Lloyd Bebbington overcame a disaster with his nutrition bottles to take silver in the European age group standard triathlon.

Here he tells the story of his race:

Reading the news that your European triathlon championships is now a duathlon wasn't the best wake up call on race day. 

A duathlon is not my speciality, especially ones that are 5k, 40k 10k (which I have never done before).

But I was there to race and give it my all no matter what. 

I had a good first run - it felt hard but I did what I needed to and tried to reserve energy. 

I exited transition 4th in my age group and about 10th overall. 

Now it was my turn to hurt everyone - unlike the run. 

I felt strong on the bike straight away the hilly course suits me just fine. 

I pushed up the first hill then about 15kms into the bike both my bottles did a flying dismount onto the road. 

This was a slight problem when it was midday around 23° and they had all my nutrition in! 

I kind of just accepted it straight away and cracked on, because what else could I do? 
 

I dropped everyone around me with 5k to go on the bike up one of the hills but maybe too little too late? 

The 2nd run which ended up being 11.3k not 10k. I felt terrible straight away. 

I thought I was done and at this point I was 1st AG, 3rd overall. 

I took a gel onboard and water at every aid station to keep cool. 

I hung on though, not the fastest time from me but the first run and no fluid maybe played a part in me not being able to go faster. 

Anyway I got the 2nd fastest bike of the day and I am thrilled with a silver medal in my AG in a duathlon and 4th overall.

Lloyd's times were: Run 1 (5km) 19:42, bike (37.2km) 57:00, run (10km), 40:58, total 2:01:37