Galashiels Triathlon

Left for Galashiels in strong drizzle and with some gusting wind. Not the best conditions for a triathlon. By the time I reached Stow on the A7, the sun had broken through and it was a different picture, but a false one as I was to learn later.

The Borders tri series is a friendly, low key event. It is well organised and the scran afterwards is always good. This was to be my first tri for over three years and I was looking forward to it. The logistics for tri’s are that much more complicated than for running and to add to matters I had Harvey with me and he takes a bit of thinking about too. On the way to the event, I remembered what I had forgotten – my swimming goggles. It was just as well we were swimming at Gala pool, and I was able to buy a pair there. Once I had got my transition pitch ready, I hung around waiting for the briefing. This hasn’t changed much over the years, but it is useful to hear about the course. The announcer didn’t fill us in on hills etc, but I heard from a fellow competitor that there was a big one not long after you get on the bike and after that it is rolling.

So on to the swim, I was in heat 2 in the third lane with a black swimming hat. It turned out to be a good lane because only two of the other colours turned up which meant there wasn’t too much swapping positions at the end of the lane. I got a bonus because I miscounted and I was tapped on the head after what I thought was 26 lengths, but it turned out to be 28.

Straight outside, shoes and helmet on and off I went. By then it was raining properly and quite cold. I didn’t feel it at first, but I only had a tri suit on and when we got up the hill and exposed, it was cold. I managed this quite well; my main worries were that I wouldn’t be able to brake properly, because my hands had become numb or that my hands might slip off the handlebars, because everything was so wet.

I got up the first hill quite well and got into a good rhythm on the bike. I was in a group of about five who kept over taking each other and this is a good way to get through the kms. Then it felt bumpy under my back wheel – a sure fire sign of a flat tyre. I got off and found… yes it was a flat, but not fully flat, but it was going soft. I wouldn’t have been able to change the tyre because my hands were numb. After a few minutes I was off the bike again, trying to get the pump on the tyre with my numb hands – it worked and I got another couple of kms in before I had to get off again and pump. Fortunately, I was quite near the end of the ride and made it back to the transition area. I reckon I lost about 10 minutes because of this.

Off with the helmet and on with the running shoes and around the hilly, rooty course through the park woods. I was having trouble running on numb feet and seeing through steamed up and rain covered glasses and you had to be careful of the roots, ditches and rocks. Got around and the finishing time keepers shouted well done.

Not far behind me was a guy I know from past tri’s and we got chatting. Then it emerged that he had run around the course twice. I had forgotten it was two laps! A quick word with the time keepers and I was off around the loop again. It was much easier the second time!

So it was testing and a bit of a disaster, but I enjoyed the banter and meeting people I knew. The results will be out in a couple of days, and I’m looking forward to the next one in Selkirk. Oh yes, the scran was excellent.

A newbie on the block

I’m a newbie, virgin, just off the boat beginner at the blogging malarkey. The blurb says it's just about writing down your thoughts and sharing them with people… aye right!
If anyone is going to read my blog then it will have to offer them something. I’ve already hinted that I’m a bit of a butterfly, landing on the flower that seems to be the most interesting at the time. Is that a good thing for a blogger to be? In fact, what is a good blogger? In the best traditions of social research, I decided to do some fieldwork and find out what makes a blogger.
First of all the fieldwork. I looked at the styles of well know local and international bloggers. This wasn’t as difficult as it sounded. I had four bloggers who I occasionally read and they acted as my random sample.
First the international blogger Natham Bransford. This guy is a literary agent for a high flying publisher and a highly recommended and prestigious blogger. He lives on the West Coast of the US and writes about all things to do with writing and getting published. Having read some of his posts I noticed two things - he is well received and gets lots of comments – okay three things – he writes very well (annoying ), four things – he writes like a West Coast American, with lots of references such as ‘Let’s shoot for the high country,’ or ’ I'm a Times New Roman guy, so I'd shoot for 3-4 pages double spaced TNR.‘ Having read this I must be on the track of something.
Next comes a well known runner (in East Lothian he is) and jazz enthusiast Stuart Hay. Now I can really relate to this guys wit and in depth knowledge of the said running and jazz, both things I like, but maybe not as much as Stuart. Applying the test of noticing things about his blogs… well yes he does sound a lot like a Scottish runner who likes jazz and has a lot to say about running and jazz. So that can’t be a bad thing can it?
Now I come on to Nicola Morgan, who describes herself as a ‘crabbit old bat’ who helps people who need a publisher. Reading her posts, I notice that she tells her readers that getting published is an incredibly difficult business, rent with heart ache and disillusion and the only thing to do is ‘ never, ever give up writing.’ She also mentions chocolate quite a lot. Now this woman is very successful, she has published loads of books and when I met her she was the chair of the Scottish authors society. Does she live up to her title?… well she likes to think so.
My final piece of research takes in my good friend Christine Howson. Now Christine is a mother, a very good swimmer and she likes triathlons. So we have a lot in common, apart from the mother bit and of course I’m not a very good swimmer, anyway, what she writes about is her family and various aspects of family life and events that happen to her, such as swimming and entering triathlons. I must say that she sounds like a mother a very good swimmer and of course, a marine biologist… that is obvious from the photos on her blog.
So what has my research shown? Well all four bloggers are good writers and they write like the people they are, and about the things that are important to them.
And what have I learned?
1. A blogger is a person who likes writing and posting things on a blog site.
2. It’s important to be a good writer.
3. It’s a good idea to write about things you are interested in with a style which is instantly recognisable as your own and not somebody who lives in San Francisco.
4. It helps if the things that interest you, also interest other people who can comment on what you have written.
5. Reading other people’s blogs is good idea.

Now that I have carried out this research I feel ready to move on to the next stage in my blogging career and find out how to become a good writer. Work out which of the many things I am interested in, I should write about. After that I can write a little tag line describing my blog and what it is about… brilliant.