Stunned, Shocked, Suprised.

Ah heck, this is taking some writing. I’ve been trying to work out how to word this post all week. I feel that the way I word this post could give totally the wrong impression about me and here I am a week after the event still shell shocked and still unable to think of what words would best describe the occasion. Obviously reasons why I drive a lorry for a living and don’t write novels!!

So now to the biggie, the North Devon Tri Presentation Night last weekend!

So we all meet up and have a drink, then it’s into the main room for the meal (where I first see the parents). There are raffle tickets being sold for spot prizes and voting slips going around for the annual awards. All goes well through the meal and we’re soon off to a back room for the presentations. I pick up the Best Male Triathlete Award which was sweet. My parents had written a card out which was read out to everybody thanking them for all the support they'd given my before, during and after Ironman Florida, they had read the clubs forum and been touched by some of the things written when I qualified for Kona. Then my buddy Tim goes up front and produces a piece of paper from his pocket. He starts rambling on about my race at Ironman Florida, how half the club had stayed up through the night watching and how I’d finally managed to qualify for Ironman Hawaii. I’m now getting worried as I do when I’ve no idea what’s going on. I look round and my parents are both getting emotional at Tim’s speech while Shelly is standing open mouthed obviously knowing no more than I did...........

This is where I take a pause for some explanation –

My Tri Club are amazing and for the last 2 years many of them have been sat in front of their computers until late in the night watching and waiting for me to finish Ironman Florida (my Usain Bolt pose on the finishing line was my little way of thanking them). When we realised that I’d qualified for Kona one of the many thoughts that went through my head was “How the hell are we going to afford that?”. I mentioned on our Club Forum that it was a factor and the next thing I knew people were pledging to donate cash to get me there. The whole idea of taking cash out of my friend’s pockets to enable us to have what is basically a holiday made me feel a little uncomfortable. While it just goes to show what brilliant friends we have, I still felt very unsure. I firmly believe that if you can’t afford to finance something yourself then you really shouldn’t do it, sure if some company wants to throw me a few quid then why not, they can probably use it as a tax break anyway.....but taking money from my friends - no. I sat down with Shelly and we had a chat about the financial implications before signing on the dotted line and committing to the big race next October. I put my thoughts across on the forum, thanked everybody for their hugely over generous offers and left it all for the dust to settle and for people to forget all about it.

So back to the party/presentation night and back to Tim, who was now finishing his speech and reaching down into a bag to pick up what looked like a rolled up poster. It was only when he and our Chairman James unrolled the ‘poster’ that I realised it was actually a big cheque from North Devon Tri to me for £750/$1200. Behind my back the sneaky things had been having a whip round and I was totally gobsmacked. There were no words, there was no speech. It’s very rare I’ve not got something to say or a comment to make but I was simply stunned.
It’s not just the fact they collected but the amount that was collected (apparently it’s even more now). The club is very small and I’m good at Maths, some people have put bigger sums of money into that pot than I could possibly have imagined and I’m massively grateful for every single penny. To this day I haven’t actually thanked them properly, I’m a brash sarcastic character and being all meek and mild isn’t something people see from me. I was speechless on the night and in truth I’m still speechless now, hence the reason it’s taken me a week to work out how to write about it.

Anyway, it’s written now. I’m amazed, shocked, stunned, surprised and many, many other words. My Tri Club are amazing and I love them all. This is a one off though, I can only be nice to people a couple of times a year or I’ll turn into a frog. Next time I see any of them I’ll be giving them a mouthful of abuse, just like normal. Happy Days.

Best bit of the night? I’ve got Tim’s speech (and I’m keeping it!!)

Thank you North Devon Tri. Thank you soooo much.

Life begins at 40 (so they say)

Ok where do I start? This week has been crazy, unbelievable and OTT in so many ways.

I’ll start with the Training Log as that’s pretty simple. After the Aquathlon on the 6th I had 3 days off and then it all just seemed to kick into gear. I cranked out 1h45m on my hybrid bike (the shopper) on Thursday, then did a 1hr run/1hr swim on Friday and a 1h45m bike /1hr run on Saturday. It all looked good going into the Club’s Christmas Party on Saturday night, but that’s where it stopped and I’ve done diddly squat since. I suspect that 4 days of nothing is hardly ideal preparation for the planned 40mile run this Sunday. It’ll be interesting to see if that actually happens.

