Shock Absorber Women's Only Triathlon

This is a little overdue as I completed the Shock Absorber Women’s Only triathlon last weekend but having spent about a fortnight panicking about it, and then the day doing it and recovering, I was keen on a little bit of quiet for a few days.  Having said that, I’ve set my alarm EVERY DAY this weekend for 6:05am with the intention of getting up to go swimming (hello 2.1k open water swim next weekend), but have snoozed until at least 7:30am every morning.  I have done NOTHING this week and whilst I feel a little guilty, I have also tried not to worry about it too much and just enjoyed the down time.

Anyway, the triathlon…

So I never got around to sorting out a new bike on our scheme at work (this will be happening soon) so I ended up borrowing my sister-in-law’s bike for the weekend.  This was incidentally then stolen the night of the triathlon as we left it in the car overnight (I KNOW, WE’RE STUPID BUT PEOPLE ARE SCUMMERS) when some f**ker smashed my window and pulled it out.  *deep breath* I borrowed the bike from the Thursday before as I was heading down to my parents’ for a few days and heading to the tri from there.  On Thursday it poured with rain all day so I planned to cycle on Friday.  It poured on Friday too, and I started to get a little worried that my first time on the bike would be the tri itself, but I decided not to risk wiping out in the wet, and spent the day with my mum.  And got food poisoning *YEY* - the best possible prep for a first-time event EVER!  Luckily it was fairly brief, and I was almost back on form by Saturday morning.  C had come down after work on Friday night, so he helped set up the bike and I had a 20minute trial outside.  WOW it was hard.  I started to panic, no, to FREAK OUT that my wholly slap-dash approach to the tri – “well I’m running and swimming anyway for other events, so the cycling will be fine” – was hugely naïve and I had definitely bitten off more than I could handle.  Cue an hour of worrying, reading through past results from the event, and trying to find out if I could enter the shorter event.  Then I just decided to suck it up and we headed out for the afternoon.  I almost forgot about everything, had a lovely afternoon and evening and managed to get to bed by about midnight (again, great planning).  I obviously spent all night dreaming that I missed the start/crashed my bike/drowned/fell on my face/etc…etc…but after a strong cup of coffee and some toast with peanut butter and jam, we were on our way.

C drove, which was hugely appreciated, and I obsessively checked twitter for updates and wished the journey was longer.  I was meeting S and her friend who were both racing in the novice event later in the day, so once I’d checked in the bike and set everything up, we sat waiting with coffee.  I was SO pleased that I’d seen the venue set up for a tri at my swimming session as it meant that although I didn’t have half the kit that everyone else in my category seemed to have, I knew it was fine.  There were some *serious* bikes set up alongside mine, and nearly everyone had bike shoes and cleats, whereas I was just wearing trainers and using cage pedals, but as it was an inclusive event, I just concentrated on trying not to panic that a) I had no idea what I was really doing, and b) my overall time didn’t matter, I just wanted to finish.

Before I knew it, I was in my tri suit – something I was determined not to buy but after panicking that I’d accidentally pull my shorts down (without knickers underneath….) when I yanked my wetsuit off after the swim, I succumbed – in my wetsuit and walking into the water.  Well, I fell face first into the water as I hadn’t anticipated how sharp the floor would be, but I think I just about kept it together.  Having only done one other open water “race”, I much preferred the “standing stand” – we all gathered behind the imaginary starting line – as it gave me plenty of time to get used to the 16 degree (apparently…) temperature.  And then we were off!  I splashed about for a bit and actually held back as I didn’t want to get caught in the rush, but after about 200metres, I decided to give front crawl a go and actually starting to go past people.  Not many, but enough to keep focused and before I knew it, I was creeping towards to finish.  A kind steward helped me out and I stumbled up the ramp towards the bike.  I kept thinking I had to get my suit down as quickly as possible to make it easier to pull off but after struggling with it, I just hobbled to the bike and dealt with it there.  This is definitely something I need to practice as I was awful – my transition time was nearly five minutes, when it should have been two at the most.  But I wrangled my way out – most of my neighbours had already gone, which was great as it gave me more room, and I grabbed my bike and started heading for the exit.  I jumped on with my Garmin in my mouth, and as I realized I definitely wasn’t coordinated enough to put it on whilst riding, shoved it down the front of my suit.  Great.  I got into a bit of a rhythm and after almost half a lap, decided to grab a drink.  Famous last words….as I grabbed my bottle, swerved, dropped it and nearly came off face first.  Then C popped up from nowhere (he’d watched from the side in horror as he saw a fleet of women on TT bikes coming up behind me as I seemed ready to wipe them all out…!) and another gentleman grabbed my bottle and gave it back.  Shouting a quick “I’m fine! Don’t worry!” I just headed off, trying not to think about it all….and other than that it was fine!  Yes I could have done with a bit longer on the bike to get used to it – I don’t even know why I went to grab the bottle with my right hand when I know from cycling to work that I’m wobbly with just my left – but all in all, it was ok.  I actually even enjoyed it; although the course was six laps, there was a bit of greenery down one side and it was quite fun seeing different faces and bikes on the course.  We also cycled past the running course so it was useful to be familiar with that.  With 31k under my belt, I headed in to drop of the bike and get running.  Of course I forgot to drink any of the water I’d carefully left out, or pick up the sunglasses I’d forgotten on the cycle, but I shoved a couple of gels in my suit and trotted off.  The first lap was hard; I felt like I’d have walked it quicker, but I kept on trucking and it definitely got easier.  I didn’t start my Garmin properly so I reverted to using mental arithmetic to get me through the distance a la Barcelona, and in under an hour, I was done. 

