On 27 and 28 July, I raced in the England Nationals the first time after getting qualified for the Age Group Championships through the regional qualifier. I raced in the 7.5 km Age Group, 5 km Masters and 3 km Masters over the weekend.

Location and travel

The races were held in Rother Valley Country Park, South Yorkshire. It is not an easy place to get to, with the best public transport option being the express bus 30 from Sheffield to Sothall. As I was racing over the weekend, I looked for accommodation in Sheffield, and along the bus route but unfortunately everything in Sheffield was abnormally expensive, and I only found one Airbnb at a reasonable price along the route (with another next to a Lidl, but on the section where the bus runs express). Unfortunately the owner has a few dogs in the house so I had to rule it out.

After further consideration I decided not to use country buses if I could avoid using them as they are circuitous and infrequent, although the price is less of a factor now as there is a £2 cap. I decided to take my bike on the train and booked round-trip cheap advance purchase tickets from West Hampstead Thameslink to Kiveton Bridge, the closest station to the race venue from the east as it was cheaper to travel on the East Coast Main Line, despite that’s something I don’t usually want to do on intercity trains in Great Britain due to the need of a reservation. The ride from Kiveton Bridge station to the race venue was about 4.6 km. I booked an Airbnb in Eckington for the weekend, 7.7 km by bike from the race venue.

7.5 km

My first race was the 7.5 km Age Group event, in the 19+ Open category. There were 11 competitors in my age group, and 61 competitors total in Open.

The course was 5 laps of a 1.5 km loop with a feeding pontoon at the start / end of the loop. However, I decided not to feed because it was only announced late in the entry period, and I didn’t have enough time to prepare for that. There were 5 waves in total, each starting 15 minutes apart, and the 19+ age group was in the last wave.

There were some very strong swimmers in the start list and my expectation was to complete the race in 2 hours and 30 minutes, or 1.5x the winning time. The latter meant that I shouldn’t get lapped until I complete 2 laps.

My strategy was to get as much draft as possible in the first 3 laps, even if it would mean I had to start off faster than I should for 7.5 km, because most people would be gone when I was in my 4th lap, and I would be on my own in my final lap.

However, I didn’t perform to my expectation. I was shocked when I started to get lapped only 1 2/3 laps into the race, and I started to feel tired just after 2 laps, and the cut off became a concern. I had to finish the race within 1 hour after the first finisher otherwise it would be an OTL (over time limit).

Finally, I completed the race in 2:31:25, 59 minutes and 59 seconds after the first finisher in my age group, and the overall Open winning time was 1:29:47. My placing was 60th out of 60 finishers (1 competitor was disqualified) in the Open category.

5 km

The shorter distance races were done in 1 km loops, so the 5 km race was 5 laps of the loop, and diving start was used. The Masters Championships were held on Sunday, the next day after the Age Group Championships. The start waves were assigned by self-seeding instead of age groups, unlike the Age Group Championships, and I was assigned to the second, slower wave. There were 2 competitors in my age group, and 26 overall in Open. My result was 1:43:15, 24th out of 26 in Open, which was slower than my 7.5 km race on the day before.

3 km

The 3 km Masters race was held in the afternoon, after the 5 km and the 2 km races. The course was 3 laps of the same 1 km loop.

There were 2 competitors in my age group, and 37 overall competitors in Open. My result was 1:03:40, 32nd out of 37 competitors, which was again slower than my previous 5 km race in the morning.

Conclusion

The 7.5 km Age Group race was my most important A-race in the year, and I couldn’t even make my lower expectation of 2:30 (i.e. 3 km/h average speed), and my factor to the overall Open winning time was even larger than in the regionals (mine was about 1.5x the winning time in the regionals in 2023 and 2024, and 1.69x in the 7.5 km nationals).

After my long holiday back in Hong Kong for my family, I completely lost motivation for training and nearly stopped swimming until Parliament Hill Lido started the summer timetable (such that I could swim there after work), and after a whole season without any endurance swimming (apart from the two weeks in Hong Kong), I could no longer keep the speed I had last year which further demotivated me. I am now really doubtful if I should continue swimming because swim training has taken me so much time that I don’t really have time to work on other sports I’m interested (for example, sailing or diving) or my side business.

I did the Masters races to see if I could keep a consistent speed over the races, and the result was that I still got slower and slower despite that there was a long time between the races, and the races became shorter, which was not a good sign for my Channel relay later in the year.