I’ve just completed my first triathlon, the “sprint” distance Mini-Marshman. It’s been one of the most stressful and toughest things I’ve ever done, but I’m so glad I did it. Here are a few words about the whole thing…

Near the the end of last year one of my best mates, Lucy Smee, and I dared each other into becoming triathletes. I’ve never been particularly sporty, but we’d been swimming and cycling a fair amount together over the past few years and it seemed like the natural next step to add running and complete the triangle. We signed up for the olympic distance London Triathlon as our headline event, which happens later in the season, but wanted to do a shorter one in preparation. Lucy had heard of Marshman, four triathlon events held over a weekend at the beginning of May in a town called Lydd on the south east coast. We promptly signed up for the Mini-Marshman, the shortest of them, and started getting nervous.

A note on distances: the standard ‘olympic’ distances for swim/cycle/run in kilometres are 1.5/40/10. The Mini-Marshman was 0.7/24/6: a slightly shorter than half swim, but a longer than half cycle and run.

We were doing the Mini-Marshman as practice, but I felt I should have a goal. I found the previous years’ results online and had a look. It didn’t help with my nerves. The number of competitors was smaller than expected, just around 40 competing in 2013, and the times were quicker, ranging from 1hr 20mins to 2hrs 10mins. I thought about how quickly I could do each section on its own, added a fudge factor for doing them all together, and decided that if I could do it under 2hrs I’d be rather pleased.

I was rather confident in my swimming and cycling abilities. I cycle commute to work everyday and try to get out on longer cycles at the weekends whenever possible. I also go swimming, with London Field Lido close by, and regularly do distances longer than the triathlon swim. My main worry was the running. A long time ago I entered and completed a 10k running event, but hadn’t done anything since. Unfortunately, shortly after signing up, I injured my knee playing football and was unable to even think about running until sometime in March. I carried on using my knee as an excuse through April and with one week to go I began to panic. I decided to give up alcohol as a gesture towards fitness and started running, first with a leisurely 3km and then, with just two days to go, a more serious 5km. The latter turning out to be a huge mistake, but at least it helped to settle my nerves about completing the distance.

Something that caused a lot of stress was obtaining our wetsuits. After our initial sign up we received a promotional email with triathlon related offers. One was for wetsuits where we could hire a £200 suit for £65 with an option to buy at a reduced rate at the end of the season. It sounded good to us and in an effort to be organised we went for it early. The wetsuits were due to be dispatched in April which would give us enough time for an open water practice, but on the last day of April, with 10 days to go, we were advised that they couldn’t be dispatched until a week too late. Instead, we were given a backup offer of one of last year’s suits to keep for the original hire price. It still seemed like a good deal so we went for the second hand suits, informing the company we needed them urgently. Days passed and we’d not heard anything so I called to make sure they were being sent. The following afternoon I received a dispatch notification. Two days later, the day before the event, I decided to work from home, hopeful that my suit would arrive, but by 5pm I was getting really worried. Eventually I found a phone number for the delivery company and after reading out my tracking number was told by a computer that “there is a problem with your parcel, please contact the sender”. The hire company’s office hours ended at 5pm and that was that, I didn’t have a wetsuit and it was the evening before my first triathlon. It was desperation time and I decided I just had to buy one. There was a large sports shop on my way to meet Lucy and luckily they had something in my size. It was £85 and looked like it had been dragged all over the floor twice, but I wasn’t in a position to be fussy. I bought it and a brief moment of relief hit me before I realised I now had to actually do the event. In a strange twist, Lucy’s suit was sent a day later than mine, but was given special next day delivery and turned up as expected.

With the transition/registration opening at 6am and the race itself starting at 7.30 we had booked a twin room above a pub close by, but again we had problems. On our drive down we found out that they only had a double room for us. I’m not worried about sharing beds with friends, but we were both looking for a good night sleep and this was not the way to go about it. We decided that sleeping top and tail would be better than finding an alternative at this late stage so settled for a token discount on the room rate. We made it to our room with just enough time to try our wetsuits on, mine for the very first time, and practiced getting out of them as quickly as possible for the first transition. My second attempt was 37 seconds, I decided it was good enough and that it was time for bed.

After a mostly sleepless night, both from nerves and not wanting to wriggle around and wake my bedmate, our alarms went off at 5:45am to the sound of heavy rain against the window. A sense of dread kicked in as we packed our bags and got into the car to drive to the event. We went through registration while a woman warned us about the dangers of the cycle route. There were roadworks with a slippery ramp and a set of temporary traffic lights we’d have to stop at. Also, the route ended on a military road where “if you cycle in the middle your wheel WILL get caught in the gap and you WILL fall off”. Not particularly calming.

Registration

We got our bikes out of the car, put the wheels back on, and made our way to set up at the transition zone. Thankfully the rain had slowed to a drizzle and once I got my wetsuit on I was no longer uncomfortably cold. I busied myself checking that all my bits and pieces were in the right place while we waited for the start and it wasn’t long before we were called over for a briefing. It was rather hard to hear what was being said in all the wind, but we got the idea that there was no turning back as we were directed towards the lake. It was at this point my nerves started to drift away as in a state of resignation I said to myself “well, this is what’s happening now”.

