Author: Buck

…Prepare to fail.

I should have known it wasn’t as easy as the sum of it’s parts, or that indoors adequacy was equivalent to outdoor competence.

I’m talking about my half Ironman distance triathlon, by the way. The reason we booked our week’s holiday in Cornwall.

It is but five days until my first real race of the year; my half Ironman distance triathlon. I’m starting to get really nervous now!

I’ve been trying to get some practise in my wetsuit doing open water swims. I failed on three consecutive weeks to make it to the Mersey-Tri Salthouse docks swim. Today, being my day off, was supposed to be a sure thing. I found a clean beach, gently sloping, and recommended for swimming by the Clean Beach Guide. I checked the high tides and the route yesterday.I dropped Wendy off at work this morning whilst wearing my wetsuit (akin to childbirth in degree of comfort) then drove straight there. I should point out it’s not some fashion/fetish thing, the suit is so tight you can’t zip it up on your own, hence Wendy had to strap me in before going to work.

Anyway, I took a longer route (down the M53) as this avoided a toll and took me straight to where I wanted to be. Somehow I managed to get funnelled into the toll. That was a moment of panic as I hadn’t taken any money out with me and I couldn’t turn around. Luckily I found a few quid in the door of the mighty Micra. Trusty steed.

The Wednesday before last was the first open water dock swim with Mersey triathlon club. This is what I joined that club for; practise in swimming in a wetsuit. I duly packed all my kit and set off to Liverpool. Need I say that I left it to the last minute? Only to find the satnav didn’t recognize the destination? So I was racing out to the car, trying a new address, not having it work, running back in, upstairs to google something close. Eventually I found the prefix postcode wasn’t right, that was why it wasn’t recognizing the addresses.

I set off late, blindly following the satnav. You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? I got to the end of the motorway and saw signs for Bootle docks so I followed them in defiance of the satnav. Turns out Bootle docks are not the same as Salthouse docks. The satnav may have been right. When I was finally in the right neck of the woods I realized I’d forgotten the £2 swim fee. By the time I actually found the place I felt I was too late to play.

The docks itself was a surprise. I was expecting some derelict dock in a Scouse ghetto. It seems to be a des-res. Right on the sea front (obviously) with a Hilton hotel in front of it and a million people taking the air. It was posh as buggery and well crowded. Not how I wanted to do my first open water swim, in front of loads of people.

To cheer myself up I’ve been down my allotment today. It is something positive to be thinking about.

It’s gone from this:

I had a run worked out on ‘Gmaps pedometer’ (a site that lets you plot your exact route, allowing you to zoom in and click it turn by turn if you are following a path or otherwise not on a road.) The same route I was running before I buggered my knee. It worked out as 20 miles, when I did it more exactly it was 20.1 miles.

Since those heady days I have done one ten miler, rested for three weeks then ran two more ten milers.

Yesterday being the last day off of my long weekend I was supposed to do a half IM distance tri. I did the 1.2  mile swim in the morning then couldn’t really motivate myself for the 56 mile ride and 13 mile run. Then it started raining. I was doing a sterling job of prevarication in fact, then my Triathletes World magazine arrived and inspired/ guilt-tripped me.