- · 1.5km swim
- · 40km bike
- · 10km run
At this
point I had never completed a swimming or running event of any kind. I think
the furthest I had ever run without it being on a rugby pitch would have been
somewhere between 5-10km.
I did have
some experience of cycling - as a teenager I rode trails and dirt jumps with
the occasional cross-country ride. In the summer of 2016, I cycled from
Brussels to Paris and Perpignan to Barcelona in two days each, both of these
were purely for pleasure and a holiday with friends.
So, in
simple terms, I started from scratch.
I did no specific
triathlon training and a barely thought about what was ahead in July until about
April.
April is a
key month in my story as two things happened: 1) my mother turned 50 (and my
sister and I took her away to Bath for the weekend to celebrate) and 2) it was
the end of the rugby season.
My sister
had recently had her first child and I was now an uncle. On the trip to Bath,
Piper was close to 3 months old and I was adamant that I wanted to be the first
to take her swimming so on the second day I dragged everyone down to the local
pool.
There was
an alternative motive to going swimming this weekend; I wanted to see what I
was capable of in the water. While my sister was getting Piper ready I jumped
in…..This is when reality hit me, the pool was 25m in length and I struggled
to make it the other side in front crawl.... At this point I become fearful of the embarrassment
of having to swim the triathlon in breast stroke. I by no means expected to be good, but I certainly thought I could do 150m without stopping (10% of standard
distance).
As my
family emerged from the changing rooms, I was trying to play it cool in the
shallow end of the pool. We took Piper to the child’s section and she really
was like a duck to water. The new experience didn’t trouble her, she loved
getting her head wet – I genuinely thought to myself as a held her she could
probably do more lengths than me.
As mentioned
above there are two reasons why I didn’t start thinking about the triathlon until
April. April was end of a long rugby season. This season had been a good one
for me – it was the first in a number of years where I had played 80 mins most
weeks, not suffered any major injuries and played close to 30 games.
After the
trip to Bath and with the rugby season over, I went onto Wiggle, purchased some
goggles and swim shorts and googled the nearest pool to my home in SW London.
At this
point it is worth noting I weighed in at 77kgs, this meant I was
pretty much your average build for someone my height with a little excess
timber from the winter months.
Instagram - @Triathlon_Ross
Instagram - @Triathlon_Ross
