For the record, tomorrows race is:

- A 1.2 mile swim, followed by…
- A 56 mile bike ride, and then…
- A Half Marathon (13.1 mile run)

To save you doing the maths, that’s a total of 70.3 miles!

Individually, my best times for these are:

- 1.2 mile swim – about 40 mins in the pool
- 56 mile bike ride – dunno! I’ve never ridden a timed distance of 56 miles without stopping. I’ve done a couple of 50 milers, both in just under three hours, so think I would be looking at about 3hrs20 for a ride on its own!
- 13.1 mile run – 1hr55

Put these three together with 5 minutes for transition and tomorrow’s event would take me 6 hours!

It’s not as simple as that of course. Riding a 3hr20 min 56 mile ride is one thing – doing that speed after a 40 min swim isn’t quite the same. And it goes without saying that running a half marathon with the small matter of both the swim and the ride as a ‘warm up’ will make it different to any other 13.1 mile run I’ve done before.

This is just getting my excuses in early, you understand! I don’t actually know how long it will take me. Weather is apparently another big factor on longer triathlon’s. Although the forecast for tomorrow looks dry, the wind will be a factor!

Safe to say, I will be on the course for longer than any other challenge I’ve undertaken. The London Marathon was 5hr40mins!

Mostly I want to finish tomorrow, and hope that none of my niggling injuries from my Marathon adventure come back to haunt me. If I finish tomorrow in under 7 hours, I’ll be more than pleased!

Of course, the reason I’m doing this is to raise money for a cure for Type 1 Diabetes. To this end, the children and myself are now off to the house of John Mardsen in Tickhill.

He has very kindly offered to run one of his fund raising lunches to support us. Lunch is being served tomorrow, whilst I am out on the course in Nottingham. If you are around and would like a ticket, please give me a call on 01302 750717 or 07867 807010 and I’ll put you in touch with John, if there are any spare seats!!!

So with potato peeler in hand, we are off to prepare the veg….

You may remember in last months issue, we told you about Gareth Rowbotham’s attempt to run the London Marathon for JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation). On Sunday 21st April, he did just that, but only just! It took 5hrs and 40 minutes but he has the finishers medal to prove it.

Now comes the next challenge – the fundraising! Thanks to everyone’s generosity, he has raised over £1000 already! And to get to his target of £1800, will be having a coffee morning at the Parish Rooms on Wednesday 12th June from 10-12pm. Please come along and support this excellent cause, if you can!

In some respects therefore, I feel obliged to write a quick post reflecting on my 12 months of training for challenges and fundraising for JDRF.

I’ve never been one to dwell too much on the past, I’m usually thinking about the next new thing, so I won’t spend too long naval gazing…

My swim this morning marked the completion of my 12xIronMan challenge.

It’s all logged here for you to see and breaks down as follows:

69 times in the pool for a total of 58.95 miles – an average of just under 5 miles a month.
104 times on the bike for a total of 1,741 miles – an average of 145 miles a month.
117 runs for a total of 484 miles – an average of just over 40 miles a month.

Looking at it like this, I’m probably most surprised by the running – it’s my least favourite discipline, but I’ve been running more times than I’ve ridden my bike!!! The times when I can’t ride my bike because of inclement weather can be supplemented with a run instead – which has obviously happened a few times!

That points to the one thing I’ve learnt from this challenge. By breaking it down into smaller goals, and trying to make sure I ran at least twice a week, swam twice a week and rode twice a week, it soon became less of a challenge and more of a habit.

They say (whoever they are) when talking about diet’s that its better not to think of a diet as a fad but to make the change as part of your lifestyle. I think this is what exercise has become for me. The goals of Triathlons and other organised events give me something to aim for, but just being in the habit of excercising most days makes it so much easier.

With this in mind, I think I intend to carry on trying to do an IronMan a month into 2013.

For the first four months, this will be complicated by the increase in running miles I will need to do for the London Marathon. After that, I’ll need to do that amount of training anyway, if I am to complete the Half OutLaw Triathlon I’ve signed up for in July.

Both of these require me to do the other thing that I have managed to succeed at in 2012 – and that is to stay injury free! When I started doing this in January of this year, I secretly thought the biggest hurdle to completion would be an injury that stopped me training. Luckily, I’ve steered clear of such complications and I hope that will continue into next year….

Navel gazing over – keep looking forward!

