Mixing with the hoity toity

This week I raced in the shortest race in the world, ever, anywhere – the Bedford mini. A 200m river swim, 15km bike, 3.3km run. Actually, that’s not quite true - I did compete in a very short race on the South Coast a couple of years back wearing my infamous pink tri suit and placed second. At Bedford I came 4th, and 1st in my age group.

I have done Bedford twice before – 2004 and 2007 – and have improved each time (except this time I think the swim was long because my swim time was double last year's time). This goes to show that age isn’t necessarily a limiting factor when it comes to triathlon, and I am sure that I read somewhere that a person’s aerobic capacity does actually increase in their 30’s and 40’s. It’s not without a lot of hard work though, I can tell you.

I was looking through the results of the Bedford race from years gone by and it appears that I am in very good company. Apparently, a certain Chrissie Wellington won this race in 2006. Now, unless you’ve been living on planet Zogg for the past year or so, you will know thatChrissie is our very own World Ironman champion, having raced Hawaii last year, winning at her first attempt.

Another person whose name appeared on the results sheet of a race which I have done this year is Hollie Avil. Hollie was one of our Olympic hopefuls who unfortunately didn’t perform to her best ability this week because of an upset stomach. She raced Duston in 2006 in a time of 1:01:37. I raced Duston this year in a time of 1:06:52.

Hollie wasn’t the only British Olympian to suffer illness problems. It happened to Tim Don too who likewise performed well below his best. Tim was our great Gold Medal hope, but it was Alistair Brownlee who kept me awake at 3am this week whilst I was mesmerised by his courage and conviction against the World’s best. He eventually came in a very creditable 12th and first Brit home.

All this lack of sleep meant that I was in no fit state to train as much as I had hoped to this week, although what little I did do was short, fast, quality stuff. Here’s what happened….

Monday – rest day
Tuesday – run - fast sprints
Wednesday – run - hard intervals
Thursday – bike - hard intervals with tri club
Friday – bike - fast, around Bedford mini tri course with Alex
Saturday – OWS - intervals at Blue Lagoon with Dan from tri club
Sunday - race – Bedford mini tri (200m open water - River Ouse, 15K bike, 3.3K run) – 49:43 - 4th position overall (56 raced), 1st in age group (see the Shires Triers contingent below - from left to right: Me, Anne-Marie, Mitten, Tom, Maurice)





Next week I am off to Portugal for some quality time with the little Colin’s who have just returned from a week away in France where they had a thoroughly enjoyable time. I am hoping for a bit of warm weather training whilst I am there, but nothing too energetic – perhaps some sea swimming and a few runs. I mustn’t push it too hard because, with the miserable Summer we have had this year, I am not used to training in the heat. I must also be careful with what I eat. After all, I don’t want to suffer the same fate as our disappointed Olympians. Or, then again, perhaps I should find out what Chrissie eats on her holidays. Where’s the phone........?

Cheers.

C