I have a new t-shirt

After all the non training whinging and bleating the weekend of reckoning arrived. Saturday I set off for the New Forest along with everyone else from London. I arrived just in time for registration and briefing. A fantastic sunny weekend, the first for the year! As a hundred people and extra support crews stood there in the sun, Richard the race director started his briefing. "We are probably all experienced triathletes here .....", gulp, well actually! Quick look around, is there anyone else here looking at nervous as me? No, and how come everyone is wearing Ironman finisher t-shirts or sporting M dot tattoos? Still feeling hot I took my jumper off to show the world my 'Hayle Sprint Tri' t-shirt. Yep, newbie here over here, yep, right here, new boy, I know nothing.

The first dicipline in Triathlon is understanding the instructions, 3 bags, umpteen stickers to stick everywhere, times to drop off kit, get buses, rack your bike, blah blah blah. My head was a whirl. I have to decide now, what I want to start running with tomorrow? Ohhhhh, decisions. Still I got through it, met Phil and had a chat, racked, bagged and bought new kit before going off to see my bro for pasta and no alcohol.

4:15am the alarm went off, porridge, mixed 3 bottles of drinks, and set off in the dark to Sandy Balls, where I parked and boarded a bus to the lake. Sat down and started chatting with a young south african guy from Bath. He's not done this distance either. Then he said he had been looking at the run course profile and thought it was a flat easy run! Not what I had heard. I thought about it and then told him the scale was in metres not feet. Wander if he noticed later in the day?

The sun came up, the toilets got used, transition was set up and the temperature went from 8 derees ohhh all of to 8.5 degrees. The swim is 2 circuits around the perimeter of the lake. I am in the same wave as Phil, but shortly after getting in the water I lost sight of him. Not surprising really, 70 people in black wetsuits, white swim hats and goggles we all look the same. The hooter went and we were off. White hats, arms flying, bodies bumping, legs kicking and bubbles everywhere. It's tough to swim like this, you can't get a decent stroke going and you don't want to get kicked. Soon there was free space to swim and we were all headed for the bouy that is just a small blob far far far off on the horizon. In fact it was so far off that earlier in the day you could not see it for the fog. But it's green and eventually comes into sight. We all bunch up again round the bouy and you have hold your own, no saying sorry for touching the toes of the guy in front around here. As I started the last long leg I saw green hats. Green set off 3 minutes behind me, and these guys were really moving. Quick sight around, there are other white hats and red hats, how many red hats? Well it looks like quite a few. Now I never expected to be near a red hat, so I assumed they were slow and just got on with it. Out of the swim, up the ramp. Kim (Phils wife), shouts out, 'awesome swim Andy' as I search for the leash and start peeling off my wetsuit, then theres my brother as well. Ha, he got out of bed early. Into T1 and I must admit it took a fair bit of time for T1, mainly just trying to stand up and not wobble about and getting arm warmers/socks/shoes on wet feet.

Got off to a flying start, clipped in easily and pumped on the pedals to get away and off up the first hill. Awesome, awesome countryside, cattlegrids, piggies, deer, cows and ponies. The route dived below the A31 and down Ornamental drive, my water bottle fell off as I went over the cattle grid, as did a couple of other guys bottles. We stopped picked them up figuring its too early to go without the fluid. The course really is fantastically scenic. Back above the A31 down through Lover and off across the top heathland. This is where I was down in my drops when Phil came past me. 'What you doing in front' he asked! I was amazed, all this time I thought he was in front somewhere and I was hoping to catch him, never thought he was behind me. But he soon took off and I could do nothing except watch him as he got out of the saddle to climb the hills. As I struggled up the hills back onto the top heathland I got overtaken by (among others) a chap with straight handlebars, 'no, you can't do that' I protested, 'I'll catch you on the run' I called. 'you'll get me on the flat', he returned. Sure enough, the hill ended, the flat began and I caught him. 'ha, your in trouble now!' We laughed. It's funny as you cycle along overtaking and then being caught again by the same people, you pass banter. Through out the cycle I got aching knees, first the left, then the right, then both, then neither, then the right again. By the end of the bike though I was feeling OK, I had sucked down 2 bottles (1.3 litres) of energy drink and hornet juice mix (thats after 500mls before the swim and close your eye now, left down the wetsuit), 1 energy bar and 3 gels.