So onto my Birthday!!! On Tuesday (15th) I hit the big 4-0! I know, it’s hard to believe I’m any older than 30 with my youthful looks and my amazing physique isn’t it? Well now that my tongue has been prized from my cheek I can get on with the tales of my Birthday goings on.

So it’s my 40th and I’ve been to and heard of enough 40th parties to really just expect anything and be surprised by nothing in the weekend before. I couldn’t help wondering if my parents were going to show up at some point, it’s just the sort of thing they’d do. I even opted out of phoning them to discuss the football, just in case they didn’t answer and I ruined any surprise. As the day went on there was no sign, but then when we rocked up at the Tri Club’s Christmas Dinner that evening there they were sat at the end of a table with my nephew David. I genuinely had no idea (just my suspicious mind) and it was great to have them there, the only problem being that after they’d travelled all that way we didn’t actually spend that much time together as the whole ‘club thing’ was going on too. There was of course Birthday Cake too (my second one) which I’m still troughing my way through. Couple all that with my mixed bag of Birthday presents including the healthy (Nike Air Pegasus and a Garmin 310XT) and the not so healthy (cake, chocolate and TWO bottles of Drambuie).

The only downsides to my birthday were the fact that people kept wanting to celebrate it before the day (didn’t they realise I was in no rush to hit 40) and that on the day itself I had to work a 14hr shift. Ah well.

Tune back in tomorrow for the big tale of the weekend, the North Devon Tri Presentation Night. That really was something else.

Christmas Aquathlon

I guess that as I haven't posted for a couple of weeks I'd better start with last weekends race. I wrote a wee blog report for the Tri Club HERE after the race which has the basics in it. My race was great fun as always. After a morning spent setting stuff up and setting off all the race day athletes it was time for 6 of us to put down our marshal bibs and jump into the pool for the final send off. Off on the 600m swim I set out much faster than my normal metronome pace as I knew people would use me for pacing and it would confuse them (:-D). After 200m though I eased back off the gas and bimbled through the last 400m at my normal effort. Out of the water in around 8:15 I proceeded to put on my race gear of Hawaiian stylee grass skirt, seashell bra, lei and flowery bracelets. Unfortunatly a slight wardrobe malfunction (my bra fell apart - sympathy vote please girls) meant I was stuck in transition for 3 mins and by the time I left there the rest of my wave were out on the run course ahead. I picked up my video ipod and headed out of the door for the 5k run looking forward to capturing some cracking race day footage.

Soon I was catching people, first on the radar was Phill who was dressing in his 4 year old son's Batman outfit, very fetching!!!

Soon he was dispatched with a wave at the video camera (I think it was a wave anyway) and my next target for the video was just ahead, this took the rediculous form of Club Chairman James who's amazing Mary and Jesus creation was something to behold. He made the crib/pram himself, check out those wheels. Once Mary, Jesus and the Newtons were dispatched it was time for Dave 'Kung Fu' Spencer and Little Miss Christmas Lotty. Now the only one left was Club Sec Mark whos below par effort of fancy dress was a Christmas Hat and a Speedo Wedgie, much as I tried though he was getting no closer and I had to concede defeat.



Once the 'racing' was over it was time for the presentation, another of my duties for the day. When the final results came out I was 5th, but we all know I won really. The first 2 overall were far too young to beat me (12 and 13) so they should have been DQ'd for their downright cheek. Mark was 3rd but of course running with no top means a DQ and 4th place was 1st woman so she doesn't count. Therefore I won by default - Champion :-D. It's amazing how high you can place when you have control of the results - of course, with it being a Christmas fun race I allowed all those cheating, 3ft tall, wrong sex people to believe that they beat me. We all know the truth though.

It was only when I got home later and prepared to release my video nasty to the world that I realised I'd screwed it all up. Every time I thought I was turning the recorder on or off I was doing the exact opposite, hence lots of video of my flowing grass skirt and legs but none of the actual race - Doh!!


The next post will follow very shortly, not tonight though I need my beauty sleep. In it I'll 'attempt' to go through the crazy things that happened last night at the North Devon Tri Christmas/Presentation Party. I'm still struggling to get my head around it, but I REALLY do belong to THE GREATEST TRIATHLON CLUB IN THE WORLD!!!! When you read about it you'll agree!!