My splits went like this:

On the whole the experience was one of mostly positive mixed emotions, excitement, nervousness, tension, and at times panic. I felt much more at ease this year than I remember feeling about the last two years at the London Triathlon. In each discipline I undoubtedly felt more comfortable, especially on the bike and run legs. The swim was still very tough especially during those first few hundred metres, but this event was the first I can recall actually enjoying the swim, once I was past the half way point.

It felt larger than ever before, and indeed it was, evident throughout by the longer times to get around the transition area pre and post race. A symptom of both the event and the sport’s success, which is good news by all accounts.

Hoping to maybe fit in another one, possibly two more triathlons this season to keep the momentum going and avoid slowing down too much for the winter, something I’ve been guilty of in the past. Hopefully by maintaining decent fitness throughout the winter and keeping the pounds off and ideally shedding more I can launch into next year’s events with renewed fitness rather than having to focus on weight reduction first.

To keep motivated I’m glad to say that myself and my compadres (known as Team Ting Tong – don’t ask why) have already stumped up and entered into the 2010 event securing ourselves another bout with the Victoria Dock. I’m looking forward to it already.

On the whole another thoroughly enjoyable event, made even more pleasurable by the presence and support of my family and friends. Thanks!

“Try get in a lake, it is different. In a swimming pool try swimming a length with your eyes closed and you’ll be bashing off the lane rope, because that’s what happens in triathlon…”

Courtesy of the latest ads from Oakley

L-R: Steve (holding Lottie), Paul (Me), Gav, Simon

A full two days have passed since completing this years Olympic distance course of the Mazda London Triathlon based at the massive Excel in London’s Docklands.

Having dropped the bike off at transition the day before the big event, I eventually arrived at the venue on the Sunday and quickly tracked down and met up with my race buddies Gav, Simon and Steve. Gladly it wasn’t just me who was feeling hyper nervous, we all felt the same way with churning stomachs and the shakes.

Having attended the pre-recorded race briefing we anxiously made our way to transition where we (wet) suited up, applied timing chips, readied our bike and running gear for (hopefully) speedy transitions and then slowly headed to the swim meeting point where it all begins. Here we are given a secondary briefing by the race organiser and encouraged to support each other to the chants of Oggy oggy oggy, then we make our way into the water.

Having tread water for 5 minutes in the Albert Dock we have a final chant of
Oggy oggy oggy followed by the long anticipated starting klaxon. Slowly, the 405 participants of this 14:10 wave begin the 1,500 metre swim out to a blue
buoy sitting somewhere beyond the horizon and then back to Excel for T1.

Well that’s how it all started. Then it continued…

My plan was to approach the swim in a relaxed way, hoping for a consistent pace and relying on the  buoyancy of the wetsuit to keep me afloat whilst I propelled myself with a good stroke, the reality however was somewhat different. Despite feeling comfortable during the build up as well as the first 10 strokes, the melee began and like a shoal of fish chasing a single piece of bread we headed off towards the first turning point, hands brushing feet, feet kicking faces, splash, breathe, splash, breathe breathe. Slowing to breast stroke to avoid swimming over the guy in front whilst avoiding being swam over.

Finally some clear water. OK, now concentrate on breathing and establishing some sort of rhythm to carry me through. It must have been when approaching the 650 meter mark that I finally got into a sustainable rhythm and managed a consistent pace. The midway turning point proved to be just that. Once the home stretch was in sight and the waters cleared it became easier to focus on just the swimming and not the other bodies, breathing, the cold, and the constant noise of jet planes taking off overhead from nearby City Airport.

I found myself pacing with two other competitors who kept me on a straight line to the exit point apart from the couple of times I bounced off the swimming lane marker rope, bear in mind visibility in this water is no more than 20 inches. I can even remember thinking how much I was enjoying the swim at one point, something I never would’ve imagined.

Exiting the swim stage removing wetsuit, cap and goggles whilst completely disorientated

Final push to the exit ramp keeping my head down and and pushing the front crawl until I could touch the floating pontoon at which point I was thankfully helped up by one of the many fantastic event marshalls and proceeded up the ramp and onto dry land. Adjusting to the solid ground under foot and recovering from the dizziness whilst hearing muffled cheers of support another marshall was thrusting a large clear bag at me into which I had to put my wetsuit, cap and goggles. It felt like an eternity taking that wetsuit off whilst still coming to terms with being out of the water. I eventually scraped the suit off at which point I spotted my support team (family and friends – thanks so much for your support and encouragement) who spurred me on to the next phase, T1, the first of two transitions, this being the bike transition.

Swim completed in a fairly disappointing 40 minutes and 19 seconds, it took me another 4 minutes 58 seconds to complete T1, which involved running up an extremely slippery set of stairs plus approx. another 200 meters to my racking point where I dumped my swim gear and donned my helmet, glasses and cleated bike shoes, then grabbed my bike and ran a further – what seemed like – 800 meters on a treacherously slippery surface to the bike mounting point where I could finally start the ride proper.

Read Part 2 all about the bike leg and

Read Part 3 all about the run leg

With 18 days to go, training is finally gathering pace, somewhat late you might say, but hey, hoping that the Blenheim Tri will be more of a training event for the upcoming London Tri at the beginning of August. It starts here and now.

This week has been fairly physical. So far, 4 x 22 km rides (commutes), 1 x 1,750 m swim, and 1 x 5 km run. At least it’s something every day. The only trouble is that soon I’ll have to begin tapering down for the main event. Feeling confident that I’m almost ready for the sprint event, which should be a good prelude to the longer Olympic distance of the London Tri.

