Story
After my sucess of completing Ironman Switzerland a couple of weeks ago I've been given a place in the London Triathlon.... Race report now added to the bottom of this window - it was a nightmare!!!!!
Next event will hopefully be Ironman UK in two weeks - if I am fit again by then!
Thank you for visiting my fundraising page.
I'm raising money for Centrepoint - The national charity for homeless young people. Click on their logo below if you would like more details about them.
Please dig deep and sponsor me online. Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor me: Centrepoint will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you. So please sponsor me now! Many thanks for your support. After the event........ Well I can safely say that was the worst race experience I have ever had and if I ever have a similar one I might just jack the whole thing in! I know everyone warned us about the swim being a bit on the rough side but that was ridiculous. I had been scared before IMCH about 1500 people in the water together but that was nothing compared with today. I try to make sure I don't hit people too hard when I realise they are swimming next to me but this lot appeared to be collecting points on the basis of how many people they could take out! I guess this one deserves a full race report.... Headed down to the swim start chatting to a couple of the girls feeling quietly confident that after IMCH doing an olympic distance couldn't be too bad. In the water I found myself a nice space to the left hand side and fairly well back thinking that was the way to sat out of the scrum, got kicked in the stomach before we had even started by a breast stroker wanting to get the front! So off we set and it is instantly mayhem with limbs all over the place and people going over the top of anyone within their reach... I assumed it would soon thin out and I'd have some space - it never happened and the pushing, kicking and hitting carried on relentlously. About one third of the way in the fatal blow was delt.... a well aimed elbow to my right ear... a loud bang and a sharp pain told me instantly that my ear drum was ruptured :-( Anyone who has suffered this will know that it leaves you totally disorientated and with no sense of balance. A rather panicy zig zag lead to me getting bashed again but thankfully the other ear drum survived the assult. I now had to go into survival mode, which I think may have increased my speed cause I just desparately wanted to get out of there. Every time I turned to breath I felt sick and struggled to keep my balance but I managed to draft fairly well for a while and assertively guarded my space. Towards the end of the swim I was thinking about pulling out.... At swim out I felt very wobbly but managed to get to the wetsuit stripping point thinking I might be ok, although the world was strangely quiet... I couldn't hear anything through my right ear! Got the top half of the wetsuit off and tried to get the legs out but bending down wasn't working, I stood up again then to the sound of surrounding spectators drawing in breath I simply fell to the floor, luckily landing on my bum! Big thank you to the fellow competitor that asked if I was ok, I think I said something like "aqarrroooghghgh" which you must have assumed ment yes! I really thought I was going to DNF at this point as I struggled on the floor to free myself from my wetsuit. Eventually freed I tentatively got up again and decided I may as well head for transition.... In T1 I felt quite ill, especially when I bent down to put my shoes on but somehow I managed it all and decided that I would set out on the bike, but if it felt wobbly I would stop.... Supprisingly it felt ok so I got my head down and went for it. It's quite strange cycling when you can't hear properly - I was getting a mixture of echoy type stuff, fuzzy noise and nothing at all. I was feeling sick the whole way round and aware that I wasn't taking on enough fuel but the bike passed ok ish and I made it back to T2... Here I started having problems again and soon realised that it was when I bent down that I felt sick and faint... so after three attempts I managed to tie my shoelaces and headed out on the run, wondering about the sanity of the decision not to just sit down adn cry... but needing to maintain the pirate spirt of carrying on till bits start dropping off! I suffered through that run, I had to re-tie my laces 3 times struggling to bend down each time but was determined to keep going. I tried to talk to a couple of people on the way round but it was hard to have a conversation when I couldn't hear a word they were saying! Eventually I made it to the finish, continuing my tradition of always sprinting over the finish line but as soon as I stopped hit the deck again as the world carried on moving around me. St John's picked me up and took me to the med tent where it was pretty quiet so all the doctors came over to look down my ear - apparently it is a really good example! It was a bad day at the office but I'm glad to have finished and at least now I know never to do London Tri again!
