A try at Tri

A try at Tri.

So D day is here, the day that will determine whether from tomorrow I am once again a cyclist who enjoys(?) a swim or a run on the side, or whether maybe, just maybe, I am a triathlete.

Woke up full of nerves, last time I was this nervous was when I did the Etape several years back -  arrived at the venue still full of nerves and fell into a conversation with one of the least well prepared people I have ever met. 

Miss ill prepared: "So where is the swim course"
CP: Er, we're standing by it, its in front of us
MIP: Oh, where is it then?
CP: er, you see those really big bright red buoys in the water, that's it
MIP: what, going all the way over there in the distance, are you sure?
CP: yes, I swam it yesterday
MIP: and we need to do all of it?
CP:  er, yeah
MIP: oh. I'm not sure I can swim that far, seems a long way.
CP: speechless....

You know, after that I was as calm as a cucumber! I was glad I did the practice swim yesterday, I got the warm up (or complete lack thereof...) in the practice totally wrong and spent the first 15 minutes feeling like crap, struggling for breath and rhythm. It was cool though stopping at the four seasons hotel pontoon and being served expresso by white coated waiters and then jumping back in for the last few minutes back to base. Yesterday though did nothing to change my opinion that I'd be done on the swim in around 50 minutes, give or take. I'm a rubbish swimmer as you know.

And then we're off, along with about 150 others in my wave, I intentionally started at the back to avoid the fight, and all swim I never tangled once with anyone, the breathing and rhythm were there from the very first stroke. It actually felt *good*. I knew the relay guys were starting 10 minutes behind us, so the quickest of them were going to go by me, which they did, but hang about, whats going on, I'm also going past the tail of the wave in front. huh? what's going on? And out of the swim - 38 minutes -  you what? I really seriously wasn't pushing it at all and I just swam 38 minutes for 1,900m -  that's like 8 minutes faster than I've ever done before, crazy.

The organisation of the Tri was fantastic, you literally could not move for support, I had one guy undoing my wetsuit for me, another packing it away into the transition bag, another coming up with water and juice -  all the way round the course it was the same, just brilliant organisation.

And onto the bike. I had no real idea what pace to aim for and in my mind I had the advice "if it feels easy then it's probably about right" i.e. don't fry your legs for the run. So I set off aiming to do a 3 hour ride for the 90km and was quickly cruising past dozens and dozens of other people. In retrospect though none of them were in my age group -  they were all the slow people from the waves in front -  cruising past so many people made me feel like my pace was very good, but that hid the fact that I wasn't actually catching anyone of relevance. It was the drabbest bike course you could possibly imagine, 85km of riding on a deadpan flat closed 3 lane highway, watching all of Bahrain sitting in their cars parked up waiting for us to finish -  we literally gridlocked the entire country! I loath riding flat routes,  I need to be inspired by riding, this did none of that apart from -  bam, we're onto the Formula 1 course for a lap, clipping the apexes a la Lewis Hamilton -  that was pretty damn cool. In hindsight I should of gone a lot harder on the bike - thats just lack of experience of riding flat routes - my other 1/2 IM I have booked (Fueteventura and Mallorca) are hilly, as is Lanzarote IM, that's the stuff I enjoy and I'm sure there I will take chunks of time out of other people. On this course though I went backwards against my age group. Oh well, live and learn.

And onto the run. I wanted to see if I could do a 2 hour run, but more importantly I wanted to do it without stopping (other than to get drinks etc). No walking, that's goal number 1. That goal I achieved, but missed the 2 hour mark by a few minutes, c'est la vie. Relative to my age group the run was actually my strongest discipline which is a bit weird as most triathletes are runners first and foremost and I've only been running since February. Maybe that was my payoff for taking it easy on the bike, picking them off on the run instead?

And that's it, we're done, 38 min for 1.9km swim, 2 hr 54 min for 90km ride, 2hr 9 mins for 21 km run, 5 hrs 54min in total including transitions. Humbling to see the leading guys in my age group finishing the 1/2 marathon just as I was starting. Even more humbling to see the tail-end guys and girls just starting their 1/2 marathon just as I was finishing -  that'll be a long day in the office for them!