As you’ll know because you’ll have read my War & Peace (I mean blog about the London Triathlon), I ran the London Triathlon to raise funds for JDRF.

Since Samuel was diagnosed with Type 1 in July 2010, we have been trying to raise funds by doing a variety of daft challenges.

So far I have ridden from London to Paris twice, done the Coast to Coast ride (from Whitehaven to Newcastle), the ITU London Sprint Triathlon, the Rother Valley Super Sprint Triathlon and most recently the Virgin London Triathlon (Olympic distance).

Each year, I’ve asked people to sponsor me and I’ve spent a few Saturdays in the reception at ASDA in Sheffield, collecting for the day whilst riding a torture device (also known as a turbo trainer!)

After a while, both of these begin to wear thin though. I can’t keep asking friends and family to put their hands in their pockets. As for collecting at ASDA, Nikki and the children have come to hate the prospect of spending their Saturdays in the cold foyer of a busy supermarket! (I can’t understand why!?!?)

So, we thought a new approach was required this year! Inspired by a friends 50th birthday last year, we organised a concert with a local band playing at the Millstone pub in Tickhill, and sold tickets.

When I say, we organised a gig, what I really mean to say is Nikki and our friend Lindsay Fleetwood organised it, with huge help from Alison Hall who got loads of raffle prizes for us! I hardly did anything.

With prizes like Bed and Breakfast at the Hellaby Hall hotel, a voucher for the Charnwood Hotel and Sunday lunch at the Crown Hotel, as well as a meal at my favourite Indian, Zara’s in Tickhill, we couldn’t fail to raise some funds.

So a huge thank you to Nikki, Lindsey and Alison, and to everyone else who helped out, and of course all those who came!

We managed to raise a grand total of £1,791.04, which we have sent off to JDRF.

Having said all that, the main reason we were able to get so many people to come was the band, Saint Harlot. So a huge thank you to them as well!

I left work a little early on Friday afternoon and headed home to pack the car. I wanted to get the bike in the car as well (rather than on a bike rack or on the roof) so that it was safe in the hotel overnight.

So… How to get this..

into this…

It wasn’t too bad actually. Just take the wheels off and turn it upside down, and it fits just right! Top tip – bungee hooks are brilliant for keeping all manner of things in place!

The whole family went down to London on the Friday night and we stayed at the Novotel Greenwich – courtesy of Tesco Clubcard vouchers! Two nights in a Four star hotel for £8 – bargain!!!

My carb loading started in earnest late on Friday night with a visit to Pizza Express in Greenwich. The pasta wasn’t much to write home about though so I went for posh pizza, as well as some of Nikki’s and a bit of Sam’s!! Most impressively (for me), I managed to keep off the sauce! At this point, I hadn’t had a drink (beer or wine) since Sunday.

Saturday was a family day into London sightseeing and to kick it off, one of the best hotel breakfasts I’ve had in many a year! Following a first course of muesli & yoghurt, I had a Full English with the best sausages I’ve had in a hotel, and runny eggs!

That was followed by some fresh mini pastries – obviously part of my carb loading!! Don’t they look good…?

We then headed off to the British Museum, as we’d promised Lily-Anne last year that we’d take her to see the Mummies! As we got on the DLR, I got talking to someone (you can tell I’m a Yorkshireman – I talk to strangers, even when in London). He was wearing a cycling jacket for a French cycling club but it turned out he was from Germany and was in London to do the London Triathlon the following day – and the Olympic distance, just like me! What a coincidence! When I asked him what time he was hoping for he said, 2hr30′ – that’s where the similarily ended!!! I couldn’t do that in my dreams… I told him this is my first Olmpic distance and was hoping to go under 3hours!

It was a beautiful day and we were meeting up with friends (Tim, Tracey, Lily & Jack) from Surrey, to spend the day in London. We got there a little earlier than them and had a cup of tea on the terrace in front of the Museum entrance.

My thoughts kept turning to those who were doing the London Triathlon on the Saturday, whilst we were sight-seeing. They couldn’t have had better weather – calm, dry and bright. The forecast for my race tomorrow wasn’t so bright. The remnants of a hurricane system was sat over the English Channel and would be coming over London some point on Sunday. What was still unclear at this point was whether it would reach East London before I reached the finish….

I recommend a trip to the British Museum, if only for the building itself, which is breathtaking.

