Tri-Angles

Happy New Year, everyone! (Yes I know it's February now, but it would be rude not to, wouldn't it?)

The year is not the only thing that's new around here.  I have some very, very exciting news that I found out only this morning - I'm going to be a TRIATHLETE!!  To be honest, the idea of even being an athlete is quite alarming, never mind being one three times, but on with it I must get.

I've been thinking about training for and entering a triathlon for a while now.  For quite a long period last year I was swimming regularly in the mornings and I'd forgotten just how much I like it; given that I've already done the "running thing" and now I've learnt to ride a bike, the swimming was the missing piece in the triathlon jigsaw.  However, since I did all that swimming, I've had a bit of an enforced shutdown due to breaking my finger in November.  Now I'm more or less back to full power, I no longer have any excuses.

So, last week I saw an advert for the ITU Worldtriathlon London 2014 and I entered the ballot, more or less on a whim, but with the background of having been thinking about a triathlon for a while, and this morning I found out that I have secured a place.  This means that on Sunday, 1 June I will not be playing the organ in church, but will rather be bombing it around Hyde Park in several different outfits.

There's one thing that you should understand about this triathlon.  I'm not going in all guns blazing for a full Ironman-distance event - the London Marathon nearly finished me off, without having to swim and cycle first.  The distance I'll be attempting is a baby triathlon.  They call it a "Super Sprint" distance, but I'm not sure I'll be doing much actual sprinting.  To be precise, I'll be swimming 400m (about a quarter of a mile) in the Serpentine, cycling 15.5km (about 10 miles - note that this is more than the usual super sprint cycling distance) and running 2.5km (about a mile and a half).

None of this sounds particularly taxing to me as I know that I can do each of these things in isolation already, but when you add in the event's 1.5 hour time limit (beware the sweeper bus of doom), open-water swimming (which I've never done before), swimming in a wetsuit, two "costume changes" (transitions) and having to do the three disciplines in decreasing order of preference (why, oh why can't I start with the run and end with the swim?), there will be plenty of challenges to keep me occupied along the way.

I can see the question niggling about in the front of your brain, just waiting to come into your mouth and pass out between your lips - why am I doing this? Am I completely mad?  Well, some of you will know that in the past year, my life has been touched by cancer (not me personally) in a few different ways.  I don't want to go into all the personal details on t'interwebs, but suffice it to say that seeing someone else battle cancer can make you feel helpless.  You can give them loads of love and support and ensure they get the right treatment, but you can't actually do anything.  I know that it is the same with lots of other illnesses too, so that is why I've decided to do this triathlon to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care.  Marie Curie spend their time, efforts and the money you raise on looking after people with cancer and with terminal illness (whether cancer or not), and this triathlon is my way of "doing something" by raising money for them.

In due course, I'll set up a fundraising page and wotnot, but for now, I have a training plan to write!!