Triathlon: A Terrible Pun-ishment (Saturday 19/08/2017)
My excessive time in transition was partly due to the need to towel dry every potential chafe point. I had bitter experience of the bleeding nipple stigmata on previous under prepared outings.
The hiatus also gave me much appreciated time to steady my jellied legs.
Whatever the reason, the race clock faithfully records that I squandered 4 minutes and 58 seconds before mounting up and gamely pedalling off to complete the ride section.
A leisurely spin along the Esplanade with picture post card views of the estuary to the right seemed to bode well for what lay ahead. After all, I cycled to work daily and, even allowing for some boastful under estimating, 3 miles routinely took a smidge less than 12 minutes. Surely then, I should have the whole thing wrapped up in under an hour?
For me, however, all truly horrible experiences tend to conform to the same pattern and this was no exception. My initial optimism, which seemed so richly justified as I the ambled along the foreshore, was not so much misplaced, as subsequently horsewhipped, flayed and then brutally crucified by successive degrees.
The Esplanade quickly gave way to an incline which abruptly became the North Face of the Eiger and at this point, if I was to make any progress at all I was clearly in need of a Sherpa.
While desperate prayers are sometimes answered, the Leyland variety that rounded the bend and drove me into the roadside nettles, proved the old adage that you should be careful what you wish for.
Since roping myself to someone sporting crampons and an ice axe was not an option, I settled for falling in behind a randomly selected pacemaker from Chippenham Wheelers Triathlon Club whose bib suggested she may have been called Lucy, or possibly 369.
She ground up the hills at a pace that I could just about stay in touch with and swept down them at a velocity that made my lips flap like a dog in a wind tunnel.
Unfortunately, the descents never quite tallied with the climbs and after a while it began to feel like we were cycling across an Escher optical illusion.
Villainous sorts called out to us as we inched our way up inclines so steep that even the landslips were clinging on.
"This is the worst hill" they assured us. "It gets easier after the brow".
How they must have chortled, between skinning puppies and voting for Brexit.
We passed the Black Rock Police station, midway up a one in three and I considered handing my craven remnants to the duty sergeant with a signed confession for something terrible. Death could only have come as a merciful release at that stage. The only reason that I didn't was the long line of broken men and women who had got there before me.
Moments later we crawled by the recycling centre, situated at the bottom of a quarry. This may help you to visualise the straight sided geography that we were contending with. The idea of death by hydraulic compactor seemed like an attractive one but again, with an ecological prick of conscience, I passed up on the opportunity; after all, the OED defines recycling as the conversion of waste materials into something useful. I was beyond any useful salvage.
But however bad it got, there was still worse to come.
Rounding what apparently transpired to be the final bend before returning to the Esplanade, something black and shapeless was slowly enveloping me in my delirium. There was something amiss. The mile markers must be wrong. Where did the missing 10km go?
Involuntary noises that only a seasoned torturer would recognise, began to emerge from my cracked lips. Lucy was weeping. The rider ahead of her javelined a lamp post. Beside me, Marc from Piranha Tri, folded quietly in on himself and disappeared into a puff of his own singularity.
"No, no, no, no, no!!!!
The final turn was a false dawn. We swung passed the Esplanade which quickly vanished like some cruel mirage. It was a two loop ride which meant....
....doing it all again.
I realise now, why the race tabards are called bibs.
I cried like a baby and when that was done, I retreated into a state of cosmic indifference. Lucy ploughed on and my very existence contracted to a single, implacable and undeviating commitment: stay with her at all costs. Most marriages are built on less.
The next half hour bore nothing of note. Angels walked among us; the sky throbbed with portents; Donald Trump was impeached. None of these things registered, so deep was my despondency.
Eventually, I found myself in the 2nd transition stage, and like a man waking from a week long bender, I half climbed, half fell from the bike and wasted a mere 50.9 seconds before beginning the 5km run.
Back along the Esplanade I shuffled, like the undead, only worse. I was still living. There may have been hills; I don't remember. I walked in some places. I hurt in others.
A water stop helped a bit.
Bumping into Adrian who was 32 minutes behind me and hence only just starting the run as I was finishing, lifted my spirits somewhat, but even the abject abasement of a cherished friend was not enough.
As I approached the finish line, warm words of encouragement wafted from the compound marshal.
'Trying Hard' was the event motto blazoned across the literature and so the temptation to yell corporate branding at people who were well past the point of physical and mental breakdown was clearly tempting.
"Your trying hard" he punned tiredly, evidently for the 412th time.
The last vestiges of my flickering brain function imagined his painful demise, in some exaggerated permutation of my current sufferings. In reality, I waved a dead hand in his general direction, muttered darkly and then pitched head long across the finish line.
One thing the experience taught me of is the restorative powers of a kilo of Marshfield Farm power bars, provided gratis to finishers. While several stiff drinks and a darkened room might have been preferable, shovelling them down my throat at least replaced the terrible sensation in my legs with a marginally worse but comfortingly distracting one in my stomach.
I even managed to extrude some nonsensical gibberish at a fellow competitor while waiting for Adrian.
And then it was over.
Medals were distributed.
Bikes were loaded and a souvenir selfie marked the occasion for posterity.
Now that a few days have passed, and I have had the chance to reflect on the experience, I realise two things. The first is that one way or another, time eventually alleviates all suffering, but it may take decades. The second is that according to the race clock, I came last.
The observant amongst you may attribute this to the reckless absence of training. In my heart though, I know that time is a relative concept and that the most likely explanation is that the intensity of my suffering clearly warped the local space time.