So there we are, onto Fueteventura we go. I am officially a triathlete. And Miss ill prepared is probably still somewhere on the swim course...

My adventure so far

Ironman, my adventure so far

I blame this adventure on my ulcerated colon, fair and square. When I came back from safari in easter 2013 with GI issues the doctors logically assumed it was a tropical bug. So they tested and tested and tested, weeks passed with nothing being found other than "odd blood results". Every day that passed I lost fitness, weight (muscle) and motivation. Riding a bike felt awful, fatigue setting in so quickly as the body just rejected food and nutrients. Finally an ulcerated colon was diagnosed - can't ever be fixed, but can always be managed. August 2013, I was on the road back to fitness, but after not riding or even really properly exercising for 4 months it was always going to be a long road back.

First trip was the Raid Alpine with the ever fabulous Marmot Tours - a 5 day traverse of the Alps from Geneva to the Med in September '13 - one of the classic bike tours. I was nowhere near fit and almost pulled out before the start but off we went and within 10 minutes I was at the back of the group. And thats where I stayed all week, enjoying the scenery, enjoying the steroids (prescribed!) but not enjoying the suffering. I didn't hate being last on the road, but I hated not being fit.

And then the British autumn arrives and makes it even harder to get back to fitness. A solution is needed... Bike camps I had always understood were the preserve of the elite, but several people told me otherwise. A couple of friends recommended the camp run by Andy Cook in Lanzarote in January. Turning up in Jan '14 I really had no clue what Lanza or Club La Santa means to triathletes. I thought I was going on a bike camp, but I was pretty much the only cyclist there, everyone else was there training for this thing called Ironman of which I had no understanding whatsover of. 

Its a triathlon I quickly learned. Oh well, count me out then, I'm a cyclist and I can't either run or swim. It's the pinnacle of triathlon they told me - a 3.8km sea swim, 180km bike ride and then a mere marathon run to finish. Yeah, but I just told you, I can't run or swim...

When I say "can't" I really meant it - for swimming at least - I had an accident in the school pool aged 14(?) and never swam since - other than splashing about with the kids. Wouldn't go under water, wouldn't go out my depth, couldn't do any stroke at all. Swim 3.8km, in the sea, with waves and like 3,000 other people around me? Ha ha.

Running, well I wasn't much better. In years gone by when I was a fair weather cyclist I cycled in the summer then in the winter tried to train up to do a marathon, all attempts were painful and futile. I could run, but I was truly rubbish at it.

But you know what, spending two weeks with a bunch of friendly happy bubbly triathletes (and a few really tedious bike bores...) rubbed off on me. So I got back home at booked some swimming lessons. "Give me 4 lengths of front crawl" Lorraine said. Er, I can sorta do breast stroke was my reply - and thats where we started.

Several weeks later I still couldn't do 4 lengths, not without drowning anyway but in mid March in Mallorca (on another Andy Cook camp) it clicked, I went from 100m to 200m to 400m to 1,000m that week, and the next week at home went from 1,000m to 1'900m (half IM) and then quickly up to 3,800m (full distance).

So I could sorta swim. Sorta, well, not really. I was truly the worlds worst swimmer. Back to La Santa in June at a Phil Price tri camp, Andrew the swim coach showed immense patience and tolerance of my swim "technique", he's a great coach but it was all too much too soon, information overload. He showed me however that I had a long way to go, a lot left to learn about how to swim properly (which frankly I still can't, I'm still quite rubbish). 

That was however the week that my adventure really began, I hugely enjoyed myself that week and in both the bike and run sessions I was doing far far better than I thought I would. The sun was out, the sky was blue, I was no longer at the back of the field like the week in the Alps, hell I was even vaguely near the front of the field (apart from swimming...). At the farewell dinner at the end of the week i had a glass or two of wine and someone then stuck a bit of paper under my nose "i hereby commit to signing up to the 2015 Lanzarote Ironman". Lanzarote IM is no ordinary Ironman, its one of the toughest out these, Lanza is a hot baron hilly windy lump of volcanic ash, there are no trees, no shade, always fighting the wind, always fighting the hills - in short - my kinda bike course!

I signed that bit of paper. And you know what, I got home and the very first thing I did was to log on and sign up. And so, it began, all thanks to an ulcertated colon.