Curses, I’m actually starting to enjoy the swimming. That wasn’t meant to happen. 6 weeks in, and it’s getting a bit easier. I still can’t do a lot of the drills properly, but the act of trying is enough to bring about a small improvement in technique. There are so many things to think about – entry, exit, hand shape, exhalation, inhalation, breathing frequency, rotation, kicking from the hips, head position, not going too fast leading to drowning… it’s impossible to work on all of these at once. But by focusing on one at a time, each one is slowly and subconsciously added to the repertoire. Turns out it’s easier to learn a highly technical sport with a teacher – whoda thunk it?
Last week’s ride was a blast through driving rain only a couple of degrees above freezing. I learned why cyclists favour really skin-tight lycra instead of the Ron Hill tracksters that I was wearing; these normally cosy garments quickly became saturated, and the spare inch or so of fabric flapped around in the wind. I tacked on a two mile run to the end, and couldn’t work out the source of the strange noise… eventually I realized it was my shoes squelching. They dried out… after a mile and a half or so.
Meanwhile, in public humiliation news… I have entered an event!
Toshiba Windsor Triathlon (Olympic distance), 16th June. It’s perfect for me in that it’s only 15 mins down the road, and I know the roads for the bike leg and they’re pretty flat (if you recall, Rusty doesn’t do hills, due to some pesky missing gears). Better still, Scope was offering golden bond places for £20 instead of the normal entry fee of £90. I really hope they’re not making up that difference out of donations… but my conscience is choosing to ignore that issue – I’ll do my bit and the charity will do theirs. Anyway, it seems the economics are rather different from the London Marathon, where the golden bond entry fee is a lot higher than the normal entry fee, and the sponsorship pledge is generally upwards of £1500 (here it’s only £350).
Having looked at past results, I also think there’s a reasonable chance of not coming last. Very unusually, the swim leg of last year’s event was cancelled because the Thames was flowing too fast after extreme rain, but the 2011 results show a handful of plodders in my likely ballpark. One of whom was the winner (and only entrant) in the F70 class. (Who knows, maybe by this year she’ll be F75.)
Anyway, what this means is that I’m back where I like to be – the man with the plan. I have a date, I have a number of weeks (17), I have some distances on a spreadsheet and I am very much looking forward to ticking them off. (Highlighting may be involved.) Of course my plan is woefully below the minimum get-you-round programme proposed by all the expert websites, but to those experts I say this: you don’t run a marathon dressed as a gorilla without knowing a thing or two about training for the unknown. And when your main goal is to finish faster than a 70 year old woman, you can afford to wing it a bit.
Game on!
2013: Tri-ing something new
