Last weekend I set off on another training event, the “Brighton Triathlon”. My “wheels” were in the form of the trusty eagle, my 27 year old racer, and I was praying for calm weather to placate the sea I would be swimming in!

A triathlon, for anyone who doesn’t know, entails a 1500m swim followed by a 40km bike ride and finished off with a 10 km run. Whilst I was confident of completing these disciplines independantly I had never put them all together!

Oh well, character building stuff was about to ensue!

As I prepared my bike before the race I was impressed with the quality of bike’s around me. I was expecting a few more dud/crappy bikes, but unfortunately these were reserved for the shorter distances! NO ONE in my catagory had a bike like mine! In fact very few people had a bike worth less than £1000! I felt quite honoured! The eagle was getting alot of attention! (all the wrong kind…) In fact the referree had to examine it quite carefully to see if it was race worthy! (I had to tape up a fewbits to make it safe)

As the start time approached the flat sea off the coast of Brighton duely turned into a thumping mass! The wind picked up and I was wondering whether they would call off the swimming part! The buoy that we were swimming to was also drifting further away!

Anyway, the hooter went off and I dived into the ocean baywatch style! I was amazed how much buoyancy my wetsuit gave me and actually quite enjoyed the swim! The waves would come crashing over your head but at times they would also help you so it became quite an adventure! As I swam the final leg of the swim I was filled with pride at having got round yet slightly confused at what I was to in for next!

As I approached the beach I could see a crowd waiting to cheer us in and was immidiately lifted. The pebbles on the beach meant it was tough to run but I gave it my best shot, largely because the crowd were watching! Alas, this was a foolish move because in attempting to run on those darn pebbles I smashed my foot on a rock and managed to break my toe! Fortunately I didn’t feel it at the time but it was a nice momento the day after!

The wind on the beach made the cycle damn hard, and at times the eagle was overtaken by women three times my size on mountain bikes, surely they were doing a different race??? As I finished the cycle, which was actually the toughest bit, (not a good omen for the Tour de Sucre!) I knew I just had 10 km to run…..

Thankfully this was fairly sraight forward and I completed my first trithlon in a fraction over 3 hours. The time was a lot slower than I expected but the experience had achieved what it was meant to do….further strengthen my character for the Tour!

This weekend I am off to shropshire for a Beever Training weekend! 10hours on the bike and 3 hours running.

Toe still hurts!