by Grant Paling. In my last blog, I closed the chapter on my European Championship race in Portugal. It definitely was an intense period leading up to, during and after the race. So many emotions, so much effort invested and then…what’s next?

Well, with endurance sports there is always another goal. And with the major race of the first half of the season done it is now time to focus on the next. That meant not one but TWO big races in September.

Since I started writing these blogs, it was officially confirmed I had achieved qualification for the European Standard Distance Triathlon age group championships in Vichy, France in September. So that means for the 2^nd time this season, I get to race for Great Britain.

In the immediate weeks after my race in Portugal, I was very much in recovery mode. That didn’t mean stopping training but certainly a dramatically reduced volume and you can see from my AI Endurance recovery chart that it did me good:

Then mid-July you can see where I kind of panicked that I had another race coming up – this time Belvoir Castle triathlon, near where I grew up. Whilst I always had this as a minor race in my calendar, I still wanted to do well (especially as my family would be there watching). But overloading myself like that probably wasn’t a good idea and it’s nice to be able to see that effect in the data and see that it matches how I felt!

Luckily the training plan of course was adapted to my race plan in AI Endurance, and moved into a short tapering mode and I recovered nicely for the race as you can see.

With this “bit of fun” race, I actually did quite well, making the podium with 3^rd place in my age group (and 8^th overall) in what is one of the bigger race series events in the UK.

It was a very interesting race. The swim was chaos – a mass start with lots of people in a small space. It might sound weird but I kind of enjoyed that! Then the bike was super fast. And you could see everyone was going for it. Then the run…straight uphill. For pretty much 4-5km (with a few breaks, but all of the uphill seemed to be the first half). People were blowing up left and right. Walking, shuffling, struggling. Me included. I was thinking to myself this race sucks. But it turns out it sucked for everyone and I was very happy to come away with a top 3 age group finish. It wasn’t a serious race anyway :-P

So with that done, I now have that final focus – back to those two races. As I mentioned, Vichy in France hosts the Standard Distance age group European Championships (so the shorter distance version of the champs I competed in, in Portugal in June). It’s still a 1500m swim, 40km bike and 10km run so I guess “relatively short” should be the term here!

That happens 22^nd September. Two weeks before on 8^th September I’ll be trying to qualify for next year’s European Championships down in Bournemouth, where it is also the standard distance. I don’t think I’ve ever had two big races this close together before so I’ll be putting my faith in AI Endurance to guide the way!

In my next blog I’ll start getting into the planning for those races, looking at what AI Endurance has in store for me and maybe some of my early thinking about how I will go. I feel like it’s time for a game of Grant vs. AI on the predictions side. That could be fun.

Enjoy the summer and whether you are running, cycling, swimming or walking – get outside!