Off the bike, run throught he Sandy Balls courtyard echoing with cheering and clapping, ahhhh I felt like Chris McCormack. Rack the bike and off for a run, well lets call it a shuffle, at about a 10min/mile pace it was slow. Luckily there was plenty of energy drink on the run and luckily I was not the only one walking the hills. The leaders passed me as I about 1.5 miles in, so they were about 2 hours ahead of me. Awesome and focused, or super human experiments? 2:30 the run took me. thats the slowest 1/2 marathon ever, so whats my excuse? Big hills? Sandy tracks? The heat? Yeah that will do. Passed Phil again, he's struggling with a knee injury and I thought he was going to walk, but he came in about 11-15mins behind me so he must have run most of it.

Managed a run back into the Finish, a proper finish chute with blow up finish arch. Yeah, hands in the air, give myself a cheer and a cup of water, I think I earned it.

The day after, I ache. Not as bad as after a marathon, but my hips and knees still remember it! Ahhhhh, right when's the next one? I have now done a half Ironman distance triathlon. Just so we are clear here, thats 1.9km swim, 90km bike and 21km run (1.8/56/13.1 miles). If I do another can I then call myself an Ironman? No afraid not, get on with it wimp.

pictures here even one of me coming down the steps into the water. White cap, silver shoulders on my wetsuit.

.... and another non week .....

non-week, blah blah. Ohhhh whoa is me, ahh shut up your bleating, take the pills and get on with it. Oh, OK then. The week before has arrived. I ran out 1:11 this evening, first run in a week or so. The muscles at the back of my legs are sore before I start out and remain sore for the distance. Not sure whats going on, maybe sore from swimming? I dunno. Hopefully a weeks rest will see them OK. Heartrate was OK, I managed to keep it down below 155 and was probably slow but it's all about endurance and lasting the distance this time. If I had been doing some half decent training I might feel better, but hey ho.

Nutrition plan? ummmmm

It's not going to be good ......

OK, I admit it, I've blown it and it's not going to be pretty. My main concern is surviving the swim. You see all of August I did little or no swimming (well any training actually). In fact the 750m swim at the beginning of August was the only decent distance swim. Now I just want to get a few 2000m swims in to prove to myself I am not going to cramp up on the day or get into trouble in the middle of a lake. If I can do this, then the bike should be OK for about 40 miles and I'll see what happens for the remaining 16 miles. Maybe I'll take a fiver at stop at a pub!

The run will just be a painful shuffle I'm sure. Probably better to think in terms of run/walk I think.

The fourth disipline is nutrition. One of my podcasts covered this and it says the body can take in about 250 calories/hour. Thats about 825 calories for the bike and 500 calories for the run. Now all I need to do is work out how to do it and how to carry it all!

Today I went to K2. K2 has an olympic pool. It's awesome and I am probably the worst swimmer in the pool! Still I managed to crank out 2200 slow metres.

Onwards ......

Hallux Rigidus

This morning I saw a Podiatric Surgeon. He knew the answers before I asked the questions! 'I run', I said, 'long distance or medium distance', he asked. So he knows a thing or two about the different ways a foot moves I thought. Then he asked if I ski, well I said I just have been on a dry ski slope for the first time in 20 years. 'And you can turn left OK, but the other way is a problem'. Well how spot on could he be? When I was on the dri ski slope 2 weeks ago, the instructor said your turning to the left fine but the right is weak. So this podiatric surgeon is hitting all the right notes for me. Then he asked me to balance on my right foot, I can do that, not a lot of difficulty, a bit wobbley. Then the left, much, much, surprisingly more stable, which is strange as its my left foot with the problem, but it shows how much the left side of me has learnt to cope without using the toe. Then back on the bench, and he pushed my foot up from underneath, right then left. The right is fine, but my left twists my knee in horribly. 'Aghhhhh, do it again', so we did. This seems to be my problem. My left bio-mechanics are not right (ha ha), and all the way up my leg/hips is compensating for it, resulting is this horrible looking twist in my knee. I am so surprised I am not on a walking stick. Imagine the surpise when a magician does an amazing trick, well that was my reaction this morning.

So whats the outcome? Well being a runner affects the outcome and it appears to be. Orthotics, injections and surgery. in that order. Surgery to overcome the arthritic bone, injections to replace the synovial fluid missing from the joint and orthotics to prevent it re occuring. Result, 6 weeks no running, can start wearing shoes after 4 weeks, but can't drive for the first 4 weeks and need to wear a surgical shoe.

All this is going to cost 'an arm and a leg', ha ha hah ha ha. Which is cheaper than I thought.