Hello and welcome to my blog! First things first, I’m going to commit the cardinal sin and start with an apology – nothing too serious but I think it is only fair I let you know what you’re getting yourself in for. Whilst this blog is titled the WestCountryTriathlete, at the moment I’m not spending much time either in the West Country nor doing tri, let me explain…
About two years ago I decided that as a twenty-something guy who had been married for a couple of years, and hoped to soon be a dad, it was time to lose some weight and get fit (at the time I weighed around 89kg at 173cm (5’8”) and ran up to two miles – maybe twice a year). That decision started a journey that over the following 18 months: led me to triathlon, saw me shed 10kg and become the fittest I’d ever been in my life. At least until injury struck in the run-up to Christmas 2017 which left me unable to do any exercise for about 5 weeks, and no running for a number of months, I’ll spare you the details for another time; suffice it to say once I was cleared to run again a change of job and generally poor motivation resulted in me not running in earnest all year (I haven’t run at all since early June!).
That, I’m determined, will change in September (who needs a new year – a new month will do to make a resolution). I’m lucky enough that the organisation I work for runs a number of sporting events throughout the year – the first being a sprint Duathlon which normally runs around the first or second week of March – I’ve raced it for the past two years coming mid-pack both times and am going to target it for my first 2019 A-race. I’m hoping that, along with making myself accountable to all of you out in cyber-land, will rekindle the motivation I have for hard training and lead me to an awesome season opener to build on.
Hopefully that explains why I haven’t been doing much tri recently, the reason I’m not spending much time in the West Country is also due to work (and also the reason I’ll be focusing on duathlon and some road cycling for the next 18-24 months). The organisation I work for has locations all over the UK and my job change at the beginning of the year saw me move away from the South Coast up to Norfolk. This means I’m now commuting weekly (anywhere from 8-12 hours depending on Friday night M25 traffic), and have a 45-minute round trip from my closest swimming pool (which doesn’t open until 7am. Unfortunately, I – like most new triathletes – am an appalling swimmer and can’t blag my way through so much as a super-sprint without training, thus my focus on land-based sports until I get moved on again! That said I’ll been spending time in the pool when I can and, if I can negotiate some flexibility in my hours, may well pick up my swim training around Easter next year.
Finally, I’d just like to say what a strange feeling it is to have written this – I’ve always been one of those people who thought they would never blog (I’d have laughed at the mere suggestion only a few weeks ago); there are various reasons why I felt that in the past but I’ll leave that for another day, suffice it to say I guess we can surprise even ourselves.
Until next time,
West Country Triathlete 