Captain Virgo and the Mediocre Stoker

One thing usually needs to another.

Although the closest I have got to doing a triathlon is a slightly drunken promise to my daughter that I would train with her and enter with her at some point in the future, I am now actually signed up to take part in a rather special triathlon with my husband.

What's special about this particular triathlon is it's a Tandem Triathlon.

You enter as a team. One person completes a 1 kilometre swim, both ride 35 kilometres on a tandem bicycle and the non swimming team member finishes with a 10 kilometre run through a forest.

This year is the 30th anniversary of the event. When the event was little more than an idea in an enthusiast's mind, I would have been at University. I would have already met the man that many years later would become my husband. Had he been a little braver and more forward... or had the scales fallen from my eyes earlier... we may have become a couple then and our lives could have taken a quite different path. I have few regrets about the journey I took to arrive at the happy place I am now but I do  sometimes wonder about the 'what ifs' and taking part in this anniversary event provides, for me, an opportunity for reflection.

It also provides an opportunity to learn to ride a tandem.

As I have yet to prove myself capable of swimming 1km in any sort of time that would mean the race marshals would not have packed up and gone home, my husband volunteered to take the swimming role. That leaves me with the 10k run. I know I can run 10K and the forest trail sort of route is probably my most favourite kind of running but I have never attempted to run after having dismounted a bike - a bike of any sort, let alone a tandem. I am very definitely stepping into the unknown with that.

My husband is a man of action. Once he decides to do something he does not mess around. Within a couple of days of me expressing a willingness to do this with him, he came home with a second-hand tandem and has spent much of his available free time tinkering with it and ordering spare parts to get it running a smoothly as possible. I, in the meantime, thought it might be wise to do a little research into the practicalities of two people pedalling one contraption.

I found out that the person on the front is known as the Captain and the person on the back is the Stoker. I have tried to imagine myself executing the procedure for starting and stopping. I'm sure it will all make perfect sense once we actually get on the thing.

In order to enter the Trialthlon, we needed a team name. I did joke with my daughters (who bearing in mind are already quite embarrassed by the idea of their parents riding a tandem around the town where they live and know people) that we call ourselves Team S&M and ditch the cycling shorts for some leather bondage gear. I'm not sure the cycling shorts are that much less embarrassing anyway! I came up with a few ideas but we opted for one that acknowledges my husband's nautical background and my contentment to be just OK at things as long as I'm enjoy them. Thus the team Captain Virgo and the Mediocre Stoker was born.

We had a nice meal together to celebrate and toasted our new partnership with a carefully chosen beer.

Obviously we are hoping the our maiden voyage will as far removed from ill-fated Titanic's as possible.

Our place has now been booked. The tandem should be ready to go in time for half term. Let the training commence!

The Bishop's Castle Tandem Triathlon

A Jantastic Start

After last year's success, I have signed up again to the online new year fitness challenge that is Jantastic.

The programme has evolved to include swimming and cycling as well as running which ties in very nicely with my commitment to my daughter to take part in a triathlon with her.

I have taken out a two month membership to my local swimming centre so for January and February I am really concentrating on the swimming.

The January targets were all about frequency of workouts per week. I set myself a target of three swims and 1 run per week. Driven by a desire to 'get my money's worth' from the membership costs and discovering an unexpected actual genuine pleasure in my watery endeavours, I easily exceeded my swimming target.

Now we have progressed into February and the targets are focussed on distance.

Whenever I have seen people swimming in that effortless way, length after length, I have wished that that could be me. I longed to be that person gliding through the water, confident and at ease. Until now, I  was the embarrassment making a lot of splash and achieving nothing but panic and a lungful of the wet stuff. I am proud that in four weeks I have left behind the old me and have joined the ranks of the gliders - sort of - my style is far from perfect but it is even farther from the spluttering wreck I once was.

I would probably be amazed if I added up all the lengths I have swum over the last  month and converted them to kilometres... but however impressive it might sound, there is a very big problem. I can reliably swim single lengths but the turn and repeat part eludes me. At best, I stop, have a couple of good gulps of air and then set off again. At worst, I stop and have a five minute gossip with whoever I happen to be with before I go. I sometimes kid myself that I am waiting for a decent gap free from other pool users before I set off but that sort of excuse is not going to go well for the triathlon.

