Rob Steels Triathlon

Rob proves Moore's Law - things get smaller and faster!

A Triathlon? Why?

The question I got asked a lot a while ago. I'd always fancied trying it, so I finally signed myself up for a Sprint distance triathlon – 26 kilometers in total. So swimming, cycling and running one after another can't be that hard right? I still thought I should make an effort with some training. I bought myself a bike, a pair of running shoes, and what I now know exists as a trisuit - a very snug baby grow for want of a better explanation! This caused much hilarity amongst the office as I gave them a quick fashion show.

Cue the need for a bit of training, with about 6 weeks to go I focused most of my training on the run, my weakest discipline, I’ve always been a strong swimmer, and riding a bike is just like, well.. riding a bike.

6 weeks seemed to disappear all too quickly, and so roll on the 25th of September 2011, awake at 6am for a bleary eyed drive to Windsor.

Being a bit nervous about the transitions I thought it would be wise to observe the group before me, I watched the first guy get out of the lake, take his wetsuit off in seconds before he picked up his bike and ran off to the exit without his shoes? A bit odd I thought, but he's done this before so he must know what he's doing. As it turns out he was back seconds later, to put his shoes on! I take note at this point, shoes ARE required for riding a bike!

Now wetsuits are pretty hard to get into, and I couldn't do up the zip myself, it turns out my arms just aren't that articulate. Cue the awkward point at which I have to ask someone to 'zip me up', cheers mate! Being confident about the 1km swim I jumped in the lake raring to go, waiting for the horn to sound. It did, and so followed a mass brawl in the water, I held back, I thought it wise. The last thing I was expecting at this point was to be struggling to swim, in a straight line, I kept looking up only to find out I was heading in a direction that was 45 degrees away from the large orange buoy I'm supposed to be heading for.

Transition number 1 went smoothly enough, as I jumped on the bike for 4 laps of the course (20 km). It was fairly flat and quick. I got into a rhythm quite quickly and just kept turning my legs, like I said, it’s just like riding a bike!

Transition number 2 - smooth again, I racked up the bike and went on to the 5 km run. Now I knew this was going to be the hard bit. Not only was I not the best runner, but I had just swam in a freezing lake and cycled my legs out. I started off slow, with all intentions to build up the pace, but it just didn't happen. Fairly quickly I found my legs telling me that there was no way I could make it to the end, so started a mental battle with myself, mind against body. The final kilometer was a mental challenge of making it to each of the 200m markers. When the finish line was in sight, I found enough reserve to pull out a sprint to break across the line to a mildly receptive crowd.

My end result was a total time of 1 hour 28 minutes, 165th out of 330 people. I'm very proud of that result!

Next challenge? Tough mudder, a 12 mile assault course designed by US marines and special forces, involving some of the most ridiculous and gruelling obstacles. Keep an eye out in May 2012 for updates on that one!

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