(I’m probably really late on this as the building was renovated inside ages ago, but its the first time we’ve been, so there!). The new central covered atrium is the most beautiful space of light and colour, with the roof that was installed for the Millenium keeping the weather out but letting the light in.

We headed to the Egyptian exhibits first, where I got a photo of a mummy with some mummies (see what I did there…?!?)…

We also took in the Rosetta Stone, which has a very interesting story to tell, one that I sort of knew about, but enjoyed learning of all the details whilst we were there.

We then wondered off into Covent Garden in search of more entertainment. This included a trip to the Apple store (obviously), some retail therapy in the old market and watching a couple of very funny street entertainers. Dinner that evening was more carb loading (Spaghetti) in a small independent restaurant on Drury Lane.

No late night allowed though, as we had an early start the next morning. Tim & Tracy headed off to see if they could get some last minute tickets for a show and we headed back to Greenwich and our hotel.

I had a 7.30am race start time and the organisers wanted you there 90 minutes beforehand to check in, so that meant a 4.30am wake-up call – ouch! It wasn’t too bad for me, as I was in bed before 10pm but Nikki and the children had to get up with me – something they obviously weren’t keen on.

One issue that might not be so obvious with a 4.30am start in a hotel is that they don’t do breakfast at that time of the morning (or night). They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and this is even more true on race day! My normal pre-race breakfast would be a bowl of porridge with bananas and honey. Plenty of slow-release carbs to get me through the exertions ahead. When I asked if this was possible at reception the night before, I just got blank looks from the concierge.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but at that time we can only serve you from the 24 hour room service menu”

Well, a club sandwich and chips is all well and good after a late night out, but wasn’t really any good to me as fuel! Considering how well they’d done for breakfast on the Saturday, I had a real sinking feeling about the hotel for the Sunday morning.

To their credit though, the concierge went off to see what they could organise and came back to report that the night Chef would put a bag together for me – 5 in actual fact, one for each of us! When we got up the next morning, they were as good as their word, and had five of these ready…

Yoghurt, fruit and cereal. A Perfect combination of fast and slow release carbs…

Getting to the race didn’t prove to be quite so smooth. We left the hotel at about 5.35am and got within a few hundred yards of the venue by about 6am, but took a wrong turning and then got caught up in all the diversions that were being set up because the roads around there were to be closed for the race itself. By the time, we’d circumnavigated the one way system again, parked the car, paid for parking and built my bike, it was 6.25am – aaaahh! Late!

The Docklands Arena is quite a big place but Nikki and I had been there earlier in the year for an exhibition, so I was actually pretty familiar with the layout and got to checkin about 6.30am. I had already received all the other stuff needed (race number, bike stickers etc) through the post, so it was mainly my timing chip I was collecting, and it was one I’ve used before so that was fine.

I racked the bike, clipped my shoes in (did the normal elastic band trick to hold them horizontal), put all the other stuff where it needed to be, then headed off to the toilets to get changed. Unfortunately, the nearest mens toilet block, opposite the entrance to the triathlon, had a queue coming out of it. I couldn’t believe it! I know they said this is the biggest triathlon event in the UK but its not even 7am and there will be waves of competitors starting throughout the day. I quickly walked back upstairs and headed down the long central plaza inside the arena to the next block of toilets. There wasn’t a queue coming out the door, but there was about 4 blokes waiting to use the cubicles. At this point, I have to make a confession….

I went out and into the ladies. It was empty! I quickly went into the first cubicle and started to get changed. I didn’t hear anyone come or go, until just as I came out of the cubicle, a woman came into the toilets.

“Am I in the wrong place” She said.
“No, no… I am” I admitted. And made my escape!

All changed and ready to go, I dropped my big kit bag with Nicky and the children, and headed over to the start. My wave had just been called, and the briefing began just as I took my swim cap from one of the helpers.

At this point, the compare always tries to start geeing people up with loud words of encouragement, plenty of jokes and the occasional “Oggy Oggy”. None of these things have ever bothered me one way or the other at past races. Its usual by this point for the nerves to have kicked in, and I would be thinking about getting going. This time I was suprisingly calm – I must be getting used to it!

He did make a comment about the water temperature… “How cold is it..? You don’t want to know” However, when we made our way down and actually climbed into the water, it wasn’t as cold as last springs early try-outs at Rother Valley. After that, I’ve got no worries about the water being too cold!

