THE GOOD BUCK

I’m still on about my triathlon. Run away, run away now.

I am still working up to the full Iron Man distance Outlaw race (July 24, provisionally) but I have found a few diverting projects besides.

Things are progressing apace. Unnervingly some things are actually looking like they are coming together. Always a sign you don’t understand the awful truth of the situation, in my experience.

I went away to my jolly hols at the T.A. gulag. I was all psyched up for it. They’d said ‘this is where it gets serious’ at the end of the last course, so I was thinking of basic training. Being beasted from pre-dawn until stupid o’clock in the morning, mad infantry shit out in the field,being freezing, soaking, pissed off, morale destroyed barely functioning automatons.

Not so much.

I have set my heart on my new challenge, the Iron Man (IM) triathlon. An aspiration that,  I might add, has earned me little but ridicule in most circles. The exception being the Runners World forum from the Warrington half marathon. Those chaps were again very supportive and have provided me with a list of generic IM distance triathlons. Of these, the one I like the look of is the Nottingham ‘Outlaw’ triathlon. Same thing; 2.4 miles swim, 112 mile bike ride, 26.2 mile run, but £179 (last year, tbc this) as opposed to £325 for the brand name IM.

I’m going for it.

I went the baths, did my first swim in fifteen years. At first I was struggling with two lengths of a 20m pool. Got my rhythm and managed ten lengths. The pool geezer, Ged, was watching me. As I got out he had a word. Said that he’d been watching me and that it was taking me, head-up, 27-32 strokes to do a length. He said my fitness wasn’t in question, but my technique was rubbish. He said he had proper triathletes who, with proper head-down swimming could do a length in 13 strokes. He has taken it upon himself to teach me!

That was a Black Sabbath quote, btw. Ozzy Osbourne? 70’s rock legend? *sighs at the yoof of today’s want of culture.*

Anyhow, Iron Man; I finished my first half-marathon on Sunday. It was epic!

It lashed down the whole time, parts of the course were flooded, others (due to the bloody hills they managed to find in Warrington) were more like streams. I seemed to be labouring up stream for thirteen miles. By the end of it I felt like a salmon on its spawning run.

On the Sunday night, after my weekend of jolly T.A. training, I posted a throw-away remark on Twitter saying I was finding it hard to get my head back into civvy mode. This has attracted a few wry comments.

Allow me to explain.

What I wasn’t saying was that 48hrs of T.A. training had turned me into John Rambo, a steely eyed loner unable to adjust to civilian life. That would probably take a whole week. No, I was just saying that it is a totally different mindset.