HOORAH! 

I crossed the finish line and was presented with…..a bottle of water.  Hang on a minute WHERE WAS MY MEDAL??!  S met with having cheered with similar levels of disbelief – no medals??!  I could write a whole post about this, but I won’t rant; I’ll just reaffirm that it was hugely disappointing to receive no form of memento after achieving such a big thing.

Not to end on a negative, the event itself was good overall and I will definitely be doing another one.  My time wasn’t *too* shabby either: 2:41 overall.  Not fast, but not the slowest (my greatest fear) and way over my “anything under 3hrs” plan. 

Now I just need to get a bike, get cycling, get training and plan the next race….

The Great British Gas Swim

So whilst the bite stopped play for the week (there was a small outing to the pool on the Friday to test my tape bandage but it didn’t work), I was fairly determined to make it through the mile swim in the London Docklands on the Saturday after bug-gate.  I ummed and ahhed a little about whether I was being stupid about going ahead with it – as per previous posts on “am I ill enough to NOT train?” – but decided that as the swelling had come down significantly and I was half-way through the penicillin, it would be fine.  I also checked with my A&E doctor who, whilst not particularly happy about my decision, said that it should be fine as long as I kept it covered.  So I bought some black tape, borrowed some booties, and headed to the Docks.

The event was fairly well organised with good signage and a basic but functional changing facilities.  My husband was also swimming so once we were in our wetsuits, we headed over to the start.  I did feel a bit of an idiot in my boots, but having taped them on (and taped extensively underneath) I hoped that they would just help protect my bite.  After a short warm up and a slight delay as people made their way to the start, we were allowed into the fairly warm water and then we were off. 

It was hard.  Quite a bit harder than I had anticipated.  I had taken four days off training (and two days off work - this was enforced...) after being bitten when running but there was a really strong headwind so once I felt happy in the water (swimming a kind of freestyle breaststroke), it was really difficult to make any head way.  The buoys marking the course looked MILES away, and I just didn’t seem to be going anywhere…This was slightly disheartening as the field kept narrowing out as other swimmers found their rhythm are moved away from me, but I kept on plugging away and eventually started making s-l-o-w progress towards the halfway mark.  The event was billed as “open to everyone, regardless of ability” so whilst most of the field tore away, there was a small group at the back.  I alternated between trying to do a decent breaststroke, realizing that I was unbelievably slow in the headwind (I had been warned by a very good open water swimmer that breaststroke is often a problem because you actually stop at the end of every stroke), and then attempting a dogged front crawl.  The wind meant that the water was quite choppy so I found the front crawl uncomfortable because I kept breathing in water as it hit my face.  I panicked quite a bit throughout and was worried that I would be in the water forever (ever the realist...) so in end, I developed a meerkat-front crawl keeping my head out of the water and front crawling with my arms in an attempt to just get it over with as soon as possible.  And then the fastest swimmers of the second wave began to overtake us….life affirming….and as the much-faster swimmers tore past, it was slightly more difficult to concentrate on my own pace.  I kept paddling slowly ahead, trying to concentrate on putting one arm in front of the other, and eventually the finish was in sight.  A bit more splashing about and I was done.

I felt like I’d been in the water for HOURS and couldn’t work out my time using the finish clock as our wave hadn’t started on time, but I didn’t care; all I wanted was my medal, and to get out of my wetsuit.  I stumbled through the “end zone”, picked up my water, tshirt, bag, medal, posed for the obligatory photo in my suit and swim cap (so attractive….) and finally got changed.  After a quick change and a bottle of coke to try to kill any water-based nasties, we headed out to Oxford for a day of lazing beside the river watching Summer Eights (code for manic cheering, lots of Pimms and watching nine girls jump over a wooden boat on fire….whilst being filmed by Steve Redgrave….) 

In short, I made the right decision to do it; it was good experience of fairly difficult wind conditions, and it gave me a time to build on.  The event itself was fairly well organized and I liked that there was a real range of abilities to encourage more people to give open-water swimming a try.  The swim highlighted (to me) that front crawl really IS the way to go for speed, and that I definitely needed to practice more ahead of my triathlon and 2.1k swim at the end of June…

I swam a mile before 10.30am on a Saturday morning and I got a medal; both of these facts made me happy.  Would I do it again?  Probably, but I’d prefer the water a little calmer…