Help! I appear to have accidentally entered an Olympic Triathlon
At the end of February this year I decided that dieting on its own was far too dull to do for another year and I needed a target, a good reason not to have another pint rather than just to watch a number get lower most weeks when I weigh myself. (Lucky him!! Mine stays the same or rises – theWife)
For some reason entering an Olympic distance Triathlon, taking place at the end of September, seemed like a pretty good idea at the time and a week after pre-registering I entered… see, it’s not as if this was even a spur of the moment drunken decision! (Crazy one yes – theWife)
To let you into the level of the stupidity we’re dealing with here, I’m still 3 stone (20Kg) overweight and have Arthritis. I need to swim one mile down the river Cam, cycle 25 miles and then run a 10K (just over 6 miles). Until I started training I hadn’t run since I was at school, done any swimming more than a holiday potter for about as long, and I only cycle for commuting.
On the plus side my diet regime last year did have me on a cross trainer regularly so fitness wise I’m not heading into this from a complete standstill – clearly there is quite a lot of work to do.
At the time the intention was to just do it with whatever kit I’d got already and simply for the sake of finishing. Since then, and rather unsurprisingly, my competitive instinct has kicked in and so unfortunately has my penchant for buying gadgets. Still, I probably needed a new bike right?!? (mental craziness has kicked in – theWife)
Now, as everything for this event is somewhat spiralling out of control, and because I’m unlikely to do something this stupid again I’ve decided that I should support the official charity of the event, Cancer Research, and try to raise a decent sum of money.
I’m aiming for £1000, and that, dear reader, is obviously where you come in.
I’m not going to talk about the charity, they do a far better job of it than I ever could, but all I will say is that almost everyone I know either knows someone that’s been affected by cancer directly or has had a family member affected, so the cause is clearly a good one. (a very very good one – theWife)
I, and presumably they, would appreciate anything you can give to try to help me reach this target. Donations can be made through the Just Giving website at justgiving.com/jodrell
Please feel free to publicise this page or the Just Giving one directly to other people. I’ll be adding more to the site as my training progresses, with a few pics of just how silly I look wearing Lycra and just how knackered I look after some of the training sessions. (ha ha ha ha they’re worth seeing and spending money for – theWife)
After a pub chat a friend and I decided that 3 hours was a good round number to aim for as a time with a 30 minute swim, a 1.5 hour ride and 1 hour run at the end. We did of course forget to factor in any time for the transitions and changes between events, but I still think it’ll be a good mark to measure myself against, despite it actually being a pretty slow time (according to people who do this kind of thing regularly). (that’s not slow in my opinion – theWife!) To be honest though, I’ll just be happy to finish the whole thing without having to stop and walk.
So there we have it. A silly event, a silly target and a pretty silly amount of money…come on people, how hard can it be?!? (OK so it’s mainly crazy but the money’s not silly so get spending you lot – theWife) (oh and I proofed it, so sorry for any errors or interruptions! – theWife)