Also, after my experiences in the swim at my last Triathlon in Hatfield, I wasn’t too worried if I swim some or all of the first leg using breastroke. This was probably the main reason for the lack of nerves.

As the hooter sounded and we set off, I used a mixture of crawl and breatstroke until the field thinned out enough that I could find my own rhythm. And I was pleased to find that I was able to do front crawl and breath, getting into a rhythm where I felt I could actually make good progress. The key was to breath on every stroke. In the pool, when training, I had been breathing on every third stroke. The logic of this was with an odd number of strokes you swop the side on which you breath, and this should keep me in a straight line. I was going off a odd angles last year when open water swimming.

However breathing every stroke on one side meant I was getting more air, so felt better. Luckily, the swim course at the London Triathlon is a straight line out and then back with a marker down the centre to keep swimmers heading in the opposite direction apart – just like in a pool. This meant I had a guide to look at each time I breathed and didn’t have to worry too much about going off course. By the time, I got to about 1200m and turned to come back to the exit, I felt quite strong and tried to kick on a bit harder.

The exit ramp had three helpers in the water up to their knees and so I was unceremoniously hauled upright, and immeadiately felt that wobbly, dizzy feeling that I always get going from horizontal to vertical. Apparently, its quite normal because the heart has got used to pumping blood around quickly in a horizontal state and to go quickly to standing and to try to go quickly straight away means a lack of blood in the head. At least, thats what I’ve read. It soon passed, but I noticed on the video a few days later, you can see me make a grab for the barriar rail and go sideways as I try to start running up the ramp and nearly miss!!!

In the end the swim was 34’00″ on the official time sheet – not bad at all, considering my best in the pool is 33’30″ and some of this time will be climbing out and up the ramp to the transition point.

I knew the tranisiton area was big and that transiton 1 would take a while and so it proved! But it wasn’t half as bad as last years ITU London Triathlon course, where the bikes are half a mile away from the swim exit. The organisers also insist on you removing your wetsuit and putting it in a bag to carry to your bike, rather than stripping to the waist and then removing the wetsuit by your bike, as normal. Perhaps this is because they aren’t allowed to get the floor wet in the main transition area!?!?! It did mean there was a few obstacles to avoid on the run from the swim exit to the bike – people removing wetsuits!! But nothing too much to worry about!

The transition went smoothly but at 4’34″ still seems an age compared to other triathlons, but is inevitable considering the size of this event. Comparing it afterwards to other competitiors, there aren’t too many people around my time going below 4’30″ and its only once you get into the top 100 athletes that they are regularly going below 4’00″, so overall, I’m actually OK with my transtion time.

Onto the bike, and into my element. This was always going to be the leg I wanted to do best at, and I went hard at it from the start. There were a lot of riders out on the course already with lots of different standards. The course is on a closed off section of London roads between the Docklands and Westminster, through some underpasses, and round roundabouts before going along the Embankment towards the Houses of Parliament, then turning back. This meant that I was often going down a decent into a tunnel and climbing back out, or over a bridge and down again, all of which slows progress when compared to just going on hard at it on the flat. It also meant, especailly around the Docklands end, there were lots of roundabouts to slow progress. I was surprised at the lack of bike handling skills of some other the riders out there. You can usually spot new competitiors as they will be on new entry level road bikes, or hybrids or even mountain bikes, all of which is fine, as I welcome anyone wanting to ride a bike!

But I was surpised to see some obviously more experienced triathletes struggling with basic cornering. More than once, I was passed by a younger, fitter guy on a very expensive carbon fibre Time Trial bike, only to catch him up and pass him at the next roundabout, where I would brake less, carry more speed through the corner and then be ahead for a little while. (I don’t mean to boast – I am no good when compared to some of the other riders at the newly formed Tickhill Vélo) It’s just surprising to see the wide range of abilities. Perhaps this was inevitable at such a big event!

I nearly came unstuck on the ride for another reason altogether – I didn’t read the race brief properly. I glanced through it and thought the bike leg was two loops of the same course, from the Docklands to Westminster and back. However, as I was heading back towards the Docklands at the end of the first loop, I was watching my distance build on my Garmin and coming to the realisation that I was way over half bike distance. If I turned and did the same loop again, I’d end up doing a 30+ mile bike leg, when its only supposed to be 24 miles! Something wasn’t quite right!