Another good piece of news is that my 3 other Tri buddies are competing in the same wave, so at least we’ll be starting together, and hopefully finishing not too far apart from each other.

Hoping to fit another run in tomorrow lunchtime, which to be honest I’m finding the hardest discipline to get motivated about. I’m simply not built for running, cycling yes, but running, no. I’ll maintain my steady pace of around 11.5 km/hour hopefully and complete the run in approx 27 minutes, slowly but surely.

More later…

Rather than talk about what I haven’t done I’ll tell you about what I have done. Despite my promises to start training in a more serious way eight weeks back, I’ve been fair weather training and eating to my heart’s content. My first triathlon on the season is in less than three weeks and today feels like the first day of real training.

Having not cycled into work for the past two weeks, not gone for a serious run of any kind for a least three, and not gone for a swim since last year at some point I can’t even remember, today I worked it.

Cycled into work, head wind was strong but I battled through. The ride home was fast so either I had a tail wind helping me along, or all that energy I was storing up burst into my ride home, probably the best time I’ve achieved since riding to/from work. Then, in the evening I managed an unexpected and rather stonking 70 laps of my local pool.

Damn, I’ve never seen so many plasters and hair bands in my life, all on the floor of the pool, minging! Anyway, I must’ve burnt a few thousand calories and don’t even feel I was compensating for anything I ate today.

So the question is, can I keep this up, or is it going to be a flash in the pan training session? It’s hardly as if I’ve committed myself to a hard core training regime of any sort. Anyway, yet again I’ll keep you informed.

Hoping to do a quick 5 km at lunchtime tomorrow. Will let you know…

Following last year’s London Triathlon where I attained a personal best under the 3 hour mark, I vowed to strengthen the two disciplines that let me down the most, the swim and the run. You simply can’t rely on the one stronger discipline, cycling in my case to achieve a significantly better time.

Training for last year’s London event consisted of 4 months of cycle commuting, 2-3 times a week, a couple of 5km runs each week and a single swim at the local pool to make sure I could last the distance. Pretty pathetic, however, it got me through and quite clearly the more you put in the more you get out.

Since the beginning of this year I’ve managed one swim and was hoping to go for another today, however that’s not going to happen due to family commitments, or is it just Sunday laziness, or is it because I’m writing this instead of hammering out some lengths at the local pool? I will swim more; I must swim more this year. Surely a bit of effort at least once a week and I could shave five minutes off last year’s swim time. Surely?

On the bike front, I’m happy that I will have done enough. Ramping the commute up to a constant three times a week, 6 x 15 miles will certainly help along with the weekend roadie and MTB outings. Sorted, although I could do without the head wind this year.

When it comes to the run, I’m hoping to shave another 5 minutes off my PB. Optimistic? I’m unsure at this point. Lunchtime runs are slowly becoming routine calendar events for Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, each a 5km blast along the north and south side of the River Thames. The weekend 10km runs will add a little stamina to the training, although I suspect I need to make these a more regular feature of my weekends.

Besides the three main activities, there’s another major part of my training regime that simply isn’t coming together as effectively, my diet. I love food, I love eating, I don’t want to have to not eat as much, but will have to try. I’ll let you know how that goes from now as I attempt to curb my calorie intake.

As part of the physical aspect of the training, I’m also recording it using my Garmin Forerunner 405. You can see training progress on the Garmin Connect site, as well as my regular updates on my Twitter. What I also hope to do soon is put together a rolling graph of my progress over the next few months.

Let’s see how it goes in the lead up to the Blenheim tri, which is eleven weeks away. Panic!

Despite my best efforts to get a good hour's worth of laps at the local swimming pool, it wasn't necessarily to be. The main reason for my visit was to entertain my 3 year old son, mainly in the nursery pool, until the foam floats were introduced to the main pool that is (fun, fun, fun).

OK, so I didn't complete the anticipated 64 laps of the pool, but I did get plenty of excercise carrying, catching, pulling and dragging my son around the pool, whilst acting as diving board, safety mat, dive bomb target and underwater climbing platform.

Saying this, I'm convinced I ended up more more tired than if I had done the 64 lengths, so maybe all was not lost.

It was good fun though, so can't complain. However, it really isn't easy trying to train seriously when looking after a small child and a newborn.

Let's see if things get any easier over the weekend, or next week when I fully intend for the first time to commute the 15 miles into work on the bike. This I hope will enable me to start shedding the pounds a litte more efficiently.

All will be revealed…

By the time I actually got round to getting my running gear on it must've been at least 8:45 pm. Nonetheless, out in the drizzling rain I venture and pounded the tarmac for 30 minutes or so.

It was a good session, felt strong.

Let's see if I can get along to that swim tomorrow…

Last weekend, my second son was born. He's great and my eldest who is 3 is also really good about becoming as big brother, although he does start vying for more attention come the end of the day.

Fortunatley, I'm just entering my second week of paterity leave from work, which to be honest has been excellent. The baby is easy to deal with compared to looking after the toddler, who needs constant entertaining.

Back to the training…

In the past week I've managed a 45 minute swim and a 5 Km run. Not really enough considering the triathlon is only 13 weeks away. The buddies who I'm participating with are doing “brick” training sessions (bikde ride directly followed by a run).

I've got to start riding the bike into work to begin shifting this excess weight.

No training today, although carrying my 3 year old on my shoulders for several miles around London has to count for something…

more tomorrow…