Yesterday I did another sprint triathlon after doing one two weekends ago. This one was in a village about a 45 minute drive from me, so again it was a nice gently start to the day. It wasn’t quite so gentle later on and this is what I learned:
1 – Triathlons are bloody hard work – even the sprint distance.
2 – Sprint is very much a misnomer – I’m not sure that other than a quick burst in the pool I officially sprinted ever during the event.
3 – I owe Steve £20 – I made a silly bet that I was bound to lose, but that’s ok because he has done 14 triathlons this year for charity and I’m happy to pay up to his charity – you should too if you’ve got a spare tenner (https://www.justgiving.com/Tri2014/).
4 – Actually, despite the above, it’s a pretty good way to spend a Sunday (especially when you can then go down the pub afterwards and have a few pints and a game of darts – which is what I did for post-event refuelling).
5 – It was great to meet Rachel in real life and I love the TeamBear ethos.
6 – I could spend a LOT of money on kit – I’m not going to, but it’s fascinating to rack my bike up next to bikes that probably cost more than my car.
7 – I have a very weird relationship with on course support – and I’ll probably blog about this more later.
8 – I’m not going to enter another event before I sort out my personal life – I probably won’t blog about this later – I’ll leave it intentionally cryptic, those that know, know. But if I need to go to *that* place at the moment I find it full. I don’t want to make excuses, but I do think this has affected *some* of my performances this year.
9 – Some driver are dicks. There were 3 or 4 that passed me by the absolute narrowest of margins on the course, but the trophy today goes to the woman that decided to turn right next to me in the village at the end of the event. She crowded me at the junction, turned with me and then overtook me even though I was indicating to turn right. I do hope that the 13 seconds she gained by that helped her out.
10 – I need to find a way to stop nipple rash – nuff said.
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11 – Monday morning update. Number 4 was a bad idea!
1000kmstowindermere 
Sprint is hard…….give me long distance any day. Well done for doing it. Refuelling in the pub is mandatory….it’s in the rules.
I need to work on my overall fitness, so both of these recent triathlons were about setting a benchmark as they both do an early season version early next year. So there was definitely NO sprinting going on, but hopefully next year…
As for the pub – I like rules like that!
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