by Grant Paling. I’m back. It’s been a few weeks and ultimately, a lot of time to process what happened. If you’ve been following my European Age Group Championship adventures, you will know that the triathlon went well. Very well. But let me give you a deeper insight into the race, the mentality I took into it and then in following blogs I’ll reflect on how that performance was achieved using AI Endurance.

I still don't think it has fully dawned on me. When I first joined my local club in 2018 and heard about age group racing it seemed a million miles away from where I could ever be.

But here I was, lining up at the start line at age 41 in my shiny new Great Britain tri suit about to do just that. Even more surreal that my debut for my country would be at middle distance, which as I realized somewhat humorously earlier that week, would be only my second 70.3 triathlon. For those not in the know, 70.3 is the number of miles you travel by swimming (1.2 miles), cycling (56 miles) and running (13.1 miles).

So this was just my second race at 70.3 - well, my fourth but the first I did not finish after a bike crash then overheating, and the third a cancelled swim thereby removing 1.2 of the said 70.3 miles. That doesn’t sound like a lot but to triathletes, it matters!

But here I was in sunny Coimbra in Portugal. A city steeped in history yet not one I'd ever heard of. Situated slightly inland and almost equidistant between Porto and Lisbon, here I was with my clubmate Richard on an adventure. An adventure where we kept leaving the key in the front door of our AirBNB and were given a look not of anger but of disappointment from the hard nosed Portuguese lady next door.

A few days to acclimatize having arrived Wednesday ahead of racing Saturday, we'd done some easy rides and runs on parts of the course and done the swim course. We'd tried all of Richard's carefully planned food and coffee spots. And now it was time to go!

One thing I noticed when racking my bike up the night before was the other bikes. Oh my the other bikes! It was like a bike shop but rather than a range of bikes it was all the most expensive bikes you could ever dream of. All of them. And not in a normal size shop but one that was hundreds of meters long. A sure sign that this was going to be the most competitive race of my life!

The next morning it was race day. After a loooooong wait outside transition to allow the last Elite athletes out onto the bike, we then had no time to hang about. I was strangely calm, but that was soon disrupted by a trip to the portaloos for a quick pee stop and I suddenly realized everyone except Richard and I were gone. Across the river over the bridge to the swim start. Some slightly panicked running (though the pre-race briefing had revealed a rather relaxed "start when you want" policy) and then we were on the bridge over the water and could see that athletes were already lining up for the start.

Again, you could start when you wanted - they had just said to seed yourself against similar speed swimmers. Only problem was this was a European competition and the only other person I knew was faster than me and was already gone!

I just decided to crack on with it, got to the front of the line and the marshalls delivered a 5 second countdown and off I ran into the water, dived in and was up and running!

It was a long swim out, swim across and swim back on the River Mondego. The good news was, despite some high temperatures in the preceding weeks it was a nice 19 degrees and no real current or waves and in truth, it was a fairly uneventful swim and being towards the back of the field, I figured I now had lots of targets to catch on the bike. I came out in a Swim time of 36 mins 51 seconds - probably a couple of minutes slower than I had expected but I was feeling fresh and on about the 3rd tug my wetsuit quick release worked and I was off down the blue carpet to get my bike....

Into transition and apart from putting a sock on inside out and upside down (which I even found funny at the time) I quickly corrected and was running my bike down the long transition to take my bike out onto the road.

Now...this required a big decision. Having scouted it the day before, the bike out was up a short cobbled hill. I'd definitively made my choice, I wasn't about to try and jump on my bike and get my feet into my shoes on a cobbled hill.

Instead I ran with my bike up the hill, overtaking the 6 or 7 struggling up the cobbles trying to get their feet into their shoes and onto the road then smoothly onto the bike. A few places gained just by using common sense. Common sense isn’t always my specialty but today's theme was keeping cool.

Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and it was already getting hot. Even though we'd been there for 3 days, this was the first one that had truly been blazing sunshine so there was absolutely no acclimatization. This in mind, my plan was to keep to my target average speed – follow what the AI Endurance app was telling me my body could do and don’t underdo it, don’t overdo it. Do what I did in training! Don't do anything stupid. And stay on the bloody bike! I’ll talk more about how I came to my target speed in the next blog. But for now, on with the race.

It was a plan well executed. The bike course was incredible. So fast, closed roads and considering hundreds of athletes doing a 4 lap loop of 22.5km each, it was quite well spaced - at least at my end of the field.

I caught and passed people. I watched some struggle up short punchy climbs that were mere molehills by my own standards given that where I live you are mostly going uphill or downhill everywhere.

After what seemed like an age, the bike was coming to an end. I was on target for my pace and here was another big decision. Same cobbles I came out on, I now had to ride down all the way to the dismount line where I would get off and head back into the transition area.

