The 2013 season kicked off on Monday 27th May with the half mile Eton Swim at Dorney Lake, home of Olympic rowing in 2012 ......soon to "witness the fitness" at my inaugural triathlon event!
Car packed with 2 bikes, 2 wetsuits several hundred litres of sports drink for the hottest weekend of the year and a lot of questionable nutrition that counted as "carb loading".
The sun was out though and the water was mill pond calm. A last minute delay to the start due to most of the days swimmers turning up an hour after us (Yes folks I was an hour early, miracles do happen!) and a precious 15mins of extra heating time, mostly for us swimmers baking in rubber in the holding pen :-/ (The "holding pen" is much like a medieval tumbril, it stops you making a run for it before you're summoned to your execution.....)
At 9.15am it was make or break time......
This time round I really felt I got my race plan absolutely right. I'd hit my 5.5km target in the last week. My poor hard working physio had kept my shoulder from disintegrating after it saved me from breaking my neck on the stairs. A taper of 50% reduction in training volume in the 10days before, with the last 5days being "rest" days with lots of stretching/foam rolling and a bit of mobilisation stuff from the two boys. (Yes that is a technical term! ;-P) I'd more or less got my nutrition right (more on this in a later post) and had kept myself hydrated during the hottest weekend of the year.
We did take the bikes on a little ride round HM's Castle Windsor, culminating in a pit stop at the local watering hole for half a pint of non PT sanctioned hops based rehydration on the Saturday when we arrived....... Generally though alcohol and caffeine should be avoided in the run up due to the dehydration effect. Some athletes, myself included also use caffeine for an added performance boost which means you have to closely monitor your general intake to get the effect. It is equally important to remain relaxed though so the OCCASIONAL drink in balance with everything else is probably ok. Even I wouldn't risk it the night before though, so this is something you have to bear in mind when other people (....who probably don't have to do what you do the next day!) might be trying to pressure you. There are times as an athlete when you have to be selfish, going to bed early and turning down that "one for the road" the night before is one of those times. You're the one who has slogged it out in the pool, cried through the physio and kept going when you really just wanted to go home and watch TV so in that respect it's only fair that you do justice to all the hard work you and those who've helped you have put in for the last 6mths.
Final preparations are mostly psychological, with a week or so to go you are not going to make any real physiological changes from continuing to train, you need to let your body rest and recover and most importantly adapt to training. It's now that your mind can go into overdrive. Happy to go on cruise control during the 70 or 80 lap sessions you were doing, now that you're not doing them it has a tendency to come back online in overdrive! The devil makes work for idle hands applies here! Giving yourself things to do in the run up stops you thinking about the race too much. I had a quick session with my trainer mostly to keep the routine and for a bit of assisted stretching. I had a "gentle" session with the physio just to calm the anxiety over the physical niggles which all helped keep my mind occupied. I trust them both enough now that if they're not worried, I'm errr less worried. I know my physio would veto something if I wasn't up to it. Trainer did suggest I go for a "girly massage" which when the physio and I had stopped rolling round the floor laughing was one of the few pieces of "advice" I chose to ignore!
Little pre-race rituals often come into play here, watch Rafa Nadal if you want to see someone overtaken by these! But whatever works for you is not for others to judge, just don't let them get to a point where if you don't do them or something happens where you can't do them they affect your attitude going in. Because all it is now is just icing really, the cake should be baked by this point, by which I mean it's all now in your mind. Putting your left sock on first is not going to actually make you race better, red nail varnish can not actually make you go faster, YOU make you go faster and the red nails just look pretty!
Application of "lucky" Chanel fire red nail varnish..... (YES these things are important!) Negotiation with trainer about what qualifies as "fun sized" Toblerone.......
.......this IS "fun sized"!!! Clearly trainer does not know how to have fun!
........and everything looks good to GO!
........then some genius decides we have to "stay still" while they count us, yes super, you try treading water for 5mins in a non floaty wetsuit while not tiring yourself out and undoing a weeks taper and "staying still" while trying not to kick or be kicked by other swimmers in water that barely qualified as not sub zero...... Oh and could we please take two hands out of the water to "wave at the photographer"? .......I am thinking of doing more than "wave" at the photographer at this point!
....am not quite in this shot, am somewhere to the right, this is us bobbing about like corks while someone does a "head count" of 90 or so bobbing corks! :-/
..........and they're off!
