Today was the next step in my alphabet fundraising challenge for WDM – with the C in the shape of the Crystal Palace marathon.
And it went rather better than I was expecting – the evening after finishing my first triathlon, I’m still grinning at the memory.
Maybe it was the relief after spending the last few weeks worrying about the swimming. I’d put a rather over ambitious swim time of 17 minutes, which given that back in March I couldn’t swim more than one length of a 25 m pool, was probably a bit overambitious. And so I had visions of massive tail backs stuck behind me. And then after meeting someone on the train on the way who said last year it was ‘carnage’ with people swimming on top of each other to overtake, my worry turned to outright fear.
But in the end it was of course all fine, I had a 5 person queue behind me at one point, but after being tapped on the foot (it’s all frightfully polite!) and letting them overtake, I quickly caught back up, and after a few lengths rather too close to the guy in front’s bum, I overtook.
After obeying the instructions not to run on the stairs leaving the pool (taking me back to school days!) it was into transition to pick up my bike, and then straight on to the cycling. A bit more sun would have been nice at this stage to help dry off, but generally the weather was perfect. Each lap began with a big climb, but it was worth it for the brilliant down hill stretches and the excitement of swooping down without having to worry about traffic.
The hardest bit was trying to keep count of the 9 laps, before going through to dump the bike, and on to the run. I could really feel the effects of the previous 2 sections and it felt more like a 20k run than 5, but I got a second wind as the second lap ended in the stadium and the chariots of fire music started playing in my mind.
I did the whole thing in 1.32.53 (18 min– 750m swim, 46.33– 20k cycle, 23.51 – 5k run), which made me 51st lady, which probably says more about the lower number of women taking part than my abilities, but I was very happy! Only problem now is I’m pretty sure I want to do another one.
Thanks so much if you’ve already sponsored me, if you’d still like to, then just click here:
Looocey does the alphabet the hard way 