New Forest Triathlon

[andygates]

After a night's sleep I'm mellow now about missing the race.  I race to train, not train to race, so it wasn't the world-breaker it could be.  I am disappointed, deeply so, but hey, life is full of disappointments, get used to it.  This training wasn't as much fun as the sprint and olympic distance training, and I'll focus on that next year.

The Twitter Confessional was interesting: since I was on my own, it was nice to be able to tweet.  A good vent, if nothing else:

• On the road, singing along to Rocky. Eye of the badger!
• If I ignore this lurgy, will it go away? Dot berry habby, dabbit! :-(
• Driven the course. Met Paul and some Tri Talk bods. Bike racked and ready. Time for pasta!
• Hot and cold flushes all night. Fever dreams. Not in a happy place. HTFU? Snarf.
• Lurgy has transitioned to cough and hot-cold shakes. Can't swim like this. :-(
• There goes the bus. Gah! Furious, gutted, nothing to kick. Gah!

For the record, I don't recommend pushing a new and challenging race distance on your own.  A support network is a good thing.  Tweeting is not the same - your plastic pal who's fun to be with?  Ish.

With nothing else to do, I took the time to take some photos.  Got some really good ones - here's the Flickr set.  I have to say that this year's look - compression knee-socks - works better on women than it does on men, especially when combined with pigtails to work around that aero helmet.  It's a kinda techno-high-performance-St. Trinian's thing.  :)

Comments

[fialta.livejournal.com]

Cool photos! I don't recognise the BAD Tri girl, there were a few racing...
Would you be up for it next year? Is the bike route hilly?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The bike route is rolling - no real killer hills but no rest either. Paul actually rode it so he can say better! I'm not planning to do it next year, I think I'm going to stick to oly and sprints as I enjoy the training more.

[despaer.livejournal.com]

Some of my West Country Tri lot are looking at it for next year. I might do it again as it is a lovely race but I need to decide to train properly for it if I do as I didn't really do the work this year and that caught up with me on the run.

The bike route is undulating, in that you are usually riding up or down a hill except for a flat bit at the top and that has wind to deal with (some in your favour, some against). There are no killer hills on it though and a nice small chainring on your bike (like mine) will see you happily through.