In the meantime, the memory is still so painful that in a desperate attempt to expunge it, I've signed up for the Tockington triathlon.
The hiatus also gave me much appreciated time to steady my jellied legs.
Whatever the reason, the race clock faithfully records that I squandered 4 minutes and 58 seconds before mounting up and gamely pedalling off to complete the ride section.
 |
| Wasted. |
A leisurely spin along the Esplanade with picture post card views of the estuary to the right seemed to bode well for what lay ahead. After all, I cycled to work daily and, even allowing for some boastful under estimating, 3 miles routinely took a smidge less than 12 minutes. Surely then, I should have the whole thing wrapped up in under an hour?
For me, however, all truly horrible experiences tend to conform to the same pattern and this was no exception. My initial optimism, which seemed so richly justified as I the ambled along the foreshore, was not so much misplaced, as subsequently horsewhipped, flayed and then brutally crucified by successive degrees.
The Esplanade quickly gave way to an incline which abruptly became the North Face of the Eiger and at this point, if I was to make any progress at all I was clearly in need of a Sherpa.
 |
| The Sherpa I wanted. |
While desperate prayers are sometimes answered, the Leyland variety that rounded the bend and drove me into the roadside nettles, proved the old adage that you should be careful what you wish for.
 |
| The Sherpa I got. |
Since roping myself to someone sporting crampons and an ice axe was not an option, I settled for falling in behind a randomly selected pacemaker from Chippenham Wheelers Triathlon Club whose bib suggested she may have been called Lucy, or possibly 369.
 |
| Lucy 369. |
She ground up the hills at a pace that I could just about stay in touch with and swept down them at a velocity that made my lips flap like a dog in a wind tunnel.
 |
| No Comment. |
 |
| Topless. |
"This is the worst hill" they assured us. "It gets easier after the brow".
How they must have chortled, between skinning puppies and voting for Brexit.
We passed the Black Rock Police station, midway up a one in three and I considered handing my craven remnants to the duty sergeant with a signed confession for something terrible. Death could only have come as a merciful release at that stage. The only reason that I didn't was the long line of broken men and women who had got there before me.
Moments later we crawled by the recycling centre, situated at the bottom of a quarry. This may help you to visualise the straight sided geography that we were contending with. The idea of death by hydraulic compactor seemed like an attractive one but again, with an ecological prick of conscience, I passed up on the opportunity; after all, the OED defines recycling as the conversion of waste materials into something useful. I was beyond any useful salvage.
But however bad it got, there was still worse to come.
Rounding what apparently transpired to be the final bend before returning to the Esplanade, something black and shapeless was slowly enveloping me in my delirium. There was something amiss. The mile markers must be wrong. Where did the missing 10km go?
Involuntary noises that only a seasoned torturer would recognise, began to emerge from my cracked lips. Lucy was weeping. The rider ahead of her javelined a lamp post. Beside me, Marc from Piranha Tri, folded quietly in on himself and disappeared into a puff of his own singularity.
"No, no, no, no, no!!!!
The final turn was a false dawn. We swung passed the Esplanade which quickly vanished like some cruel mirage. It was a two loop ride which meant....
....doing it all again.
I realise now, why the race tabards are called bibs.
I cried like a baby and when that was done, I retreated into a state of cosmic indifference. Lucy ploughed on and my very existence contracted to a single, implacable and undeviating commitment: stay with her at all costs. Most marriages are built on less.
The next half hour bore nothing of note. Angels walked among us; the sky throbbed with portents; Donald Trump was impeached. None of these things registered, so deep was my despondency.
Eventually, I found myself in the 2nd transition stage, and like a man waking from a week long bender, I half climbed, half fell from the bike and wasted a mere 50.9 seconds before beginning the 5km run.
Back along the Esplanade I shuffled, like the undead, only worse. I was still living. There may have been hills; I don't remember. I walked in some places. I hurt in others.
A water stop helped a bit.
Bumping into Adrian who was 32 minutes behind me and hence only just starting the run as I was finishing, lifted my spirits somewhat, but even the abject abasement of a cherished friend was not enough.
As I approached the finish line, warm words of encouragement wafted from the compound marshal.
'Trying Hard' was the event motto blazoned across the literature and so the temptation to yell corporate branding at people who were well past the point of physical and mental breakdown was clearly tempting.
"Your trying hard" he punned tiredly, evidently for the 412th time.
The last vestiges of my flickering brain function imagined his painful demise, in some exaggerated permutation of my current sufferings. In reality, I waved a dead hand in his general direction, muttered darkly and then pitched head long across the finish line.
One thing the experience taught me of is the restorative powers of a kilo of Marshfield Farm power bars, provided gratis to finishers. While several stiff drinks and a darkened room might have been preferable, shovelling them down my throat at least replaced the terrible sensation in my legs with a marginally worse but comfortingly distracting one in my stomach.
I even managed to extrude some nonsensical gibberish at a fellow competitor while waiting for Adrian.
And then it was over.
Medals were distributed.
 |
| Adrian was very hungry. |
Bikes were loaded and a souvenir selfie marked the occasion for posterity.
Now that a few days have passed, and I have had the chance to reflect on the experience, I realise two things. The first is that one way or another, time eventually alleviates all suffering, but it may take decades. The second is that according to the race clock, I came last.
The observant amongst you may attribute this to the reckless absence of training. In my heart though, I know that time is a relative concept and that the most likely explanation is that the intensity of my suffering clearly warped the local space time.
In the meantime, the memory is still so painful that in a desperate attempt to expunge it, I've signed up for the Tockington triathlon.
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