A welcoming club on the North West of Edinburgh
Eyemouth Race Report
By CoachKev | Published | No Comments
So today, September 18th marks the first anniversary of Ryan joining the club! It took me until April this year to follow suit after being gently reminded each week: ‘Dad, you fall asleep every session in the social room at Forrester so get your big butt in the pool.’
Anyway, Eyemouth was my 5th of the year and the 4th come and tri, having completed a sprint in London. Before telling you a little about the Eyemouth race here is a bit of ‘my story’.
If anyone had told me five years ago I would be doing triathlons let alone join an actual club, I would have laughed in your face, holding you for a fool and quickly go back to my coffee with two sugars and four chocolate digestives. I was well overweight at 107kg (17st) and really did not think I had the ‘time’ to do anything about it. It wasn’t time, it was morale and motivation.
A first wake up call arrived in July 2011 when my dad had a heart attack and I jumped on the first available flight to Holland. I was advised there and then to start ‘thinking’ about getting checked. Having returned home a week later (dad being ok) I went to the GP who dismissed any risk fairly immediately. So, nothing to worry about, was my conclusion. Although I did start playing football again at that point.
A second warning came in December 2013 when a colleague and friend suffered a fatal heart attack, at 54 two days before Christmas.
I still did not make any decision myself though, but in January 2014 Fran said she had booked me into a class at Pure gym. Initially quite apprehensive I thought I would give it a shot. Upon arrival at the gym I asked where I was to go for my class. A big muscular personal trainer asked me what I was attneding. Completely embarrassed I said:’ I do not have a clue, my wife booked it for me!’ He burst out laughing replying :’You must be going to the Pure loser group.’
Not only did I manage to make a complete fool of myself, the thought of going to a ‘loser’ group was just brutal. Anyway fatclub (as I came to lovingly call it) for 6 weeks was the start of a new me. Getting weighed in front of 20 odd people each week puts on a bit of pressure. Whoever lost most weight after six weeks would win a personal trainer set and my competitive edge set in and after 6 weeks I had lost over a stone.
I went to the gym 7 days a week throughout the year and going into 2015 wanted to do something more. I stupidly signed up for the London triathlon thinking it would be a doddle. I did do some basic training and managed to complete the sprint in less than 2 hours. My initial delight at the time quite quickly moved to aspiration and I started looking at more intensive programs. Completed Lochore in August 2015 in front of Ryan who then became interested.
Going into 2016, having already signed up for London and Lochore, I wanted to see how far I could stretch myself, within reason. The come and tri’s and joining the club helped me along massively. Just before I started the club training in may I thought I was relatively fit, the weight was around 14 st and and I felt pretty good. Training helped me although Kev told me swim was, well not the best (he used slightly stronger terms)! I started to push a hit harder every time and the come and tri’s were planned in between as a test. Managing the extra push made me shape up a bit and now down to 82kg (13st) I am fitter than I have been in 20 years.
Eyemouth was a come and tri I wanted to do throughout the year. I had never vistited the place but everyone I spoke to said Eymouth is brilliant. They were not wrong.
Having messed up a bit with the predicted swim time I ended up in heat 3 with the competent swimmers. My new garmin all set, I thought :’My usual length time is around 35 secs, so if I can do 33 I’d be looking good.’ Coming out of the pool last was a bit of a bummer, but not entirely unexpected. My time was 8:51 so my tactic had worked, knowing I would win back time on the bike. Quite a long transition due to a bit of a run with the bike to get on the road.
The bike route out of the pool and straight into a climb was a little sign of things to come. Coming round the corner I could see ‘the’ hill and various people were glued to it, not moving. I do Clermiston hill on the bike each day, Dalmeny as much as possible and various bikerides with Hugh, so this was not a huge concern. Felt quite good when I was skipping past 6 or 7 competitors who appeared to stand still. On top of hill one, it flattened out for 50 meters and straight into another climb, it was equivalent to two Clermiston hills in a row, from St Johns road. It remained very hilly after that, out of Eyemouth and into Coldingham.
I was closing the gap on another couple and overtook them on the descent back into Eymouth. After a close encounter with a Jaguar XF which annoyingly slowed me down, I got back to T2 in what felt like no time.
I had a lot of bother with my hip the last few weeks and decided to run in my old trainers. I got into a rythem straight away, having previously struggled to manage this and no pain in the hip. The pacer beeped a couple of times to let me know I was doing what I wanted to do. It was beautiful setting for a run, alnong the harbour and beachfront, although with an annoyingly steep hill at 2km. At this point I lost a couple of places but an overal finish of 47:40 was pleasing considering those hills.
I was out on the bike this morning again with Hugh and he asked me what is next. Well the answer is I’d like to do the 5 again next year, the next distance up. So 3 sprints and 2 Olympic distances. Nuts? Yes, possibly but why not? I had the same discussion with a friend last night and he said he could never cope with a triathlon and he does the parkrun in 19 mins! ‘Why would you do 5 of them?’ It was a question I had never really thought about, but I replied : ‘Just enjoy doing them and to see if I can get up another level.’
Jeroen