A view of the start area. Can you see the foliage leaning in the wind and the ripples in the water?

Being in the water with the wetsuit on for the first time I could feel it doing its job. The lake water was obviously rather cold and murky, but I was pleased to have a thick layer of neoprene covering me. We joked about this being our open water swim practice as we treaded water towards the start area. We then watched and waited for the start signal and all of a sudden it was go! The start was rather frantic and I felt people swimming over me which was rather disconcerting, but we quickly spread out into our skill groups. The route was a straight there and back, but the wind was so strong it was causing waves to come towards us on the way out. I started out with front crawl, but as the conditions were so different to a pleasant swim in your local pool it was evident this wasn’t sustainable without inhaling more water than is generally recommended. At this point I started to worry that if I swallowed too much water and started to drown, the safety kayak guys were too far away and either wouldn’t notice my brightly coloured swimming cap submerging or would get there too late. Oh, dear! Anyway, I switched into what I call ‘mum stroke’ which is breaststroke, but you keep your head out of the water, mainly as a life preserving measure. This seemed to go okay and I was keeping up with the other guys at the back of the group. The second half of the swim was much better. We were with the tide now and I started to be able to do a more sporty breaststroke, diving my head underwater, I even overtook one or two people. I reached the end and heard a marshal say “good good! 14 minutes”, but I didn’t believe them. It had felt like such an ordeal and was quicker than I was expecting! Someone else said “good pull!” and I smiled at hearing a fun sports term for swimming. Am I now the kind of person that says pull instead of swim?

Transition to bike was fairly slow. I’m certain I didn’t get out of my wetsuit within the practiced 37 seconds, getting into my cycle shoes seemed more difficult than usual, and there was some general faffing about. Lucy came out of the water shortly after me and left transition just before. Still, we were on to the cycle to Camber and back which I thought would be my best section, but it became clear quite quickly that this was not going to be easy. We found out later, from a fellow competitor’s tweet, that the wind speeds were over 40kph and it seemed to be in our face for the majority of the time. There was a brief spell near the end where it must have been at my back, but it didn’t last for long. As soon as I turned onto to the final ‘wheel-swallowing’ military road it was right back in my face. I got to the end of the cycle and my cycle GPS was telling me it had taken around 55 minutes. A little slower than I had originally hoped, but under the circumstances I was just pleased to have gotten through that long hard slog.

The transition between bike and run was easier. A quick swap of shoes and I was away again. However, I immediately regretted my final training run. My calves felt so tight and I was only able to bounce along slightly faster than walking speed. Two people I’d overtaken on the cycle overtook me within the first kilometre and I wasn’t feeling good. I had one of those energy-tube-gel-yogurt things, found my pace, and settled in for a tough final section. The marshals on the run were great. Their encouragement on every corner helped a lot. I stopped for a few short walks, but never in sight of the marshals; it felt like I would be letting them down. The run was around the town of Lydd and I found it difficult to judge how far I had gone, but I knew the last part was around the edge of a large park. I had overtaken Lucy early on in the cycle and there had been no sign of her when I left transition so she must have been several minutes behind, but I could see her on the other side of the park. Having seen her jogging along at a reasonable pace, it spurred me on to the finish line. When the end was finally in sight I started to run a little faster with the excitement of it almost being over. I crossed the line and it was announced over the PA I’d finished in 1hr 58mins. I was too exhausted to take it in, but I’d made it in under two hours! I accepted my medal, drank a cup of fruit squash, ate a couple of Jaffa Cakes, and went around to wait for Lucy. She came along pretty quickly and I cheered her over the line. Neither of us are quite sure what the announcer said, but we think her time was 2hrs 1min. So that was it, we bloody did it, and after hearing that there were 6 more still out there, we weren’t last!

We arrived back to our room and Lucy went for her shower first. Given my first few moments alone after all the stress of the build up and the ordeal of competing, I became overwhelmed with emotion. The relief of it being over, the exhaustion, the lack of sleep, the sense of achievement, the thought of how proud my dad would have been, it all hit me and I had to hold back a tear while I took an Instagram picture of my medal (you have to do these things).

I was doing the swimming man’s face for all three

On our way home we visited Rye and stopped in the first cafe we saw with an all day breakfast sign, ordered two big breakfasts, ate them all, and were still hungry.

So what did I learn from this ‘practice’ for the London Triathlon in August? I’d say, rather obviously, that the biggest thing will be the training. This time I will need to train well in advance and have a rest before the actual event, so I’m feeling fresh on race day. It’s a longer distance too and crosses the line from “I can just do a bit and muddle through” to “I have to be fit or I won’t even finish”. I’m pretty happy with how the transitions went, but found it a bit fiddly getting gear out of my bag and everything got a bit wet in the drizzle. Some people seemed to have plastic boxes to keep their stuff in which made it easier so I’ll be on the look out for one of them. Other than that, I’m glad we did it for the experience and the confidence boost. Also, most of the things that were stressful this time won’t be an issue next time: we already have our wetsuits and gear, we won’t have to find accommodation and drive down the day before, we can have a good night’s sleep, etc.

It’s now 12 weeks to the London Triathlon. Better get started!

Note: my wetsuit finally arrived two hours after I finished. I have not yet heard from the hire company. I am still furious.