As someone who is never, ever, ever satisfied with what they have (until I get a Chanel 2.55, obviously), I decided to take on another little challenge. Working on the editorial team of a triathlon magazine* and being a former competitive swimmer (haha, such a twat) it was only a matter of time before I entered my first one**. Fourty-two quid (yes I'm paying that much) later, I had signed up for the Bath Multi-Sports Sprint Triathlon. WHY? WHO KNOWS!!!!
*I actually work on the special editions team, but we mainly work with 220 Triathlon magazine and so I've worked on loadssss of issues.
**This will actually be my second triathlon, I did my first one when I was 13 and came 8th... out of 9. I tried to drop out halfway through and my parents forced me to continue. Dad has a photo of me giving him the middle finger, charming chid.
Anywaaaaay...
From now on some of my blog posts may be taking a sliiiightly different view, e.g. not all about running; this will be great for those of you who can't help but click on the link despite finding my incessant running chat boring and annoying, although I can't imagine cycling and swimming are any more thrilling or endearing. Shoutout to the stalkers, soz 'bout that.
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| This should be a BREEEEZE... |
Having worked on 'The Beginners Guide to Triathlon' (available in all good book stores), you'd be forgiven for thinking that I'd be an absolute PRO at being a triathlon beginner. I have to point out, as an editorial assistant I don't get to do THAAAAT much and instead checked a lot of website names and made sure that certain swimming cossies were still in stock... But I did catch onto the absolute importance of transitions between each activity. The seconds from swim, to bike, to run are apparently well vital so I started off my OFFICIAL TRIATHLON TRAINING PLAN at 6.30am on Friday morning by practising just that...
Transition training, for those not in the know (aka, moi) is known as 'brick training'. I don't know why, but it seems to make the white middle-class men of triathlon sound extremely pompous and more profesh. Whatever keeps ya happy, I guess. I was supposed to be doing a 'brick session' of swim to bike - I was going to go for a swim and then ride my bike home straight afterwards. Ever the morning-person, I slept in my £6 ASDA swimming costume (already sagging at my non-existence tits) and when my alarm went off at 6am I was just like 'NAAAAAHHH'. With motivation and commitment at an all time high, I instead went for a 6km bike ride (I think that's super short but it was half past bloody 6), chucked my bike down on the drive and ran back up the road for about 8 minutes.
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| I may or may not have edited this... #expert |
I'd read (actually edited some copy, ooooh) about the 'jelly legs' that you get from running off the bike, but bloody hell I wasn't expecting that. My legs didn't even feel like my legs... Is this normal? I actually felt quite drunk which initially was GR8 although odd on a workday morning... but it quickly became a bit weird and wooooozy. Remembering I wasn't running towards the kebab van on a Saturday night, I checked my watch and it said 3 minutes 30-something... about 10 seconds later my legs came back to life and I metaphorically sobered up. I only have to run 5km in my triathlon so every minute counts - I have a feeling that me and my 'drunk legs' are going to become eveeeeen more well acquainted...
With that done, this weekend I decided to buy a bike helmet (because crushed skulls aren't cool, kids) and also a PULL BUOY. This is a fascinating piece of swimming kit that I used to use when I was 12, had a six-pack and swam over 16 hours a week. A 12 year-old girl with a six-pack looks exactly how it sounds... disgusting. Anywho, the pull buoy is an oversized polystyrene peanut that you whack between your legs (oi oiiiiiiii), meaning you can only use your arms and therefore get massive biceps and asked by an international swimmer how your shoulders got so big (childhood scars). In all seriousness though, I do need to use this pull buoy ting as I need to save my legs for the bike and run. Also 'Dentist Dave' (my mum's workmate) does triathlon and told me to get one.
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| Helmet and between-the-legs buoy |
OHHHH and also as a little note that may be of importance/interest, a sprint triathlon is:
400m swim (16 lengths of a 25m pool)
20km bike
5km run
WISH ME LUCK AND LETS HOPE MY SHOULDERS DON'T GET ANY BIGGER!!!
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| Leaving the label on, don't want to get too attached... |
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