Ironmen and triathlons

I am not a big fan of running and find the gym tedious but need to get incentivised so, after realising that training for halfmarathons was tedious I decided to try a triathlon.

The idea was that the cross training would be good for my body, keep me interested and the fact that I like swimming and cycling would counter my dislike of/inability at running.

A good plan, but one that ultimately led to me doing a halfironman which raised over £3000 for charity. More specifics on that in due course but here’s my top tips for triathlons and (god help you if you need it) ironmen…

1. Don’t tell your friends it’s a “halfironman”-it’s an ironman 70.3 with a 1.5 mile swim, 55.7mile cycle and 13.1 mile run, it’s harder than a marathon

2. A half ironman is bloody hard (see 1 above)

3. Use good, waterproof suntan cream. I recommend p20, after having embarrassing trisuit burn lines for months…

4. If your girlfriend applies decent suntan lotion (see 3 above) make sure she applies it fully-the finger marks lasted even longer…

5. Buy the right size wetsuit-being able to breathe in the swim is really quite beneficial.

6. Buy a trisuit-although these aren’t flattering you don’t want wet underwear and saving time on the transition means making up for being rubbish…

7. Don’t assume that because the triathlon is on a big lake that the cycling/running will be around that lake (my halfironman was on lake Zurich)

8. Switzerland is hilly, and the Swiss like cycling hills (see 7 above)

9. Don’t devote all the training to disciplines you like (I hate running and that’s at the end)

10. Do take a support crew-my girlfriend, sister and brother were amazing, even though my brother had a nap because he was “exhausted” and they all had icecreams because it was so hot

11. Switzerland gets surprisingly hot (see 10 above) but not in the lake…

12. Buy some antichafing lube, I’ll dig out what I found, but vaseline probably works

13. Don’t decide to drive the cycle route late the night before the event and get lost on impossible hills (see 8 above)

14. Fuel properly, fancying a pizza the night before is not quite sensible.

15. Do it for a good cause, takes the pain away! If you can’t think of a good cause, try http://www.cancerresearch.org or http://www.oytsouth.org.

And finally…Enjoy it and have a few beers afterwards (but remember you may be dehydrated)!