Squirrel Muppet

It's been a long time. Life has taken over and I have neglected you, my undervalued BLOG. So much so that a story from two years ago hasn't even made it to you, despite the fact that it is ripe for your pages and could only happen to me.

It was the first day of my new promotion and I was determined to make a good impression. I was cycling to work for my inaugural staff briefing with the team and was mentally preparing all through the ten mile trundle. As I turned the final corner in Southsea I slowed on the final road. Just as I did so a squirrel came hurtling from the gardens to my left followed closely by a large, ginger cat. The pair flew across the road, underneath a parked car and doubled back directly towards me.

Now the squirrel was faced by a lycra clad man on a, fortunately, slow moving road bike. In its wisdom it decided to throw the cat off the scent by leaping through the spokes of my front wheel. My only thought is that it couldn't see the spokes as they were turning and had blurred.

Whatever the motivation the squirrel, predictably, failed to fit through the wheel and came into contact with a clang. It became entangled in my brakes which made the bike stop from the front end, pitching my in a reasonably slow motion fashion over the handlebars. Luckily my shoes unclipped and I managed to roll out with only a few bumps and grazes.

The squirrel was less fortunate. I will spare you too many more details but he didn't suffer and his death was instantaneous. It is very difficult to extricate a squirrel from your front brakes, they are amazingly bendy.

Let's just say that it wasn't the greatest briefing I have ever given.

Triathlon Muppet

Muppet Learning Curve

I am now a year into this strange triathlon experiment.  I celebrated the anniversary by competing in a repeat of the very first event I had tried back in 2012.  The Ringmer Novice Triathlon.

So what was the net result?  How much have I improved, if at all?  And how steep has the learning curve been?

The answer to the first two questions, in an extremely simplified sense, is 5 seconds.

If you look at the time I did last year and then compare it to the time I did this year, the difference was a mere 5 seconds.

But there is more to say here.  Last year I completed the 250m swim in 8mins 37secs, whereas this year it was 5mins 12secs.  A massive improvement over such a short distance (the fact I see this as a really short distance tells a story as well).  Transition was in a different place and much further away, yet my bike time was roughly the same as last year (they include the transitions in the bike time at this one).  Therefore I must have ridden quicker.

Ahem, er, now we come to the crux.  I was feeling good on the run and glanced at my watch.  A sudden feeling came to me that I was going to break 50mins and the person who had come 3rd overall last year got something like that.  A shiny podium may be lying in wait at the end...... Then I felt lonely.  Where was everyone?  Why were there no marshalls at this junction?  I had (and not for the first time) gone the wrong way.  By the time I had retraced my steps and gone into and across the field I should have I was a full 2 and a half minutes slower than last year!  Hence 4 seconds (I finished 6th).

In answer to my last question above I have learnt one thing this year.  I am a complete and utter muppet!

Ringmer Novice Triathlon Muppet Rating: 5

Triathlon Muppet

Lonely Muppet

"Come on legs, work," must have gone through my head a hundred times in two minutes as I slogged my way through the third km of the 10km run.  It was hot now, the cloud cover of earlier having burned off and left the sun beating down onto the baked mud.  Nothing on my body seemed to have any energy or power left.

The usual chain of events in the triathlons I have competed in runs a little like this.  I come towards the back of the swim pack, catch quite a few people on the bike whilst also being caught by a few myself, then overtake lots on the run.  This one, my local Waterlooville tri, was very different.

It was only a small event, clashing with Chichester who had changed their date resulting in ours suffering.  Most of the people in transition at the start looked somewhat fit and it was clear that most of the first timers had gone elsewhere.  Perhaps the length of the event might have had an effect.  My longest yet at 600m swim, 40k bike, 10k run.

I got overtaken by both the gent and the lady in my lane.  A firm push off after the lady had passed me at the end of the lane and I inadvertently tapped her toes twice.  So at the end of that lane she moved over to let me by.  Of course she was slightly quicker so within two lengths she was tapping my toes to come back past.  That muppetry cost us both time. Then, after a speedy transition (shoes clipped onto pedals don'tya know, check out the Shoe Muppet Blog for what happened last time I tried that), I jumped on the bike and headed out on my own.  The loneliness kicked in as I spent almost the whole hour and 27 minutes on my own, with only the whir of someone much faster coming past me every now and again.  Then onto the run and immediately I was overtaken again.

A flash of blue ahead gave my a sudden lift and I realised that I might just catch someone.  "Keep going mate," I muttered to him as I plodded past, sounding as though I had been passing people all day.

I made it to the end with some encouragement from wife and daughter around the corner from the finish.  This was a brilliantly marshalled event with tricky corners well covered and an interesting course.  Some tough climbs and hot weather made it tough but I was chuffed to get through it in a time of 2hrs and 35mins which is about what I expected.  33rd out of 44 so at least I didn't come last!  More training next time.

