So, here we are, 2 days before my first Olympic distance triathlon in about 20 months and truth be told, I'm not looking forward to it. Nearly 2 years of long, slow training has all but annihilated any speed I'd built up over the my 8 years in sport. Not that I was ever uber quick on the bike or at swimming but I could hold my own, and was always pretty proud that I could usually bust out a sub 40m run on most oly courses. This was my weapon that usually got me into the top 5 or so of my age group and where I slowly picked off all the girls that had passed me on the bike and recovered a small amount of respect and dignity that I'd left in T1. This time around, however, I have a feeling that things will be very, very different. And I cant even get my mind into "race mode" like before, and I have been known, prior to events, to google the names of the girls in my age group to see their past results and whether I thought I'd beat them or not. Not today. I dont event want to know who is in my agegroup. I do know my clubmate and friend Naomi is racing, and she is pretty handy on the bike these days. I am secretly breathing a little easier that her new, custom built TT bike isnt ready for this weekend and that head to head on our matching Planet X's I MIGHT just stand a chance of staying near enough to her on the bike to chase her down on the run. The other person I know racing is of course Andy. Who will beat me by a considerable margin. But then again, he does have a new pointy helmet. His running is considerably improved and the days where I would hand him his arse on a plate over 10 - 21k are now a thing of the past.
Another factor that is putting a dampener on my race vibe is the weather. A paltry 14 degrees is the best we can hope for on Sunday, but probably not at 7am. Then it'll be more like 8 degrees. So now there are decisions to be made about what the heck to wear! I'm personally going for 2 hats in the swim, gloves, socks and jacket on the bike and wait and see for the run. And the thought of getting into 12.5 degree water is not one I am spending too much time over.
I know this all sounds very negative and whilst I dont want it to - I am actually wondering why I signed up for this distance race. Andy and I went to recce the course last weekend and decided to do one of the 2 loops of the "lollipop" at a higher intensity that we had been riding and I think I lasted half a lap before giving up and returning to my snail like pace.
Now, I could put this down to post Lanzarote fatigue, but I think its more likely to be pure cant be bothered -ness.
However, once this is done we have a Tri London social in the afternoon where we get to eat chilli and banoffee pie and catch up with friends so really, the 2 and a half hours (yeah right - I'd be chuffed to buggery if I went 2.30!) racing is just a warm up for the rest of the day.
I will let you know how I get on, unless I do worse than even I'm imagining is possible right now, then I shall simply delete this post and pretend it never happened........
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