No. 434

2 hours, 25 minutes and 53 seconds of...abject misery. Well, maybe that is a bit melodramatic, but it was pretty foul today. Note the sorry state of the bike number in the photo!

The river was cold and swollen by all the recent rain, which made the swim a little challenging. After clambering out and almost running completely the wrong way to transition, it was on the bike and 40km of cold and wet tarmac. By the time I came back in to T2, I couldn't feel my feet or hands - bit of a problem when you've got to get into your trainers! It was a couple of miles in to the run before sensation returned to my toes. Someone after the finish remarked that they had never run on stumps before - a nice way of summing up how it felt.

It was an ace feeling though, running down the home straight and seeing C, H and F and hearing the kids screaming, "Go, Daddy!" Very good to have C and the kids there to cheer me on. Though I couldn't necessarily see them, I could hear them at the swim turnaround and exit, T1, T2 and the finish. It gave me a massive boost! :-)

The end result: a time a few minutes quicker than last year and 6 whole minutes off last year's bike split. Not bad given the conditions this year and holding back on the run for fear of doing more damage to my achilles. A pleasing opener to the tri season.

Oh, and yes, that is the remains of a large glass of wine in the background!

:-)