Grant will return stronger after Hamburg blow
Hamilton athlete Grant Sheldon intends to come back bigger and stronger in next year’sworldtriathlon Series after a hard time in Hamburg.
The 26-year-old was in Germany recently for the Hamburgwts and put, by his own admission, a poor performance down to not being 100 per cent fit.
However, the Cambuslang Harrier was happy he took part and it did teach him some useful things about himself.
Sheldon now hopes to take part in as many cross-country events during winter training as he can, while running some road races for the Harriers.
He said:“germany wasn’t very good. It was a bit of bad timing. I had been a bit ill the week before and I felt better a good few days beforehand, but I think when you’re doing something like that you get found out if you’re not 100 per cent.
“I got through the swim pretty well, I was quite happy with that, and I was in a good position, but I just did nothing when I jumped on the bike – I just didn’t have any power, so that was me.
“I was pleased to get a triathlon done this year. I feel very fortunate to actually have done a triathlon, and just competed. I guess it has been good to reset the year a little bit. I was going to race again last weekend but I’ve decided not to.
“It puts a definitive stop to the year for me, I can take a little break now and look forward to some winter training.”
Winter training will be used to increase fitness and Sheldon says next year is something of a blank canvas.
“I’ll have a couple of weeks off just now and then I’ll try to push myself on a bit, try to get a bit faster over the shorter stuff, and progress running a bit more,” he said.
“Hopefully this year will be the first in quite a few years that I can get a cross-country season done.
“If races go ahead – they seem to be popping up now in the UK, so I’m quite confident they will go ahead – that will be that until whenever triathlon starts back again.
“I haven’t got anything planned for next year at the minute, and I’ll see how it goes, but I want to try and do some of the bigger cross-countries this year, get stuck in and see where I end up.
“I haven’t got any targets as such, but racing in Hamburg was the first time I’d swam the way I used to in a race for a good number of years, so that in itself was quite exciting. I know I can be in the race now.”