The best inspiration is not to outdo others, but to outdo ourselves

Today saw April take on her second triathlon.  She was somewhat nervous going into it, so was I on her behalf - it's almost worse than doing it yourself!  She hasn't had much time for training as we seem to have been very busy and then her bike spent most of the last week at the repair shop after she fell off it on Monday and managed to snap the brake lever off it - not good (she didn't half cry!).  Anyway, this was a good race for us in many ways as it was local and organised by people that April knows, a lot of the kids that she knows from the tri club were taking part alth

Back to Transition

The Bike

Hard Going

Today marked an important event in the lives of both of our children, they completed their very first multisport events!  April has been saying that she wanted to do a triathlon since she was five years old, something about being like her mad mummy and Ryan was adamant that he wanted to take part too when he heard about the scootathon.  The children's races were the start of the weekend of racing organised by pacesetter events at the Rother Valley Country Park - The Rother Valley Triathlon Festival.  We all travelled down there nice and early to make sure we had time to get o

Running to the finish

Waiting to start

The Run

Fun2Tri organise two excellent races each year starting from the Stratford upon Avon Leisure Centre. Both the Stratford 220 Trathlon and the Warwickshire Triathlon start in the pool there and follow the same course through the Warwickshire Countryside and along the River Avon.  The Straford 220 is the largest pool swim triathlon in Britain and is accompanied by a Triathlon Show where you can see and buy all manner of triathlon related kit.

Multisport races can be completed with a minimum amount of kit, they also have the potential to be very expensive.  There is a world of possibilities out there, training and racing provides the gadget buff with all the excuses they'll ever need to research and purchase vast amounts of stuff but fear not, it is entirely possible to race without most of it and for your first foray into multisports, less is definitely more. 

The costs of competing in a multisport race are very varied and there is a solution out there to fit every pocket.  The most obvious consideration is the race entry fee itself and I'll be talking about that and some of the incidental costs in this, the third article in my Beginners' Guide Series.  Kit can be another major cost but I'll cover that in other articles.

Charges for races range from next to nothing to hundreds of pounds, with the distance, location and popularity of the event all having an influence on how much it'll cost you to enter. 

Welcome to the second article in my Beginners' Guide Series, so far we've discussed why you'd want to race and now we'll look at how to pick that all important first event.

If you're reading this then you've probably already decided to give it a go.  If you're still trying to make up your mind then read on ...

Why do we do it?  And yes, insanity is an often suggested motivation.  However, there are many good reasons:

Planning your first triathlon?  A lot of people make mad New Year's resolutions to complete a triathlon and then wonder what on earth they've said,  I've completed quite a lot of them now, including races in different locations and of different types.  I don't have all the answers, but I might just have some of them.  I'll be publishing a series of articles which will hopefull

I've now competed in the Cheshire Triathlon three times, like all Fun2Tri events it's popular and well organised. However, there's always something that you miss or that's not mentioned in the official documentation so I hope this will help anyone who's not competed here before.  The Cheshire Triathlon is run in Nantwich and it's an unusual race because there are two seperate transition areas, one near the pool and the other in Barony Park.