Risk taking my feet out of my shoes whilst riding across cobbles? Somehow again, I allowed common sense to prevail! I would lose a few seconds running in my bike shoes in the transition area (it’s faster just in socks) but I would lose a lot more than seconds (probably some skin) if I face planted on the cobbles.

And so the Bike was finished in 2 hours 28 minutes 57 seconds, a massive 56 mile (90km for those of you in Europe) personal record for me. 13 minutes faster than my previous best racing at this distance (which also came without a swim before it last year at Weymouth). In fact it was faster than I’d ever rode 56 miles, never mind in a triathlon.

Buoyed by this, I bounced into my run shoes, stuck on my shades to try and keep the now blazing sun out of my eyes and bring my race home.

Only one problem. It was now even hotter. With our race starting relatively late at 9:30am (due to the Elite athletes going off at 7:30am) it was now the hottest part of the day. Not ideal for just starting the half marathon of a 70.3 mile race.

The temperature was somewhere up around 25 degrees (though I believe at its hottest it was around 30) and the Sun was blazing down. But I said to myself, just keep at a sensible pace. Be patient. Again, I will talk in the next blog about how I decided what my pace should be using AI Endurance. But for now – on with the race!

I felt good and was able to keep my normal half marathon pace for the first mile or two. I pressed on and the miles slowly ticked over, as the run took us down the river fully exposed to the sunshine, then into a large wooded area where there was a bit more shade but also a bit more humidity.

I was keeping patient though. Whenever my heart said "want to push on a bit?" my head told it to shut up and I kept a very consistent pace.

The feed stations were very regular and wow, they needed to be. As I reached lap two, it had become essential to tip a full bottle of water over your head at each one. You also need sugar to keep your blood sugars up and usually in these types of races they have cups of flat cola. The cola wasn't flat, it was a) still fizzy and b) in cans you had to open yourself. You then basically got a cola explosion in the face and had to swallow as much as you could without overfizzing your stomach and then just, well, keep running!

People were suffering. People were walking. People were overheating, even the Portuguese who were of course out in force in their home race.

It was brutal. As I reached 3 miles to go, I was feeling tired. But in my heart, I knew I had to press on. I was wearing this GB tri suit and I would not stop, I could not stop. And my steady pace was holding. With some hasty mathematical calculations to take my mind off my legs and the heat, I figured I was guaranteed a time under 5 hours, one of my goals for this race (aside from not coming last). And as I went on, I figured I might get some decent way below that.

At mile 12 I got quite worried. My fingers were tingling and felt like fat sausages. Not the kind you want to eat but the kind you want to just shake off your hands and replace with normal fingers again. I needed more cola, one last boost but reaching the 2nd last aid station the message I received was a "no cola senor". I grabbed an energy gel, any gel and threw it down my throat.

It worked. And now I was inside the last mile. One last bottle of water over the head and now I had that sense of euphoria that I was going to finish. My pace picked up again and I absolutely emptied the tank…

Smiling one of the widest smiles I had ever smiled I came down that blue finishing carpet with roars of GB support, with a fist pump for the cameras (that weren't even live streaming in the end to my disappointment) I roared my biggest roar back to the crowd, prompting more cheers from the amazing GB supporters.

What a feeling. I crossed the line and I was absolutely spent. Left it all out there. Completely done.

That run is one of the hardest things I've experienced in sport. But also a marker of how far I've come. I spectacularly overheated in the same conditions in 2017 in my first 70.3 mile race and to not only finish but to run my fourth fastest half marathon ever, in searing heat. Well, I'm pretty proud of that. Run time 1:38:05.

Total time 4:48:34 and over 22 minutes off my previous best overall time at this distance.

I finally felt like a proper Great Britain age group athlete. I felt finally validated. I'd trained hard, I'd practiced these moments and it paid off. Because when they came I knew what was coming and I just stuck to the plan.

And then it was home made Portuguese biscuits. It was apple juice. It was more home made Portuguese biscuits. It was beer. It was more beer.

When all was said and done, I was 26th in my age category out of 41 (9th British finisher), 146th out of 423 overall and I could not be happier. There was a moment shortly after I crossed the finish line and was sat in a chair wondering if my legs would ever work again when I just had a moment to take it all in. I put my head in my hands, smiled and even cried a little. If I never race for GB again, no one can take this away from me now. What an experience and I feel very proud. And thankful. To you all, for the support I received during my posts leading up to the race. And the amazing support of my family, especially my amazing wife and unconditionally loving children (see below the sweet card they wrote and hid inside my aero helmet for the morning of the race!).

I leave you with this - whatever your goals in life, believe in yourself and you can get them done.

So what next? In my next two blogs I’ll be looking at:

• Bringing some context to how AI Endurance helped shape my race strategy
• Moving onto some new goals for the second half of the season and creating the next plan