I headed back out on the second loop and luckily noticed a turn marker at about 18 miles, although it didn’t say for which distance the turn was for. Normally, it would say something like OLYMPIC next to the arrow. I pulled to a halt next to a marshall just past the turn marker and asked…

“If you’re doing the Olympic distance, do you go around again to Westminster or do you turn here?”

Luckily, he was more clued up on the course than me and he knew that I was supposed to turn here. Checking after, it turned out the Olympic course was a long loop to Westminster then a shorter second loop – not two equal loops, as I had assummed. With that close escape, I finished the correct distance in 1hr8’02″.

Transition 2 was 2’52″ and again seemed to be pretty respectable considering the size of the venue. Very few of the top 100 athetes were under 2’30″!

Out on the run and the first thing I noticed was my feet. Or blocks of wood as they should more accurately be described! Normally, if I was to go for a bike ride at 8am on a cold Sunday morning, I’d wear what are called overshoes. Plastic covers that go over your cycling shoes to keep your feet warm. If not, after a couple of hours riding on a cold morning, your feet get so cold, they go numb. Well, it wasn’t quite that cold but certainly ‘fresh’ enough that it tooke until the end of the first mile of the run for my feet to actually feel normal again.

The run consisted of four short laps of the course that took you through the Arean, out past some of the office blocks then back into the arena. At the end of the first lap, I saw Nikki and the girls hanging over the barricades shouting their support, and I waved. The next two laps round I remembered where they were and headed over for ‘high fives’ as I ran past.

I tried to pace myself but felt myself fading towards the end of the second lap and into the third. About half way through the race, it started to dawn on me what my overall time was going to look like. I knew that even a slow 10k would be below the hour mark, and I’d started on the run about 1hr50 ish.

I was slowly realising that I could finish under my 3 hour target – well under in fact! As I came round onto the last lap, it seemed like I was going to be able to go under 2hr45′. This was all the motivation I needed so I made sure I put everything I had left (which wasn’t a lot) into the last lap. I would have hated to miss such a huge milestone by a few seconds.

In the end, I did it in 2hr 42’16″ – I couldn’t believe it! Considering my run was only at 8’40″ min/mile pace and my swim was pedestrian, I’m really pleased with that.

Overall, I was ranked 286 in my age group of 40-44 yr old men, out of the 624 who finished. This is the 46th percentile. In the race overall, I was ranked 1298 out of the 3304 men who raced. This is the 39th percentile.

I don’t really hold much stead by rankings though, as I can’t do anything about anybody else’s race! The thing about triathlon is I am racing myself. I’d set myself the 3 hour goal and come well under it, surprising myself how much if I’m honest. The obvious follow up to this is whether I could get to the 2hour30 mark! The honest answer to that one – I don’t know. I’m led to believe that time is a serioulsy quick time, and I’ve never been seriously quick at anything… we shall see!

A couple of days after we got home, I logged into the London Triathlon website and noticed they’d done something I’ve never seen before. They had cameras mounted all around the course, recording all the contestants. If you logged in with your number, they were able to tell from your timing chip when you went past each camera. With some fancy software, they then put together a package of video highlights specifically for each contestant. For the (sort of) reasonable fee of £16.99, you could download these videos. So I saw something I’ve never seen before. Me, running a triathlon. Not a pretty picture, I’m afraid. If you don’t watch it, I wouldn’t be surprised.

But for those who want to see how it’s not done, I’ve edited it down a bit, just to shorten the pain!

After returning to the main central plaza, I found Nikki and the children who by now had been met by my Mother in Law and her husband.

They hadn’t been too bored apparently whilst I was in the water and out on the bike. There was a childrens area laid on by the organisers and Lily-Anne had been busy getting creative…

I picked up my medal as I came through the finish line and Grace was very happy to show everyone!

By pure coincidence, I looked up to see the German guy we met on the DLR, so went over for a chat (I know, I’ll talk to anyone). I asked him how he’d done and he said it didn’t go so well for him – his time was just over his target of 2hr30′. I felt a bit guilty after as I felt good about how close our times actually were!

By this time, it was after 11am. As we sat around reflecting on the morning so far, we started to see other competitors coming in who had yet to start. People would be starting their own triathlons all morning and into the early afternoon. At this point, all my complaints about a really early start evaporated!

