Dear All,

As I am sure many of you will know, mainly because I never shut up about it, I ran the London Marathon last year, unfortunately I could not get a place this year and so being bored and with so much time on my hands, I thought I would do the London triathlon instead !  What a mistake that was !  I adopted the typical 'how hard can it be' attitude which may have finally resulted in me biting off a little more than I can chew. 

I have entered the Olympic distance event, which means that I will need to swim 1500 meters (60 lengths of the pool !) in the Thames and providing the waterborne diseases have not got me, a quick change of clothes in front of several thousand strangers and then jump on a bike, hopefully mine, cycle 40 kilometres (25 ish miles) and then to ensure that it really does hurt as much as I thought, I will then need to run 10 kilometres (6+ ish miles).  As if this was not bad enough the rules stipulate that I must take part in these events wearing a variety of rubber and lycra outfits ! Nice.

Bearing in mind that I could not swim more than 2 lengths without the assistance of waterwings and oxygen, even by my standards is going to be a tough one.

If I am going to do anything as silly as a triathlon, is it always good to do it for a worthy cause and this is no exception, if fact my place is dependant on it.  I will be doing the triathlon for 'Help the Aged', so please dig deep and give generously.  If you don't I may have to take some pictures of me in the above outfits and send them to you !  You have been warned !

All joking aside, this is going to be a tough one and all your contributions are greatly appreciated.

Regards

Nick