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| Jill with her winner's medal |
Here's how the day went...........
On 24/25 July there was a whole weekend of triathlons taking place at Hyde Park building up for when the Olympics will take place there in 2012. The main race was the Elite World Series Championship where professional elite athletes had travelled from every corner of the world to compete. As this is the top elite championship only the top 5 from each country were selected and unfortunately, as all the top British girls wanted to race, I did not make the cut this time. However, not wanting to miss out on racing at the future Olympic venue I signed up for the amateur race taking place on the Sunday.
On the Saturday I watched the elite ladies race, and they were phenomenal, I know I wouldn't have come last in that race, but I'm still a way off competing with the best of them.
On Sunday I got ready for my first amateur race in a while. Prior to the race I'd put quite a bit of pressure on myself, I'd been racing with the elite ladies for quite a few races now so wanted to prove to myself that i definitely belonged there. There were loads of people racing in the amateur race about 1,600 in total and all the waves were mixed up between ages and genders. I think there were only around 6 girls in my wave. This was frustrating as it was impossible to know how you were doing against other girls in your age group but it did chill me out and i was quite relaxed when I got in to the Serpentine to start my race.
I was determined just to relax and enjoy this race as much as I could and found myself feeling very calm in the water waiting for the starting siren to sound. The klaxon sounded and we were off and miraculously, I went into the lead with two other people. Apart from the weed in the shallower parts of the Serpentine, which I had to remove from my goggles a couple of times so I could still see where I was going, the swim, unusually for me, was a dream. I was nice and relaxed, got into a really good rhythm found lots of clear water so no hitting and kicking or argy bargey and exited the water third in my heat in 20:51.
Unlike elite racing where the transition area is nicely laid out next to the swim exit with loads of room, for the amateurs it was a 500m run to a large field with all the bikes racked up on the slope of the hill. I had a terrible position but soon I had picked up my bike and was doing a flying mount onto my bike and powering round the perimeter road of Hyde Park. It was impossible to know my position and with my bike computer refusing to work it was impossible to know my speed, so I just focused on putting my head down and racing as hard as I could. With so many athletes on the course it was great motivation flying past loads of people, I loved it. Especially motoring round the corners and chicanes where people were breaking for too much, I was able to zip round quickly on the inside of them. A few men did not like being overtaken by a girl so tried fighting back, which just spurred me on to overtake them back again and this 'cat and mouse' chasing kept my concentration and my speed high. I had my coach, Michelle Dillon screaming for me on one corner of the bike course and my husband Matt and friend Andy and his family screaming for me at the bridge over the Serpentine so I focused on getting to them as fast as I could to motivate me for the next part of the course.
Before I knew it 5 laps of the bike (around 37km I think) was over, I'd completed it in 59:52 and I headed back to transition hoping that this time my run legs would be fired up for a fast run. The run was 4 laps of the Serpentine and I was feeling good and wanted to give it my all. On the run course the crowds were huge and cheered us on every inch of the way. At the end of the first lap I was feeling great, running fast and soaking up the atmosphere. Matt was cheering at the first part of the run lap, Mish half way through and Andy near the finishing straight so I focused on getting to each of my supporters round every lap. I was feeling fast but the run was getting harder with every lap. Coming to the end of the third lap where the huge crowds had gathered I was starting to lose a little momentum when the commentator must have picked up on my time splits. He started shouting over the tannoy for everyone to look to the side of the finish shoot where I was passing through ready to start my final lap. He was shouting, "Look at the lady coming through in the black tri suit!!! This is Jill Parker from Team Dillon and she is tearing up the field...she's speeding past at an amazing pace... give her some encouragement as she flies past!!!" The crowd picked up on this and started cheering "Go Jill" as I raced past and even the other athletes who I was overtaking starting giving me great encouragement too.
This really lifted me. With all this attention I had to look fast even if I felt like I was dying. So I focused on getting to Matt, then to Mish ignoring the pain in my legs and then before I knew it I was running over the bridge and down the slope towards the finish line. The crowds were cheering me on down the finish shoot as I finished the run in 38:02 and crossed the line in a total of 2:02:58 smashing the previous course record by 8 minutes and winning the ladies race overall by around 5 minutes. Great to be back to winning ways.
I attach a photo of me after the race posing with my medal and my recovery compression GC Tech Sports socks - nice ;0)
My next race is London at the excel centre on Sunday - this is against the crème de la crème of all the top British athletes, wish me luck, I'll need it!!!!!
Jill
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