I had spent the whole race competing in near perfect (if a little cold) conditions. Looking at the people coming into the central plaza area as they arrived, it was apparent that the conditions outside had changed, considerably! The remnants of that hurricane had arrived, with a vengence! Everybody was absolutely soaked – and that was before they had started.

Outside apparently the wind had come up and it was absolutely pouring down!. We wondered out to get some lunch about midday and saw first hand how bad the rain was. I felt really bad for anyone who’s start time was any time after about 10am – they faced terrible conditions on the bike ride!

It got progressively worse through the afternoon and I learnt the following morning that the last two waves got cancelled and the competitiors had to just do the ride and run – the wind was getting up so strong that it was whipping out the water in the dock and making it too dangerous to swim in! So I was really lucky to get such good conditions!

The reason I do these daft challenges is two fold. Of course I want to stay fit and stretch myself, so having a goal like the London Triathlon is brilliant! Much more importantly though, it is to raise funds to find a cure for Samuel. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) are funding most of the research required to find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes, and this is Sam’s best hope for a normal life without hypo’s and carb counting, for a normal nights sleep, for not having to always be connected to an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitoring etc etc.

Having returned from the race, our attentions turned to the fundraising required for our main goal. We had a fundraiser at the Millstone in Tickhill featuring the band Saint Harlot, much more of which in another post.

Thanks to everyone’s support before and after the gig, we managed to raise a total of £1,791.04 which has now gone off to the JDRF.

With only 6 days to go, all the training is done. The next few days are just for tapering down to the race. I’m pretty pleased with how the training has gone. I could have done a few more miles on the bike, especially whilst we were on holiday in France, but my swimming is pretty solid, and I’m very pleased how my running has come along.

I think I’m most happy that I’ve managed to stay injury free. At least I know I can compete.

Which means my thoughts are inevitably turning to how quickly I will go. I recently did my fastest time in the Hatfield Sprint in 1hr26′. This one is double the distance but that doesn’t necessarily mean just double the time. At least, I don’t think it does. After all, I’ve never done a triathlon this long before.

When I did the London Sprint Triathlon last year, I did it in 1hr32′. Some of the extra 6 minutes were down to the size of the Triathlon. When there are thousands of competitors, the transition areas have to be really big, and just getting through these can add time. The two transitions last year took me 8’01″, so if they are the same size this year, I’ve got a good idea how long they will take. Doubling the swim from last year will be take me 44 mins, doubling the bike leg wil take me 1hr18′ and doubling the run would take me 47 mins.

But its not as simple as that. Take the swim for example. I can do 1500m in the pool in under 35 mins, so 44 mins should be achieveable. However, my normal time for my 40k ride on a Saturday morning is 1hr20 something and thats without a swim beforehand. And my personal best for a 10k run is 50 mins, again without a swim and ride beforehand.

Taking all this into account, I’m hoping to do the following:

Swim – 40 mins
Bike – 1hr 20 mins
Run – 55 mins
Transitions – 8 mins

This is a total of 3hrs 3 mins, which raises the obvious target of trying to do it in less that 3 hours, which is what I’d like to do….

Inspired – I went for a ride this evening, to get my August IronMan total off to a quick start. I thought I’d also use it as a way of putting a little context onto what Bradley did.

my ride

Admittedly, I cycled a little further than Brad did – 3 miles more. It took me a little longer…. Nearly 55 minutes longer. So basically, he’s nearly twice as fast as me.

In my defence, my route is probably a bit lumpier than cycling around West London. And I bet Brad’s route didn’t go over a level crossing…. where, would you believe it, I had to wait for a train…

It was a nice night for a ride, even though I did get rained upon for about 5 mins, two thirds of the way round! I hope others were similarly inspired by Brad and we see more
people out cycling.

A Sprint Distance Triathlon with a swim distance of 750m, a bike ride of 23k and a 5k run.

On a warm and sunny, if a little windy day, it was a very relaxed affair. I had my support crew with me…

Nikki came with the dogs but managed to step out of the shot when I wanted to take this piccie! And for an added bonus, my Mum & Dad came to watch too!!

It was a very social event too. As we parked the car, I met Michael Barnett – @Smoker23athlete – who by coincidence followed us into the car park and who was doing his first triathlon. I saw him afterwards as well, and he got round but had a fall at the start of the run, so I hope he’s not hurting too much!