Muppet rating: 2 (toe tapping buffoonery, lack of training misery)

Triathlon Muppet

Muppet Sketch

Too much muppet

The muppet has definitely overstretched himself.

Last weekend I competed in the Steelman at Dorney Lake.  Being a 3 quarter Olympic event it was the furthest distances I had completed in any triathlon (1000m, 32k, 7.5k).  The problem is that I have been embroiled in end of term stuff at school.  Reports, end of year assemblies, awards evenings etc. etc.  Don't panic, I am not about to complain about the teacher's lot!  I have a great job and love every minute of it.  But you would think that I would realise, after 16 years, that some times of the year are just way too hectic to do any training (never mind blogging).

Hence I went into the Steelman under-cooked.  My brother beat me in the swim but I beat him out of transition 1.  I kept a steady pace throughout and was actually quite pleased with my performance.  What might have been had my training been better.  Times below:

Swim - 22.04
T1 - 1.43
Cycle - 1.03.37
T2 - 1.11
Run - 36.25
Overall - 2.05.02

So here I sit having finished the school term.  Now when I go into work I can ride and I can tailor my days around training.  The only problem being that my local triathlon (an Olympic distance event) is on Sunday.  So I have 3 days to pack in 3 weeks worth of training.  My muppetry score is all based on scheduling this time!

Muppet rating: 5

Triathlon Muppet

Muppet going nowhere fast

A quick blog to talk about my maiden sea triathlon last weekend.  It's report writing season at school so it won't be a long one.

I think I was the most nervous of any event going into this one.  The sea brings up strange emotions.  It's just so big.

The good news was that the crunching cold that I was expecting didn't materialise.  The sea was a balmy 14 degrees and that meant it was a similar temperature to the lake swims I had done previously.  I got lots of hellos from the Portsmouth Triathletes who were racing and organising the event down at Southsea.  That calmed me down, as did conversations with the people next to me in transition who all seemed to be rookies.

The big challenge for me in a triathlon is the swim and it proved that again this time.  My first muppetry is the fact I have such sensitive feet, which meant that as the rest of the wave ran and dived into the waves I gingerly tottered in like I was on hot coals.  There was a strongish tide coming across and this helped out to the first two buoys.  I was pleased with my direction as I didn't appear to be offline at any stage.

The problems started as we turned and headed back along the beach towards home.  It was directly into the tide and I just felt like I was going nowhere. I made the mistake of upping my effort rather than plodding on and all that did was fatigue me.  Still, I made it in the end.  Then I couldn't get my Velcro at the back of my neck undone.  I swear it is stuck on with superglue.  I fought it all the way up into transition, hardly a James Bond emergence from the water.

Transition went well once I had the wetsuit off and I was into the ride.  Not much to say here.  Super smooth roads and I kept a steady speed.  A good second transition and then the usual mistake of running too quick off the bike and suffering afterwards.  A slightly slower run than usual followed but I must remember that it was a longer and more demanding swim than I have done before.

All in all a pleasing first go with plenty to work on for next time.  Next race on 6 July back at Dorney lake.  A 3 quarter Olympic.  1000 swim, 35 bike and 7.5 run.  A step up again!

Muppet rating: 3 (sensitive toes, Velcro muppetry, running too fast off the bike)

Triathlon Muppet

Muppet all at sea

My first sea swim was reasonably successful.  With two weeks to go before competing in the Portsmouth sprint triathlon I thought it was becoming imperative that I actually ventured into the wild blue yonder.  An email from my club, Portsmouth Triathletes, mentioned that this Saturday would host a practise run for the main event.  Having bottled the previous Tuesday because of bad weather there was no way I could afford to leave it any longer, so out of bed I got and headed down to Southsea.

Nerves were not improved by the fact that, as preparations were underway, all anyone could talk about was how cold the water was.  A chilly 10.5 degrees Celsius was the verdict, a long way below the 14 degrees that was my coldest (at Eastleigh Lake) so far.  One of the lads from the club went in to 'get acclimatised' and appeared again after a couple of minutes suggesting that he wasn't going to swim in that temperature.

I am proud that I steeled myself to do it.  There were a couple of get-out clauses.  The organiser said that, as it was so cold, we could just watch to get an idea should we want to.  There was also the opportunity to do a shorter 400m swim rather than the full 750.  I decided that I wanted to see what I could do, I mean at least there were people there to pull me out if necessary!

I am now in love with my wetsuit.  The crushing cold that I was expecting actually wasn't that bad and I just plunged in and went for it.  After a few minutes I started to relax and trundled along nicely towards the back of the field (athough surprisingly not last).  It wasn't pretty and at one point I got the wrong side of the buoy and had to do a bit of a u-turn to go around it.  The mandatory muppet moment.

But I did it.  And you know, I quite enjoyed it.

Triathlon Muppet