Next event will hopefully be Ironman UK in two weeks - if I am fit again by then!
Thank you for visiting my fundraising page.
I'm raising money for Centrepoint - The national charity for homeless young people. Click on their logo below if you would like more details about them.
Please dig deep and sponsor me online. Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor me: Centrepoint will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you. So please sponsor me now! Many thanks for your support. After the event........ Well I can safely say that was the worst race experience I have ever had and if I ever have a similar one I might just jack the whole thing in! I know everyone warned us about the swim being a bit on the rough side but that was ridiculous. I had been scared before IMCH about 1500 people in the water together but that was nothing compared with today. I try to make sure I don't hit people too hard when I realise they are swimming next to me but this lot appeared to be collecting points on the basis of how many people they could take out! I guess this one deserves a full race report.... Headed down to the swim start chatting to a couple of the girls feeling quietly confident that after IMCH doing an olympic distance couldn't be too bad. In the water I found myself a nice space to the left hand side and fairly well back thinking that was the way to sat out of the scrum, got kicked in the stomach before we had even started by a breast stroker wanting to get the front! So off we set and it is instantly mayhem with limbs all over the place and people going over the top of anyone within their reach... I assumed it would soon thin out and I'd have some space - it never happened and the pushing, kicking and hitting carried on relentlously. About one third of the way in the fatal blow was delt.... a well aimed elbow to my right ear... a loud bang and a sharp pain told me instantly that my ear drum was ruptured :-( Anyone who has suffered this will know that it leaves you totally disorientated and with no sense of balance. A rather panicy zig zag lead to me getting bashed again but thankfully the other ear drum survived the assult. I now had to go into survival mode, which I think may have increased my speed cause I just desparately wanted to get out of there. Every time I turned to breath I felt sick and struggled to keep my balance but I managed to draft fairly well for a while and assertively guarded my space. Towards the end of the swim I was thinking about pulling out.... At swim out I felt very wobbly but managed to get to the wetsuit stripping point thinking I might be ok, although the world was strangely quiet... I couldn't hear anything through my right ear! Got the top half of the wetsuit off and tried to get the legs out but bending down wasn't working, I stood up again then to the sound of surrounding spectators drawing in breath I simply fell to the floor, luckily landing on my bum! Big thank you to the fellow competitor that asked if I was ok, I think I said something like "aqarrroooghghgh" which you must have assumed ment yes! I really thought I was going to DNF at this point as I struggled on the floor to free myself from my wetsuit. Eventually freed I tentatively got up again and decided I may as well head for transition.... In T1 I felt quite ill, especially when I bent down to put my shoes on but somehow I managed it all and decided that I would set out on the bike, but if it felt wobbly I would stop.... Supprisingly it felt ok so I got my head down and went for it. It's quite strange cycling when you can't hear properly - I was getting a mixture of echoy type stuff, fuzzy noise and nothing at all. I was feeling sick the whole way round and aware that I wasn't taking on enough fuel but the bike passed ok ish and I made it back to T2... Here I started having problems again and soon realised that it was when I bent down that I felt sick and faint... so after three attempts I managed to tie my shoelaces and headed out on the run, wondering about the sanity of the decision not to just sit down adn cry... but needing to maintain the pirate spirt of carrying on till bits start dropping off! I suffered through that run, I had to re-tie my laces 3 times struggling to bend down each time but was determined to keep going. I tried to talk to a couple of people on the way round but it was hard to have a conversation when I couldn't hear a word they were saying! Eventually I made it to the finish, continuing my tradition of always sprinting over the finish line but as soon as I stopped hit the deck again as the world carried on moving around me. St John's picked me up and took me to the med tent where it was pretty quiet so all the doctors came over to look down my ear - apparently it is a really good example! It was a bad day at the office but I'm glad to have finished and at least now I know never to do London Tri again!