Just before I went to drop the bike off at transition, someone came up to me and said “Hi, remember me?” I had to confess I didn’t but it was Mark Stenson, who I went to school with and haven’t seen since! He noticed my name on the participants list and introduced himself when he saw me! He now lives in Luxembourg! It was nice to catch up.

And Carl Fenton from Tickhill was also doing the race. I saw him before to wish him well and also briefly afterwards, and I think he was pleased with his time.

The race itself went very differently to how I thought it would. I was hoping to get below 1hr30′ but wasn’t sure whether this would be possible because of the slightly longer bike leg. Normally, the bike leg is 20k on a Sprint Triathlon but this one was 23k long.

100m into the swim and I thought I’d be lucky to get home by lunchtime, never mind under 1hr30′. I just hate swimming in wetsuits. I might have gone off a bit hard but within a couple of minutes I couldnt get any breath. I ended up doing breaststroke for a while to try and get my breath back, and ironically, I wasn’t actually that much slower doing this.

After a couple of hundred metres, I tried to go back to frontcrawl, and felt a little bit better. Unfortunately, I didn’t look where I was going as much with my head in the water and ended up off route!

By the time I exited the water, I was convinced that I’d ruined any chance of getting under my target time. However, as I pressed the lap button on my watch going into transition, it said 15′ something. I couldn’t believe it. I was hoping for anything under 17 mins and thought with the way the swim had gone, it would be twenty something!

Its only a small race so the transition area is small and close to the water, and so I was onto the bike in 1’08″ – Nice!

I struggled a bit to get my feet into the shoes but it was only in the entrace drive to the Marina which has speed bumps and loose tarmac, so I don’t think I lost too much time. Once out on the road for real, the bike felt good – really good. The first couple of miles of the route is over a motorway bridge and all the way round a roundabout, but by mile 4, its a nice long, flat straight. I averaged over 20 miles an hour through miles 4 to 9. As we turned to come home the last part of the ride was into the wind, which obviously slowed me, but the slippy position I was in on my TT bike still helped and I finished the ride in 44’19″ at an average speed of 19.6 mph.

Transition 2 was only 38 secs – I said it was a small race! And it was out onto the run.

This turned out to be a very steady 3.1 miles, with each mile being 5 seconds under 8min/mile pace. In the past, I’ve tried to pick up the pace towards the end but it was pretty hot by the time I got to mile three, and I think this took it’s toll on me.

Overall, I finished in 1hr26’05″ – just under 4 mins below my target and a new Personal Best.

Well pleased!

General
Drink
Bottle
Transition bag
Normal Clothes
Flip flops

All these are fine although I can’t stand flip flops!!! You will also need a number belt or safety pins, or both to pin your race number on.

Swim
Trisuit
Wetsuit
Goggles
Swim hat
Compressport calf guards
Watch
Bodyglide

I usually take a swim hat but it should be provided at the race. Each race usually has a colour code system for waves, male, female, standards etc so provide the hat. You may also want a small towel to dry your feet before putting on shoes, although I’ve never really used one. I don’t know what Compressport calf guards are – sounds technical!

Bike
Shoes
Gels
Drink
Helmet
Glasses
Socks

Don’t forget the bike!!!

To help with the transition onto the bike, I have my shoes in the bike clips already and hold them at the correct point by a thin elastic band. When you get out of transition and pedal for the first time, the band snaps off. Hard to describe – probably worth checking out YouTube! I sewed a small piece of material into the top of the heel of my road shoes, to make a loop like the ones on a pro’s triathlon shoes – so there’s something to loop the elastic band through!

I don’t wear socks – they’d take too long to put on when you’re feet are wet and the distance isn’t long enough to worry too much about blisters.

Run
Trainers
Drinks bottle
Sport beans
Achilles support

I don’t run with a drinks bottle as its only 3 miles. If you need a drink on the run, there should be a feed station en-route (need to check with the organisers).

Don’t know what Sports beans are!?!

Hope that helps – see you Sunday!

What an incredible whirlwind of an adventure. We drove to Birmingham Airport on Sunday afternoon and flew to Paris where we connected with our flight to Toulouse. We were picked up by Skoda and from there on in treated like royalty. We stayed the first night at the Mercure Toulouse Gold de Seilh. Also staying here were RadioShackNissanTrek, Argos-Shimano and Europcar, which meant riders and team mechanics were everywhere to be seen.

