Ill Concieved Plans Poorly executed

Sevenoaks Spring Sprint 2005

Back at the end of last year I pencilled in Sevenoaks to be my first triathlon of the year mainly because I enjoyed it so much the last time I did it. This was rapidly followed by a bout of fantasy winter training. This involved writing a training plan fit for an Ironman. After realising that there were not 20 training hours in my nine-day week the plan was radically overhauled. The plan was completely rewritten when I found out that I was being made redundant. In the end my winter training boiled down to a swim on Saturday morning and setting the bike up on the turbo trainer for the shed dwellers to build cobwebs on. Undeterred I decided that I would take a more Edwardian approach to training, That is to do nothing, turn up on the day with high hopes and be pleased to play the game.

Well I turned up on the day to find that my carefully prepared cutting edge sports drink, orange squash, had leaked all over my tri shorts. Smelly vaguely of orange I waddled to the edge of the pool hoping that I'd rinsed enough of the squash out so that I would not leave an orange coloured slick in my wake. That would not be a way to win friends and influence people. Luckily no one noticed anything untoward. However the pool was doing strange things with temperature, The deep end was decidedly chilly whilst the shallow end was positively warm. I have a feeling that the deep end of the lengths where defiantly faster that the shallow end portions.

After a transition that lasted so long it could have been measured in geological time I was out on the bike and speeding round the course. I was convinced that I could still smell orange only now with a hint of chlorine. I liked the bike course. Lots of ups and downs with nice views of the weald all around but what I was really looking forward to was the run. Last time the journey though Knowle Park was the highlight of the event.

Oh my God! They have changed the run course. The fiendish race director from Hell has managed to design a run that is almost entirely uphill. It may have been that the shortcomings in my training plan were starting to tell but I prefer to think that it was more to do with a geographical anomaly in the Sevenoaks area. Now let me tell you about the abrasive properties of dried orange squash. It's something to do with the sugar. Well maybe not a full description, in fact it can be summed up in one word - chaffing.

I still like the Sevenoaks Tri but I think that my current training plan is somewhat a blank canvas and may require some work.