Iberdrola Triathlon Queens Cup Team & Relay, 10/11 Sep 2021

I arrived on Friday in Almería, Spain after a few travelling hours, built my bike and met the girls in my team at the hotel. We went for a sea swim on Friday night to acclimatise and I ended up being stung by a jellyfish!

Saturday was race day, a new format for me that was like a team time trial triathlon (starting with 6 athletes and finishing with 4). In the afternoon heat of Spain, we started our race. As a faster swimmer on the team I had to physically push the slower swimmers throughout the 750m loop. With the longest run to transition ever, we successfully made it to our bikes as a team and continued on another long stretch of running to the bike mount. As a stronger cyclist on the team i was tasked with taking longer turns into the wind to protect the weaker cyclists who stayed towards the back of our organised team time trial line. We had an amazing bike leg overtaking many teams - we were efficient with our turns into the wind and made sure to protect our runners. We transitioned to the run and i knew this would be my real test as it was completely out of my comfort zone to run in such heat. We ran extremely well together as a team, helping each other out when necessary and giving encouragement throughout. We ran our 5km in 19.48 which I was extremely pleased with as running has been my point of focus for the past few weeks. We finished 13th team which our team coach was pleased with!

Sunday was relay day and I was selected as one of three girls in the team. I was on first leg to avoid confusion (as my Spanish is not very good!) and I was excited to prove myself. I was pleased with a solid swim that put me into the race, I was even more chuffed afterwards when told that the level of swimmers in the field was rather stacked. My bike was probably the highlight for me as I bridged the gap to a group in front (on my TT bars) and made quick decision to tire the legs of the fast runners. As it was a short loop, I made an attack at the end to allow time to compose myself in transition and prepare for another very hot run. Luckily I kept my head in the game and produced a solid run to keep the team in a good position. I had the fastest split of the girls in my relay team and we successfully kept the team in the premiere division for next season.

I'm incredibly grateful to have been given this opportunity, I hope to race again with Madrid Marlins next year and produce good results for them.

Freya Batkin