Exe Valley Triathlon

[andygates]

Today was lovely: set up for the race, a little swim counting (argh! clipboards! hats!) and then lots of standing around in a tabard yelling "GO ON TRITALK!" and more usefully, "WELL DONE! Through the gate, straight across, SPRINT FINISH!"  or "Looking GOOD 123!" at various marshal points.  Nobody got lost on my watch (some novices rode the full sprint distance due to a marshalling bork up the road).  

Everyone had fun.  The novices on bike-shaped objects and plenty of suspended MTBs got a good thrashing and ended feeling like they'd done something big and challenging and excellent (surrounded by worshipful family members).  The club athletes had perfect race conditions - warm without being hot, broken cloud and tree-shade, gentle breeze.  That Freedman fellow won again with an utterly dominating 56-minute time: the lad's pointed towards 2012.  Women's was won by our Speedy Sue, who is still pocket-sized and lovely and bloody fast. 

With all the sturm und drang about training and targets, it's good to just go along to a race and be reminded that they're just good fun.  I spent most of the day thinking "I wanna play!" and that, for sure, is the right headspace to be in for the coming week.

Now, if only I can master that shoe trick...

Comments

[xeeny.livejournal.com]

it's good to just go along to a race and be reminded that they're just good fun

Damn straight.

Quick plug: we're helping out with the Bristol tri dress rehearsal this weekend, and marshalling the real thing in July as well.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

It's the week before my A-race, London, so I'll demur thanks - might just come up and bum around (read: ogle the tri totty) though.

[despaer.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Bring on Burnham; some nice weather and a good morning out please.

[ladyjulian.livejournal.com]

You're tempting this armchair triathlete out of her armchair with posts like that...

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Bwahaha, that's the idea! For every episode of Elite Global Gruelling Torturefest that is going on at a race like this, there's an episode of It's A Knockout being filmed as well.