We got there about 8pm, got changed and went straight into dinner, to meet all the others who were there too. Some of them were competition winners like us. Others were sent by different parts of the Skoda company on dealer incentives, press junkets etc. Some however were former professional riders, there to act as hosts over the next 24 hours. These included Tim Harris and Stephen Roche.

After a late night – I sat talking till the small hours with three sports journalists from Dublin – we were up early the next morning to go for a bike ride with the former pro’s including Stephen Roche himself!

Sporting the new Skoda cycling top I was given the night before and riding a Storck full carbon bike worth £4,000, we had just under an hour riding out of Toulouse and through the fields of sunflowers. As a cyclist, this was just heaven! It was also a novelty. Whenever we visit France and I ride out into the country, its in August and the sunflowers have always gone over by then!

As well as being there to ride with us and tell stories over drinks, the former pro’s act as our chauffeurs for the day, so they can give their unique insight whilst we’re in the car and following the race – how cool is that?

Our driver was John Robertson, who founded former Pro Continental Team Barlowworld and currently owns & manages Team Bizhub Ladies Pro Cycling Team. As well as being an expert, he was very laid back and easy to talk to, which helped the day go so much better.

We headed off to the start of the race at 10am, in Samatan, about 30km from Toulouse. I’ve never been in a Skoda before, but these were top spec Skoda Superb’s and something else. Full leather. Auto. 4×4. Not what I expected and very nice!

At Samatan, we had an hour to look around the VIP village and then went to where all the teams were. I wanted to see the TeamSky bus and hoped to see a few of the cyclists. We ended up seeing Chris Froome, Eddie Bosan Hagan, Richie Porte, Bernie Eisel and Mick Rogers. Well pleased!

Unfortunately, we had to leave before Brad & Cav came off the bus but you can’t have everything! the reason we couldn’t hang around was the main focus of the day – we were to drive the full route of the stage, in advance of the peloton. Obviously the road is closed, so not many are allowed to do this, just race officials, journalists and a select few VIP – guess which ones we were!?!

We had to rush because you need to be ahead of the peloton before they leave. Get caught behind them and there’s no overtaking!!!! So off we went, and at some pace too! John said that support and team vehicles have to stick to a speed limit of 80kph on the route – and he did. But some of the roads were tight and twisty and at that speed it was pretty breakneck, I can tell you. This only added to the excitement!

After about 30k’s, we were dropped off at the side of the road and handed a glass of champagne each – we wanted for nothing throughout the whole trip! – then the cars sped off. They couldn’t hang around or would get caught behind the peloton. We were then able to watch the riders speed by, and boy were they moving!!!

Now of course, we’re stuck behind them!! But not for long. A quick walk around the corner and we get into one of these…

Minutes later and we are flying over the race, watching from above with the riders strung out along the road. We circled over the race four times in to total, before going on ahead to rejoin the cars, further down the road.

We then set off for the finish, stopping for a road side picnic along the way. The Foix-Gras was really good!

Once in the finish town of Pau, we got out of the cars and dashed over to the area we were to watch the finish from, known as Club Tour de France. This was a great vantage point over the finish line, made even better by yet another glass of champagne!

All along the route, we had been able to keep in touch with what was happening in the race behind us, as the car had a race radio receiver installed. Race radio is a service to all the teams and journalists that comes from the Race officials as they shout out rider positions, time gaps on break aways etc. From this we knew that a group of six riders had broken away and (in what is quite rare these days) they weren’t chased down by the main peloton.

It wasn’t long before the first of the riders came into view for us at the finish. Two riders contested the sprint finish with Frenchman Pierrick Fedrigo of Team FDJ-Bigmat beating Christian Vande Velde of Garmin-Sharp to the line. The rest came in pretty quickly behind them.

I managed to capture a lot of the day, including the riders coming in at the finish, in my video diary…

A huge thank you to Skoda UK for organising the trip and taking us out to the Tour. And also a special mention to Debbie Oakley, Events Manager at Skoda UK and her husband Rob. They accompanied us through the two days and couldn’t do enough for us making sure we were looked after at all times, and were great company to boot.

I joked with them that its ruined the Tour for me now – I’ll never be able to go again, as we’ll never be able to match this trip.

All in all, a once in a lifetime, never to be repeated, money can’t buy competition prize!!!

Now.. I wonder how I get on the trip again next year…..???