It was great turn out albeit a couple of athletes missing through sickness.  However, we invited some athletes on the fringe of the academy to take their place, and naturally they jumped at the chance to challenge themselves.

 

It was a bit of a shock for a few first-year juniors who trialled as youth athletes in September with a 200m swim and a 1500m run but now had to test over 400m and 3k. The key message from the coaches was that this is a progress check, so we can all see what needs working on.  These were some great efforts with a few athletes putting in swim PBs and running PBs.  Technical feedback was given post swim and run with some key points for each athlete to work on over the last phase of training pre-race season.

 

 

We then moved over to the closed cycle circuit at Hillingdon, to work on some group riding skills and moto-pacing skills.  For some this was the first time they had chain-ganged and pace-lined, but they seemed to love it and they learned very fast with some smooth riding skills developed by the end!

 

Finally, we looked at T1 and T2 from duathlon and triathlon (without the wetsuits!) and we nailed a few key components. The girls were really impressive and looked slicker than I have seem some WTS elite females mounting!

 

Written by James Beckinsale (London Region Academy Coach) and edited by Dana Voysey (@DanaVoysey) part of the London Region social media team.