My Blog
About Me
Hi, I'm a primary school teacher living in West Yorkshire, I've got two lovely lively children and a husband who conspire to keep me pretty busy. For no reason that was apparent at the time I decided to take part in my first triathlon a few years ago when I was in my late twenties.
I entered the Rother Valley Sprint Triathlon without any training. I'd never swum in open water, I hadn't ridden a bike in 10 years and I'd only ever run on a treadmill. Waiting to go into the lake, the only competitor without a wetsuit, I was more nervous than at any time since my wedding. I was last but one out of the water and dead last by the time I returned to transition on the bike that I'd borrowed just the day before. I fell even further back during the run walk as I struggled to complete the race.
Heat & Hills
Well, I'm getting back into things okay at the moment. I went swimming on Monday afternoon, trying out for the first time the new local leisure centre. It's all very nice and new and shiny but I almost gave up and got out. It was absolutely packed - no doubt because everybody is so pleased that we finally have a pool again. They had the pool split in half, with one half being the mess about area and the other being split into 2 lanes for people who actually wanted to swim. Except that swimming and training aren't the same thing.
Read More »Mojo!
I lost the plot, big time. It's odd really. After the marathon, I thought I'd done really well in avoiding post race blues. I felt fabulous for a week afterwards, really pleased with how it had gone and basking in the glow of the personal achievement. I did some recovery stuff and felt that things were going really well. Then the wheels fell off. I've had a fairly dreadful few weeks.
Read More »The Next Goal
That's what I need to do. Start focussing ahead again and getting my brain in gear for the next challenge. I've got a few triathlons coming up over the summer that I have already signed up for, with the biggest challenge being the Olympic distance one at Allerthorpe in August. I did it 2 years ago and had one of my best ever races, I did it again last year and struggled to even finish it on nowhere near enough training. So, here and now I need to start making the right decisions if I want the right outcome for the race.
Read More »Road to Recovery
I'm not going to say too much here, but it's a strange feeling having completed what I set out to do. I've been a bit lost without it out there to aim for. However, seeing as how I've had something of an obsession with the statistics, here they come for the end of the process. 6 months of training, culminating in a marathon that I really enjoyed doing required the following:
Distance: 544.8 miles
Time: 99:06:26
Calories: 52,093
To put that in perspective, that's over 4 whole days of running and 26 days worth of the average female calorie intake! Crazy!
Read More »That's it
So, my last training run done. I felt heavy and I was slow. Great! Is that's what's supposed to happen? I'll just have to hope that things feel better come Sunday.
Distance: 518.6 miles
Time: 94:08:51
Calories: 49,488
On the Up
Not much running left before the big day, so I was very glad to get out there this morning and have things come to me a bit. I didn't really want to get out of bed this morning and I once again felt heavy and lethargic when I set off. However, instead of struggling through the whole run like I did yesterday, things loosened off and I found all of a sudden that I'd been running without thinking about it at all. I realised that I'd just been running along, things were working and I was thinking about something else entirely. The run then flowed relatively well.
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