When I first tried triathlon many moons ago I never imagined that I would "Go Long", I'm not even sure that I knew about Ironman Triathlon back then!
I did a few pool triathlons at home and quite short distances, although at the time finishing a 10k run after swimming and cycling seemed an extremely long way!
I took part in my first open water triathlon whilst working on a Camp Thunderbird in Minnesota, I borrowed a camp bike and traveled to Grand Rapids with a couple of the other staff, worried that the heat might be a problem. I needn't have worried, the start was actually delayed due to a thunderstorm, my lasting memory is getting to the end of the bike and Hammer shouting "go on Flipper, nice easy 10k". (We all had nicknames at Camp)
Coming more up to date and some friends started to take part in Ironman triathlons and other long distance triathlons (don't want to fall foul of brandnames!) I still couldn't see myself doing one!
Anyway Nicky completed a couple of IM events and qualified for Kona, at which point I foolishly told Andy that it must be his turn next and that if he did it I would, I seemed to be inspired. Andy suggested that The Outlaw would be a good event to try rather than IMUK, as I had just found a job after being out of work for a few months I thought I would treat myself to an entry. Dave also entered and it looked like there would be 3 of us taking part. (the results of this are part of an earlier post!)
I started to train for the event, twisting my old bosses arm for access to the Virgin Active club at Crawley to improve my swimming and then headed north to Nottingham for the event.
I had set myself a target of getting under 16 hours for the event, which at the time I thought was reasonable, I actually finished in 14.51 so beat my aim by quite a distance. This led me in part to say that I would not do another one, I would not be able to achieve as much as I had already.
The following year Dave said he was entering Challenge Henley and did I feel like joining him, how could I refuse! Henley didn't go to plan though and about 20 miles into the bike I climbed off and became a DNF, as imortalised in Laura's book Tricurious, thanks Cuz!
So when Andy suggested IMUK the following year I thought why not I have unfinished business after my DNF at Henley. I was about an hour slower at Bolton than I was at Nottingham but was pleased to have finished and having put that to bed I could say never again!
So back to Laura's book, she invited me to the book launch and was selling raffle tickets for charity, so I duly bought some not really expecting to win anything. Wrong my numbers were pulled out and I had won an entry to the Castle Triathlon Series "The Bastion" another long distance triathlon.
I was the 3rd from last person to finish at The Bastion but it was an enjoyable event although the hardest of the 3 long distance triathlons that I have done, reflected by the fact that it was the slowest!
Now I had done a long distance triathlon, I had done an Ironman event and I had done the hardest long distance triathlon, I really could call it a day now!
Oooh there was a new long distance triathlon in the offing The Lakesman, Andy was involved again somehow, Nicky and Dave had entered. It looked tempting but no I had said I would not do another one and was sticking to my guns!
Time passed and Twitter was full of The Lakesman, Facebook was full of The Lakesman it was certainly tempting, I made some comment about not entering because I had promised my wife I would not do another one, this made its way back to Amanda and she hatched a plan with my parents to get me an entry for my Birthday. So another long distance triathlon journey has started which will end in June next year and then I can say I am definitely not doing another one (until the next time!)
I have trained for each of the triathlons but probably not as much as I should have done, so I really mean to put a real effort into training for The Lakesman to reverse the trend of my times getting slower with each event I do! To this end I will try to keep this blog updated with my progress to try and give me the inspiration and encouragement to get as fit as possible to try and beat 14.51!!
