Back in January of this year, I only really had a few ambitions, to run a sub 20 5k, a sub 40 10k and a sub 90 half marathon. Back then these were pretty much the only ambitions I had in terms of sporting activities for the year, the idea of competing in a triathlon had not even crossed my mind at this point as I had only really had a bike for about 3 months at this time and cycling to work and back seemed to be enough for me.
Anyway, the running milestones pretty much all got achieved by the end of February with a sub 20 5k in a Nike organised event and then a narrow escape with a 39:56 at the Regents Park 10k. The half marathon time was achieved at Wokingham in the middle of February but the offical result had me down as a 1:30:11 or something...hence I entered the Milton Keynes half marathon and flew round in a 1:26 on a nice flat course. So, come the end of March I had achieved all of my running goals for the year. However, what obviously happens during this is that each goal simply moves slightly, the next aims were sub 19 5k, sub 39 10k etc.
It was only round about March time that I started to enquire about triathlons - I had been swimming pretty much every day when I was in the gym and with the cycling to work and back, I figured I had all the angles covered to try an event out. Thankfully, there was someone in my office who was doing the odd triathlon and I had also met someone who had raced all the way to Ironman distance. Both of these chaps gave me a lot of good advice etc and so I started on the most expensive hobby that man can have.
My first event was the Thames Turbo Sprint triathlon which is a pool based triathlon (hence there is no washing machine starting nonsense). Before starting this event, I really did have no idea how things would go...in my mind I I had a fair idea of the times I could do at each of the seperate events, but no understanding of how I would do when all of these are mixed together. At the end of the race I was totally amazed...I had finished 13th in a field of about 300. It just seemed too good to be true. I had also recorded a pretty good bike split it all good news really. Was also nice to know that I still had a fair bit left in me.
The triathlon calendar rolled on throughout the summer months and at the end of July I had the best news ever, my disaster of a race at Wakefield had managed to sneak me into the GB squad to head out to Lausanne for the World Champs which, as you all know, was a pretty good blast.
The full results for my triathlon season are covered here including the splits and speeds where it seemed okay to work them out. There are some big gaps in certain places, but that could be because I don't have those splits, or like at Wakefield, the timing chip came off my leg!
The highlights for me for 2006 were:
- 1. Racing in Lausanne
- 2. Winning Age Group (25-29) at the London Triathlon
- 3. Winning Age Group (25-29) for the Thames Turbo Triathlon Series
- 4. 2nd Place in Age Group (25-29) and 12th place overall in my first Olympic Triathlon (Windsor)
- 5. Current holder of the cycle leg record for the Thames Turbo Triathlon
