The London Triathlon approaches fast, and it's debatable whether I'm prepared. Remember that this is going to be Olympic distance, twice the distance I usually race. But then, none of the distances involved are alien to me - in the past 3 months I've set PBs for the 10K run (49:54) and the 40K cycle (1:23). The goggle-wearing elephant in the room is that, even in a pool, I've only managed a 1500m swim once. When I say "managed", that's largely in the sense of "managed to bear the outrageous boredom of". Goggles with built-in LCD screens surely can't come quick enough.
I make a last minute entry into the Salty Sea Dog triathlon - sprint distance - and it sets a few alarm bells ringing. For starters, the swim is every bit as nasty as I expect it to be, and I spend most of the time simply dreaming of getting out the disgusting brine and onto the bike. The bike is hardly more pleasant though, a stiff headwind making me glad to have decided to fit clip-on aerobars, but still a challenge for the legs. By the time I get to the run, my feet are once again completely numb, and I spend most of the 5K trying to coax some feeling back into them. Banks of sand across the prom make the going even tougher, and by the time I cross the line in 1hr41m, I'm relieved to have finished. My position of 75 out of 89 tells me that there's plenty of work to do, and evaluation of new cycle shoes needed.
This isn't entirely surprising. Glancing back at my resolutions from the start of the year, I've completely failed to fulfil even a single one of them. The time for action is NOW. Or maybe tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow, I'll feel more like it then.
