Well into 2012 and I've not written a blog post for ages, due to being too busy with other stuff and having nothing particularly new or interesting to write about. My 2012 race season so far as been pretty mediocre with a couple of decent rides but lack of time for doing much racing has meant my form hasn't been great and I have kind of lacked a bit of enthusiasm for the Scottish Road Race scene - same riders, same races, same results..... At the start of June on the spur of the moment I entered the Dunblane 7.5 mile Road Race (running), and got a really good result considering I haven't run at all in a very long time. Encouraged by this I had a look at the triathlons coming up in the calendar and after a bit of swithering decided to jump in at the deep end and give the Aberfeldy Half Ironman a go. The event is on the 18th August and starts with a 1900m swim in Loch Tay, followed by 90km on the bike and finishing with a 21km run.
I'm pretty confident that I'll be quick on the bike and reasonably happy with my running, but swimming isnt something I do an awful lot of. Open water swimming is something I've never done at all, so I debated for quite a while before entering the event, but eventually decided I could definitely get through the swim even if not especially fast. As its open water you need a full wet suit to take part, and although I have an old steamer from years ago when I did a lot of windsurfing all the advice I got was that it wouldnt have the range of movement round my shoulders and would be really uncomfortable for a long swim, so I bought a cheap speedo suit from wiggle.
Since the event is something new for me and quite a challenge I thought I'd use it as an opportunity to raise a bit of cash for charity. Earlier this year a colleague from work died from Motor Neurone Disease (MND) so it was the immediate first choice. Having set up a just giving web page where folk can donate and sent out a few emails the response to that has been really good. I set a goal of £500, and so far have had over £250 donated which is amazing. All donations are very welcome! The charity does great work helping people suffering from MND and their families.
So at the moment I'm on my 2 weeks summer holidays. We're staying in a caravan up at the beaches at Arisaig, and I've been using the proximity to the sea, and time off work to get in some training, mainly getting used to open water swimming, and doing more running. I've set myself a target of one swim every day we're here and have so far managed 2 so its 100% so far! The first swim I was pretty keen to get out of the way and get a better idea of what I'd let myself in for. The conditions weren't exactly ideal - northerly, fairly chilli wind, not too wavy but enough to give a novice like me a hard time. The cold salty water was a bit of a shock but I managed OK I think. Going up wind into the waves was pretty unpleasant and my progress was very slow. Coming back down wind was much better, and I started to work out a bit of a rythm with arm strokes, breathing, and looking where I was going. I'm very glad to have this opportunity to practice though as there is definitely a lot of room for improvement.
This mornings swim was much better. I got out at 7am, not wind, tide well out so much better conditions. The cold water on my face was still pretty nasty having just got up, but I found my rythm much faster and swam a lot further today. Coming out of the water and out of my wetsuit I was shivering big time very quickly, so I'm going to have to think about what to wear on the bike and make sure I am warm enough initially, but knowing that I'll warm up further into the ride. I found the swim was actually pretty exhausting as well and even had difficulty getting out of my wet suit. So still not especially happy at the prospect of the swim in Loch Tay, but at least I have time to get better. Weather forecast for tomorrow isn't so good, so I'll need to find some motivation before tomorrows dunking!
