My own Anniversary Games DRAFT

The short story.  I finished!  I didn't die!

That used to be enough.  But now, rather frighteningly, it's not.  I completed it last year in a time of 3:41.  If I was going to do it this year, I had to beat that time.  Or else, in my little one-track mind (well, I guess three-track), the entire year would have been for nothing, and I might as well have spent more time sitting on the sofa, eating curly wurlies*.

But where could I make the difference?  I spent a good few days analysing last years results.  I downloaded everyone's times into a spreadsheet, setup pivot tables, printed graphs, ran statistical analyses, conditionally formatted columns, you name it.  My conclusion - in order to beat my time last year I had to go faster on the swim and/or bike and/or run and/or transitions.  Yes, it took me a spreadsheet to work that out.  Told you I was bad at mental maths.

The longer story.  I finished!  I didn't die!  I beat last year's time!

There were a few things that I had forgotten about last year's race.  Like the dreadful nerves that made me so tense and scared that when CS asked me to help with directions in the car I shouted at him "I can only just swim, bike and run.  Don't ask me to navigate too!", and then promptly burst into tears.
That memory came flooding back when we had exactly the same conversation this year.  Oh, how we laughed.  Not.

The second memory came back around half way round the swim course, when I was sick in my mouth.  I also remembered that - just like last year - my own sick tasted much better than the dock water.

The very long story.  ie boring race report......

The Swim
Last year's time 42.  This year's target 39:59 or faster.  This year's time 40:02.
Gah.  Fell at the first hurdle.

The Bike
Last year's time 88.  This year's target 79:59 or faster.  This year's time 72:59.
What can I say?  New shoes!

The Run
Last year's time 71.  This year's target 59:59 or faster.  This year's time 58:35
Unbelievable.  No, really unbelievable.  The course had to be short.




* To be fair, I have spent more time sitting on the sofa, eating curly wurlies.  Just don't tell anyone.