Jog On...

This was a no support group (wife & son) race as the team were left in a bed as it was another early start, I didn't get a chance to pre register the day before down to sorting out our new house purchase. I ate my breakfast, and sneaked out the house not to walk the sleeping household. Another PB on this course was on today as its the first time I've competed at Tuska, I've only heard good things about it so I was really looking forward to racing. I was praying for a calm sea, as this was a sea swim race and Porthcawl is known for is swell and surf! GULP! I managed to park up with no problems and now I could concentrate on registration and transition setup. This time I remembered all my kit, no going around last minute asking for "can I borrow or have you got a spare" my race had all my concentration. I was relatively quick setting up my station and I even had time to chat to a few of the Celtic Tri racers and a last minute toilet stop. Wetsuit o...

This is the first time I've swam down Port Eynon so I was looking forward to this race, even though it was another early start. It looked like the sun was going to come out and stay out for the race, so that was great to see, more fair weather racing for me. After not registering the night before we had to stop on the route to get checked off and this is where I had missed something the night before when packing my race kit. I forgot my bloody race belt. Not to worry, I did ask other club members if they had a spare one, no one had one (I dont pack a spare)so I got on with pinning the numbers to my race kit. Transition looked pretty empty when I turned up, I though the race attendance was going to be low, but by the time I was set up and finished bending over my bike doing the final checks, the on the rest of transition was full. Great to see so many Celtic tri racers in club colours too, there is a Olympic distance race later in the year, which I would of liked to do but I...

Its arrived the main race of my season, Cotswolds113 Half Ironman distance race, it takes me a step closer to my ultimate goal of a full Ironman distance race, which fingers crossed will be in 2013. Race day started with a 4 am wake up call for breakfast, this consisted off a massive bowl of porridge and 2 pieces of wholemeal toast. As the nerves kicked in from the moment I woke up I had to force the food down as I felt sick with nerves!. As I was in Wave 1 for the swim I wanted to get to transition early, so I could get everything setup just the way I wanted and I knew that I had everything sorted before the race. As we arrived at the venue, the traffic was a nightmare, there was a massive queue just to park the car so I decided to leave the support crew (my wife & son) take the bike off the roof and grab my transition box and walk to rack my bike and this left my wife to go and park up. After 10 minutes of setting up, and faffing I noticed that I had left all my gels and h...

This was my last triathlon race of 2011 and im afraid to say it was a bad day in the office for me, I really wanted to finish in a high but after a great swim the race only took a turn for the worse for me. I was in the water in Wave 2, and I managed to post a personal best for the swim, 11 minutes, It was meant to be a 650 meter swim, but they buoys drifted with the tide and it felt like closer to 750 meters. I didn't mind this as I found my rhythm in the water pretty quick and was 5th out of the swim from the first 2 waves. My sighting on the swim was good, we had to swim through different 2 arches on the bridge (out and back) and I aligned with them fine without having to swim to far out the way. Up the ramp and out the water, I got my wetsuit off relatively quickly, socks on, shades on, helmet on and off I went on the bike leg... this is where my race changed for the worse. Out of transition and a hill, great not what you need first up and doing a fast swim, I was tr...