Our race was due to start on Saturday morning at 6.30am! When I woke up at 4am I hopefully looked outside to see that it was still raining and looked like it had rained all night. Arriving in transition at 5.30am in the dark, rain and waterlogged grass was not much fun but really helped calm my nerves. I realised that the conditions could really affect how some people raced and I know that one of my strengths is my ability to just get on with the race irrespective of the conditions. I did a five minute swim warm up in the lake and was surprised that the water did not feel as cold as it had when I did my swim recce a couple of days previously. Perhaps being wet from the rain had helped my body acclimatise to the cold. On the pontoon I placed myself next to my friend, visually impaired athlete Sara Butler. I knew her guide was a very strong swimmer and so I wanted to try to draft them and create a good lead out of the swim.
Once the horn sounded it was the usual madness, with nearly 100 paratriathletes racing to the first buoy. Fortunately I was able to swim away from several people around me and quickly found space and my rhythm. I lost Sara but decided to just swim hard rather than wasting time trying to find a pair of feet to draft. In the final 300m I could tell I was swimming with the male leg amputees and so knew I was swimming well and in a good position. Exiting the water I felt a bit light headed which is very unusual but thankfully David, my husband, was there shouting at me to follow him so I simply ran after him. T1 went smoothly and I was soon on the bike.
Despite the rain and a significant amount of surface water on the road, the pancake flat straight course meant that I could still ride fast. I was very careful around the dead turns but then again I probably wouldn’t have gone much faster round them in the dry – must improve bike handling skills! At the first dead turn I could see I had been the first out of the water in my category but knew I would have to work hard to maintain any advantage on the bike. Midway through the first lap my team mate Faye McClelland came past me but I just kept my head down and pedalled as hard as I could. Towards the end of the first lap I came round a bend to see Sara and her guide at the side of the road. I hoped they had a small mechanical that could be fixed but as I came past again on my second lap I noticed they were still there and out of the race. I really am gutted for Sara. She trains so hard and is very keen to learn and develop as an athlete but has had so much bad luck in international competitions. Her time will come though and these experiences will only make her mentally stronger and enable her to appreciate the successes that much more.
As I came into T2 Faye was just running out to start the run but I thought I had a good margin over Jody Barber from Canada who was in third. However, I knew Jody was a strong runner and so I had to keep the pressure on to secure silver. The run was straight along the River Danube and being flat I soon got into a rhythm and just kept pushing. 1km from the end my team mate Tom Perkins came past me and shouted me on but I was working that hard that I couldn’t respond. As I came to the finish I could see that I was safe for the silver medal and felt a sense of relief as I crossed the finish line in a time of 1.15.50 – a new sprint distance personal best time by two minutes.
A year ago, when I was setting my goals for this season I said to Andrea that I had to be able to race a sprint distance in under 1.20 and had to get my 20km bike time down to 37 minutes. If someone had said to me a year ago that I would race a 1.15 I would have been thrilled and doubtful at the same time. On Saturday all my hard work paid off to produce a time many able-bodied age group athletes would be pleased with. This year that time was only good enough for silver. Just shows how far paratriathlon has developed in the last year.
However, I do know that I have a lot more potential to come. This was the first season that I trained in all three disciplines through the winter and having that base fitness paid dividends during race season. I also have to fit my training around 10 hour working days whereas some of my competitors have the luxury of more time to rest and properly recover. If I can reduce my working hours that could make a real difference to my training and recovery.
I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone at thetrilife and in particular Andrea for all your support this season. thetrilife really is THE BEST triathlon coaching company.
Clare
