Her Spiriter Kirstie is excited about her return to London Triathlon 2 years on 🏊♀️🚴♀️🏃♀️
More than 2 years have passed since my first Her Spirit triathlon. Whilst the pandemic has created a huge void in the training calendar, I can’t blame it entirely for the lack of swim, bike, run efforts. In the time since taking part in the London Tri I have focused on my maintaining overall fitness, especially core strength and flexibility along with my running. The support of the online communities I’ve stayed connected to have been invaluable in terms of accountability and keeping me both physically and mentally strong.
Finally, if a little late in the day took the plunge to sign up to the London Tri Sprint distance feeling confident that with my good level of fitness, I could compete without feeling completely out of my depth. My long-term aim is to compete in the Olympic distance but for now working up to this in stages seems like a sensible option as I gain confidence in Triathlon events.
Two events re-ignited the spark in me to take part. Firstly, seeing the Her Spirit ladies compete in the Leeds Triathlon earlier in the year gave me a serious case of FOMO. That was the trigger which made me seriously consider another event.
Shortly after, I volunteered at Spring Lakes at a GoTri event and catching up with a former HS London Tri competitor afterwards really made me realise that there was nothing stopping me having another go. The only thing stopping me, was me!
Training wise, the running has been taken care of through my DORunning Sessions and I’ve incorporated cycling to and from as many of these as possible to create mini brick sessions which have been really enjoyable. I’ve also been back in the open water a few times to refamiliarize myself with the feeling and the conditions, which are very different to being in a pool! Unfortunately, after my first pool swim in over two years I picked up a slight knee injury so took the decision to wait until it felt better before going again.
Despite this, the swim itself gave me confidence as I enjoyed getting back into the water and found that I could still remember the front crawl technique after all this time! The online Her Spirit workouts have been a great way to build in strength and conditioning to support the cardio sessions.
I’m looking forward to meeting some new faces in London and being part of something amazing again. The fact that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics have been taking place during training is another source of inspiration! The mixed relay triathlon was one of my favourite events and I’m really excited to be giving it another go and seeing what I can achieve.
Good luck to everyone taking part!
Kirstie