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