The Jantastic distance challenge  is perfect to get me swimming continuous lengths up to the required 200 metres which is how far I will need to cover for a 'fun' triathlon. Two hundred metres equates to 8 lengths of my pool. Eight lengths doesn't seem too onerous a task until I remember the effort it takes to swim just one! My first week's challenge is to swim two lengths with a good turn and hopefully, I can build that up gradually over the four weeks. I am keeping my eye firmly fixed on the goal to be swimming 200 metres proficiently by the time my membership to the pool expires.

I am very grateful to Jantastic for providing the extra motivation when I need it. I am also grateful to Sports Direct for their next day delivery service as I seem to have slightly melted my current swimming costume trying to dry it out on a hot radiator. I shan't be doing that again!

Sink or Swim

A few months ago, my daughter's boyfriend stood her up on a date. Instead of cancelling the booking she'd made at the new Mexican restaurant that had opened nearby, she asked if I'd like to take his place As much as I love putting my little ones to bed and having quiet nights in with my husband, I try not to miss the opportunity for the occasional 'girls night out', so I gladly agreed.

The food was lovely and as my daughter was doing the driving, I enjoyed some mexican beer with my meal.

We were not very tempted by the dessert menu but I had a voucher for a free pint of ale at the pub where another of my daughters works as a barmaid, so we decided to pay her a visit. We were spoilt for choice there with the mouthwatering range of desserts.

One delicious cheesecake and a pint of Joules Green Monkey, later I was feeling very mellow.

This was the point that my daughter swooped in to make a proposition.

She wanted to do a triathlon and she wanted me to do it with her.

I have to say that this came as quite a shock. She is OK with the running part but the cycling and swimming ... not so much.The last time she rode a bike she fell off on a main road. She sustained a good collection of minor injuries and a massive dent in her confidence. As for the swimming, like me she is a 'width' swimmer, not a length swimmer!

If she was prepared to put herself so far out of her comfort zone to challenge herself to do something new, the least I could do would be to support her. And if that meant rooting through the dark recesses of my wardrobe to dig out a swimming costume, so be it.

At the start of the new year, we both went along to our local swimming pool and bought into the membership scheme. Just over a week later, I've already done half a dozen sessions.

I have never been a good swimmer.

My mum always had her own unique swimming style. She could swim tirelessly for length after length in a robotic, rhythmic breaststroke without ever getting her hair wet or her mascara running. I don't remember her ever playing with me as a child in the water to build my confidence or teaching me to swim.

My dad was the complete opposite. He could hold his breath for ever and swim whole lengths underwater. His swimming style wasn't exactly elegant or effortless but he had a 'Tarzan' quality about him and I could imagine him fighting alligators with the same ease that he pulled himself through the water. He boasted that he taught his brother to swim by throwing him in the canal and would probably have done the same to me if he'd had a canal handy. He always wanted to throw me about in the water but rather than building confidence, it actually made me very fearful. I would panic if my head went under the water. I'd panic if I was splashed in the face. I hated not being the confident water loving child that would have made my dad happy but it just wasn't me.

My husband is a very calm and patient man and he has helped me to overcome a lot of the fear but it is an ongoing battle.

I have been watching instructional videos about correct technique and working really hard to put the instruction into practice. It is a bit like learning to drive. There are so many things to think about, co-ordinate and get right. I am forever hopeful  that, like driving, one day it will all come together and feel very normal but I am a long way off that yet.

My first big breakthrough was investing in a pair of swimming goggles. I always used to swim with my eyes shut which magnified the rising panic. Being able to see underwater and not having to worry about the splashing in my eyes has helped me so much. I keep calmer and I now swim in a  relatively straight line rather than diagonally across the pool as I have done in the recent past.

The next big breakthrough was the realisation that slowing everything down makes perfect sense. My natural instinct was always to kick and splash my arms around as rapidly as possible to stop from sinking like a stone. Having more confidence in my ability to float and taking time with the strokes means I get less tired and creates more space to breathe. I know I can slow it down even more and really focus on technique. It is this improvement potential that I can see ahead of me that gives me the motivation to keep going back to the pool.

It can be frustrating when I see other swimmers doing so much better than me but I have to keep stopping to remember where I came from. Before I started a week or so ago, I could barely manage one length. Now, I am not even bothering to count the lengths.

I'm still not sure how I feel about actually doing the triathlon. At the moment I have the luxury of sharing the pool with a handful of other swimmers. For the eight lengths of the triathlon I will almost certainly have the kicking legs of other contenders in close proximity. I am trying very hard not to worry about that right now!

If nothing else, all this swimming is bound to have a positive impact on my running. Unfortunately, the only thing that will have a positive impact on the swimming, is MORE swimming. I better get myself back down to the pool!