Mass swim starts can look crazy, to be honest they can BE crazy! They're pretty high on the list of things most first timers dread. Unless you know you're going to be in the top finishers it makes sense to stay at the back or the side if you're nervous, you can always overtake once the splashing and kicking has spread out. Remember though if you're on the outside you will have further to swim but the inside and close to the buoys is where the faster possibly more aggressive swimmers will be.
For some swims your time is taken as you pass through the timing gate on start and on finish so it doesn't matter if you start nearer the back, this was a deep water start though so it was a bit of a free for all.
I did manage to overtake someone doing crawl (in fact I over took a lot of people doing crawl....) by watching Marc Jenkins's training video on turning (you can find it on YouTube HERE ....just try to keep your attention on the swimming not on errr Marc Jenkins!)
......not pretty but quite fast!
So am comfortably out of breath as I rest on my knee on the far side of the finish gate, there are a reassuring number of people behind me so I'm not last, time to stagger out and find the chocolate milk and the laptop lady......
What actually greets me is some questionable coconut based fluid that my two friends (who will drink anything) threaten to water the grass with and some boiled in the bag chocolate milk which after reading the label and deciding it does not "taste fizzy" so will therefore probably do more good than harm. 30min "recovery plan" implemented and chocolate milk not making a reappearance I go in search of "laptop lady" who apparently is "usually available but on this occasion does not have this facility, check the website later....." *Sigh* Well I have a sneaking suspicion it was quite quick, I checked my watch as I tried not to puke coconut vomit and it was 9.37 on the grass at the finish so it should be at least as fast as September assuming we set off at 9.15 which with all the treading water I didn't check.
Anyway it's time to remember I am now a "Tri"-athlete and there's a reason my car is so full of stuff. Time to strip off the rubber and half an hour of flashing more than intended to a tent full of women later; finally drag cycling shorts past my wet legs. I did want to do a quick recce of the triathlon route for July but apparently the gates on the far side of the lake were locked so settled for a 12min 4.5km of "recovery" ride into a 25mph head wind..... on the near side! :-/ Looks good though (apart from the wind potential), nice and flat unless there's a big hill hidden in the trees so not too much to worry about from the first two parts! Watching the sprint tri transition the day before made it also apparent that failing to prepare is indeed preparing to fail, so some "forth discipline" training coming up. Notes also include not emerging from the lake bare chested and trying to pull on a running vest or you will spend as much time in transition as in the water!
Anyway for now there's a 5hr car journey back to God's own county before I can "check the website".
..........maybe they did make me go faster!? ;-)
......and the results are in!
Absolutely over the moon to learn that swim time was 20:15!!!! not bad for a breaststroker! and more importantly a MASSIVE 5mins 21 seconds faster than September! All that winter training was worth it!
Medal No 2
My crazy sporting endeavours are not just a reflection of a mid life crisis they are also to raise funds and awareness for Rotary's End Polio Now campaign. Polio has a particular significance for swimming because it is mostly spread by "dirty" water. I was lucky enough to take part in a Polio vaccination day when I was in Kathmandu in 2011 and it was so hugely impressive to me that an organisation of volunteers has had such a massive impact on a disease that we in the west have come to forget. As an early years practitioner the fact that no child should suffer or die from a PREVENTABLE disease is something I am as passionate about as swimming.
We are 99% of the way there, this year for the first time in history we could see the number of Polio cases worldwide stay in double figures. We are so close to ending this disease but we're not there yet. Even one child who dies or is permanently disabled by this disease is one too many in my opinion, so I will see this through to the end. If you want to join me then you can follow the link to find out more about END POLIO NOW and sponsor me HERE
So what's next?
Well it's the big one...... actually it's not :-/ It was meant to be "the big one" on the 14th of July at the Shock Absorber Women's only triathlon at Eton Dorney. Then my physio got involved.... no sports fans don't panic, he hasn't vetoed something! He sent me out in a crazed endorphin haze last week and I went home in a state of temporary insanity and signed up for this.............
Yes this time I really have lost all my marbles!!!! Racing with these two!? Yes, on Saturday 21st Sept in precisely 98days (hence why this post is a bit late!) 2 days before I am 36 and should clearly know better, I will be puking and crawling past two Olympians who know a thing or three about triathlon........
If you want to "witness the fitness" (them obviously, not me!) in the stunning surroundings of Fountains Abbey or if you are mad enough to want to sign up then take a look HERERight best go learn to run.......
