London Triathlon 2018
Last month, I did the Olympic Distance London Triathlon 2018. This was by far the biggest sporting thing I’ve ever done and I loved it.
I started training in April this year. I have shed north of 20kg through healthy eating and of course lots of running, cycling & swimming.
It has inspired me to enter the Leicester Half Marathon in October, and the half Iron distance Cotswold 113 triathlon in June 2019.
The training has got to a stage now where I genuinely enjoy doing it and long may that continue. I particularly enjoyed the variety – if you were tired from one discipline, often one of the others was still doable. I found I could cram in five activities per week.
I gratefully received many tips from more seasoned triathletes along the way. I am under no illusion that without these, I may have run out of steam and almost definitely not enjoyed it as much as I did.
And so here they are, for any budding triathletes¹ like I was:
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the first five minutes of the swim, you will be out of breath. You’re not panicking, your body is just adjusting to the environment (thanks to staff at Shepperton Swim Lake for this one)
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for transition, pack each discipline’s stuff in a separate bag. Even just a carrier back to separate them
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practice running after cycling, just keep going for 1k or so and you’ll loosen up
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be like Superman in the water, your wetsuit will help you glide and save energy
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if your mood goes, eat something; this is often the first indicator of hunger
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having a triathlon watch (I have a Garmin), syncing to Strava and thus breaking things down into small segments that you can work on is a huge motivator
¹ yes, I now only refer to myself as a ‘triathlete’