From my limited experience, triathletes enjoy talking about themselves. Whether its amongst the posturing in pre-race transition areas or whilst bobbing nervously in murky lakes, you can be sure that someone will be announcing loudly to perfect strangers: “This is just a warm up for Kona for me mate” or, “the training has really taken a hit since the injury”. The reality is though that nobody really cares. With this in mind then, writing a triathlon blog should come naturally.

 

So, in the spirit of the bloke in the water, let me tell you about myself. I’m 28 years old, I used to play team sports and took up triathlon last year. I can’t swim very well, I’m quite good at cycling downhill and I’m reasonably quick on the run. Despite intent to improve as an athlete, I’ve always been quite stubborn in terms of taking advice from those who clearly know a lot more than me. On that theme, this piece touches on how learning and progression have been key elements in my triathlon “career” to-date.

 

To set the scene, I lined up for London 2008 in a surfing wetsuit with a borrowed bike and two complete changes of clothes cluttering up the transition area. The race was somehow completed through a mixture of gasping breaststroke, trainer clad pedalling in board shorts, and straight-legged running.

 

In early 2009, I bought a bike and came very close to breaking one hour for the London 2010 cycle leg. I still kept my surfing wetsuit, though, and naively thrashed away in the pool with a stubborn resistance to corrective technique.

 

This year, I bit the bullet and invested in a hideously expensive swimming lesson. I was apparently a “wind-miller”, and thus hours of catch up drills and drowning commenced. I joined the London Dynamos in a search for riding wisdom, and found out that I was actually a rubbish cyclist. Having naively turned up on a tri-bike, I annoyed everyone further by getting dropped on the hills only to sit on the tri-bars for the decent and hurtle recklessly into the back of the smooth pedalling group.

 

I persevered, got chatting to a few knowledgeable fellows and soon learned about cadence and that it wasn’t weak or slow and, in fact, it was beneficial to change out of the big cog, small cog combo. I’ve even learned about hand signals! The final piece of the jigsaw was provided by Serpentine Running Club, with whom I commenced gruelling Tuesday Track sessions at Battersea Park.

 

In addition to the training, I’d saved up to buy some aero wheels, a tri-specific wetsuit and numerous other things I’d seen some really fast guys (and amusingly some really slow guys) parade around transition such as a number belt and a tri bar fitting water bottle. Things were progressing.

 

And then, along came Bill Black, and the fantastic news that I’d been selected onto the IMG London Triathlon Academy. With it came expert advice and a customised training plan that cut out the junk miles and offered a scientific approach to optimising sessions.

 

I felt that I was ready; I really did have all the gear. However, things don’t always go as you had planned. Three laps into a 20km Dorney bike leg at an F3 duathlon, my first outing on a tubular tyre ended abruptly with a puncture. Unperturbed, I travelled full of hope to Emberton Park for the Big Cow National Duathlon Qualifier. However, one puncture in transition, and one whilst cornering at 45kph, left me sitting forlornly in Milton Keynes A&E having left most of my hands and face on the A506.

 

Bandaged up like a mummy, I began a spell on the sidelines. If not a progressive experience, I certainly learned a lot during those six weeks. I learned that Sky Sports can actually get boring, and that it is really quite nice to catch up with your girlfriend and friends once in a while. I learned that if you are going to crash, do so in a Big Cow event as they’ll look after you (and your bike) brilliantly, and I learned that when planning a comeback, don’t do it in a 10km race. It hurts.