Wolverhampton Olympic Distance Tri, August 2007 - Tim Pepper

	TheWolverhampton Olympic Distance Triathlon. 19th August 2007.   One Man’s adventure. It started the night before the race. Thanks to someone driving their car through the front of our bungalow and wrecking our bedroom we have been playing musical beds for some weeks. Last night I got my 7 year old daughter’s bed. Much too small and when it rains during the night, and it did, it hammers on the flat roof above her bedroom. The howling wind didn’t help either. So, a combination of a six foot bloke in a five foot bed and the prospect of racing in a storm that would’ve sunk the titanic had the iceberg not got there first, meant that I slept worse than badly.   6am and the alarm shook me awake. I felt like I hadn’t slept but dragged myself out of bed, grabbed a cup of coffee and jumped on my bike to get down the road to Chasewater. Being a clever bloke I had got everything ready the night before ready for an early start. When I got to Chasewater I turned round to go back home for my  goggles which were still on the floor in my bedroom. Fail to plan, plan to fail so they say. Lucky I only live a mile from the lake. I checked in, stood in the mandatory 15 minute queue for the toilets – don’t know why , I’d already been at home - slipped, or rather fought, struggled and battered, my way into my wetsuit and was ready for the off. The rain had abated but it was still very windy. A surfboard wouldn’t have been out of place. I stood in the waist deep water waiting for the start, peed in my wetsuit (those who have bid on it on eBay may now wish to reconsider) and suddenly the klaxon went and we were off. I swam with my usual brilliant lack of any sense of direction. In the pool I am a fairly strong swimmer. You can see where you are going after all. I open water I am like a rabbit being chased by a fox, darting in all directions. After about 3km of the 1500 metre swim I limped out of the water feeling like I’d just been on the waltzers at butlins. I don’t mean I had lost all my coins down the back of the seat or that some greasy gippo had tried to chat up my girlfriend but that I was extremely dizzy. I wasn’t the only one. Half a dozen of us walked into each other and stumbled like drunks in the general direction of the bikes. I found one that looked vaguely like mine and leapt aboard with all my kit in the right place. A good start. Most of the first part of the bike course was uphill. Us well formed chaps don’t do so well going uphill so I watched as the racing snakes slipped happily by. But every dog has his day. The big downhill at Stile Cop was approaching. This is where the law of aeropienamics comes in. Eat pies – get big – go faster. Simple physics really. Heavy things go downhill a lot faster than light ones. I therefore go fast. I only had two ambitions in this race. One was to hit 50mph down stile cop. I got to 48.2 then had to slow down because of some undernourished weasel on a four pound bike made of extruded flattened triple butted shrink wrapped coke cans who was wobbling all over the road. So, I couldn’t hit the magic 50mph mark but I managed to fly past most of the skinnies who had gone by up the hills.   A bit further round we had to stop at some lights. A well earned break. I got chatting with a fellow competitor, with the same bike as mine, on the merits of the wonderful Trek OCLV carbon fibre frames. It suddenly occurred to us after several minutes of chit chat that we had invested our hard earned cash in these things to help us go faster not to talk about them. The race was back on. A few more miles of lip wobbling high G force downhills followed by epic uphill struggles that Sir Edmund Hillary would’ve been proud of saw me to the end of the bike leg feeling reasonably comfortable other than for a sore back courtesy of the previous night. I slipped my trainers on and set of at a blistering 10 minute mile pace for my least favourite part of a triathlon. The run.  More skinnies came past soon afterwards but this time the downhills didn’t help me get back at them much. Four hundred metres into the run and I was trying to think of what injury I could best fake so that I could roll on the floor like a professional footballer for a few minutes to justify what would obviously be a slow run time. Fate then played its hand – or rather it’s foot as I felt like I had been kicked in the back of the leg. Now, I’ve never had sciatica before but being an osteopath (for appointments phone 01543 684980), I know what it is. There was a searing pain straight down my leg. At this point, those who have suffered with sciatica will be thinking that I would surely have to stop. However, I was brought up in Handsworth and am therefore rock’ard so I carried on. I found that if I tilted my body over to one side it relieved the pain enough to be bearable. People were running past me asking if I was alright ‘yea, thanks mate’ I would answer when what I really wanted to say was ‘no, of course I’m not alright you prat. If I was alright I wouldn’t be impersonating a paper clip that had just been through a washing machine would I?’ but I neither had the time or inclination (excuse the pun). I was struggling a bit now. Especially on the uphill sections, the downhills and the flat bits. The rest was OK. Usually when I run round Chasewater I meet people I know so have an excuse to stop for a chat. Where were they today? Friends – Huh. After about three miles, towards the end of the first lap, the pain in my leg had turned into a dull ache in my foot. At least I could make an attempt to run properly and fulfil my second ambition in the race. To actually overtake on the run. In the distance there was somebody clearly suffering and going even slower than I was. I set my sights on him, put my head down and started to reel him in. Other people were still overtaking me of course but I was blinkered now. Only one thing mattered. I had to get past him. As I got closer I recognised him as one of the emaciated waifs that had hurtled past me on his Raleigh three speed sturmey archer postman’s bike whilst nibbling on a sandwich he had lifted from the wicker basket on the handlebars. He was clearly in trouble too. There was blood running down the side of his leg, his tongue was lolling out and he was foaming at the mouth and dragging one foot. What a dilemma for a medical man. Should I stop and help? I’d never overtaken anyone before so I ignored his pleas for an ambulance and shot past him closing my ears to the dull thud and small gasp of breath behind me as he hit the deck. I had finally overtaken someone on the run leg of a triathlon and I was all powerful and could make the finish no problem. I even tried to make some witty comment to some bird watchers, who were walking along with massively powerful Zeiss telescopes, to the effect that they had chosen a more sensible hobby for a Sunday morning but it just came out as a garbled blllllllllrrrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuub  and they ducked trying to avoid getting flying sweat and spittle splattered all over their lenses.   In no time I was over the finish line with a feeling of satisfaction which was quickly dashed as I saw the air ambulance carry my one conquest of the run away to the local hospital. He hadn’t even finished so my overtaking him had been in vain. Selfish sod. I thought triathlon was supposed to be a sociable, caring sport.   As I sit here reflecting on my 2hrs 45mins of agony I wonder whether I should join the bird watchers on the banks of the lake alternately watching lesser spotted mangle warblers and daft fat gits in lycra (who ought to know better) and contemplate how big a pair of binoculars I could get if I traded in my bike. Then the reality sets in. Some people – the ultra thin racing ones – finished that race in a shade over two hours.  I kept going for nearly forty five minutes longer than them and I’m carrying nearly twice the weight. Pound for pound I reckon I was the fittest bloke there.   Bring on the next race!