Moaning and Bitching

Ok, here goes............

We've all seen them at races. The people who go hassling the organiser because they think their time is 10secs out or somebody else has had a prize that they think should be theirs. The people who're so determined to say "Look at me, I'm great" that they'll interrupt a prize giving to argue a point and get a publicity shot when they could easily leave it until later and question things nicely. Those people annoy me intensely!!!

Well unfortunately I'm going to have to become one of those people, so to any race organisers I annoy in the future by questioning results/timings then I apologise profusely in advance.

So, why am I about to become a prize asshole and a race directors nightmare? Well it all revolves around THIS RACE!! (9 weeks ago) where the short story is that I won and got missed off the presentation results totally. It was a huge cock up by the timing company (not the race organisers) and as I've known the organisers for a long time I trusted them to sort things. Which they did (at least to start with!!). I had a very apologetic phone call the next day explaining what I really already knew. I of course was very understanding, I've seen the organisational side happening enough to know that sometimes you're just at the mercy of people you've bought in to do a job. On this occasion those people had let the organiser down badly, I was well aware of that.

Now I'll be honest, if first prize was just a trophy and a tee-shirt I'd probably have let it go a long time ago, but this race had a cash prize. It's not a huge cash prize, it's £100, but I'm not an affluent man and £100 is a lot of money when my finances are dictating that I miss a bundle of races this year so I can get to IM Florida without going totally bankrupt.

So here we are, 9 weeks and two totally ignored emails later in exactly the same situation as I was the day after the race. With nothing!

Now I'm sure if I entered a race I wouldn't get away with simply not being bothered to pay for it, so why doesn't this work the other way? Especially when the race organiser was going to withhold payment from the timing company for their messing up his even, their probably sitting their with their race coffers overflowing. It's such a shame because after doing and enjoying their events for many many years I can't see why I'd enter them or recommend them to anyone again.

Paul Lester - Taunton Deane Tri - Shame on you!!!! That is all, I'll take the financial hit, I really can't be bothered to waste my time chasing the matter any more. But if I do sense an injustice and get in the face of a race organiser in the future, I'm really sorry but this is why!!

Ok, back to normal rubbish!!

Today is the weekend 16-17th of July. 16 weeks from today I aim to be swimming, biking and running around Panama City Beach in Florida. If all goes to plan I'll be getting round there faster than I have in the past, but of course it's not THAT easy!

Ok in truth is should be fairly easy, all I've got to do is pace myself properly and not blow up. That's harder than it seems though. Honest!!

So 16 weeks means it's time to get serious. Time to start training properly. Time to start drinking properly. Time to start eating properly - Ok, you can stop laughing!!! Maybe eating and drinking 'properly' wasn't exactly what I meant as we all know that's pretty much impossible for me.

I did announce on Friday that I'd had my last McD's meal for 16 weeks though, it'll be interesting to see how long that statement proves to be accurate for. I am going to try though and if I can force myself past the choc/crisp aisles in the shops I've half (or maybe a smaller fraction) a chance. Time will tell, but first I've got a case of beer to finish off - no more will be bought though!!

Until next time, when I promise no to whinge so much................