Sprinting in London through the rain

It's a few days since I did the London Triathlon and while by and large my back held up to the challenge, my neck absolutely has not. It started to kick up on Sunday and by today it has progressed to quite the world of pain so I found myself speed dialing my chiropractor to make things better.

It's now a few hours later and I'm £37 poorer. The pain is still there but hopefully a good nights sleep will see to it improving. I also went for a short run 'cos when my neck gets sore I've found a run often helps to loosen it out. As above, the pain is still there but hopefully it'll get better soon i.e. by tomorrow morning.

On the triathlon front, London was this weekend. It was my third in a row and anyone who has followed my journey since April 2006 knows that was not a sentence I ever expect to write. The whole thing has become bizarre. Anyway, I digress.

This year I was doing the Sprint distance again. We had a start time of 4.30 in the afternoon which is quite late. I wasn't quite sure how to spend the day but eventually the clock ticked on towards 1 o'clock and I could edge my way towards the door and tube that would take me eastwards. What I hadn't factored in though was a West Ham home game. With each station stop the carriage got fuller and fuller to the point where I fully expected to not make it out of the train until reaching Upton Park. I felt I had enough time to get back to West Ham and certainly didn't need the stress. As it turned out I was on the right side of the carriage to access the track so fell out of the tube with a sigh of relief - to be fair I think the Hammers I left behind were relieved to see the back of the bike too.

Heading into ExCel this year there were a few changes. The most obvious being a new sponsor - no longer Michelob it's now Mazda. Timing chips had to be collected before racking but from a different part of the building. It was totally fine though and not at all time consuming, we went through easily.

Another difference was how far back our racking location was - row M. As the years go by I seem to be heading backwards, I think initially I started in row C or something like that. Anyway, dumped the stuff then headed out to get acquainted with other changes and watch Julian finish.

Fast forward to the start, another nice new feature was proper wave hats by Speedo instead of the minging rubber things we've had in previous years We were red and I may actually keep this one. Anyway, there seemed an awful lot of people in the wave assembly area, including men, which surprised me. Little did I know it was just the beginning.

Once in the water I got myself adjusted, thankfully I didn't have a repeat of last years last minute goggles panic - thanks mainly to Alex minding me. I splashed about and found a perch in the middle half, half way back which I figured would be ok to start from. We oggied, the claxon went and we were off. For the next 20 minutes I splashed, cursed and generally stressed my way around the course. Suffice to say it was horrible and by the time I emerged from the water I was absolutely livid.

Reason why there were simply too many people in our wave. I discovered afterwards that 715 Ladies completed the Sprint. I saw at least 10 guys so you're looking at least 350 people. We were told afterwards there had been a problem with the Dartford Tunnel so lots of people missed their earlier waves and because we were one of the last waves of the day the organisers let the extras in.

Note to organisers for next year - open up a new straggler / anti traffic nightmare wave.

At no point during the swim did I manage to get more than a few strokes in before I had to battle with someones arms, legs, feet etc. Thing is I've no problem with the crowds generally, you find a groove, find a bit of space and away you go. This time though, there was nowhere to go. Lots of people weren't sighting so you'd be cut up from the criss crossing of blind but energetic swimmers. One of the guys I ended up being behind at one point developed a homing beacon type relationship with my nose - or at least his foot did - how my nose is not broken I will never know.

I looked at my watch when I got out and I was slow. The timing mat was moved further back this year so your wet suit had to be off before you crossed and my official time is 21.55. Words fail me how horrible that is. The bad experience combined with the slow time really left a sour taste in my mouth so as I headed towards T1 I could feel my thoughts drift off into grumbleland. It was going to be a long way before I could cross the line - the rain wasn't going to help either.

Pumping along on the bike I decided to take my swim frustration out on the pedals. It seemed the only way to respond. Head down, chugging along I was cursing under my breath until I heard my name being called out over the wind and rain. Turning left I caught two friends of mine hiding under an umbrella waving furiously. It was simply the best tonic to catapult me out of my doldrums. Total kudos to Anna & Jeremy!

I ended up on the bike for a fabulous 50 minutes before steaming into T2 and quickly dumping and running before heading out back into the daylight for the run piece. I'd had a liquid incident coming out of T1 (managed a single gulp out of my drink as I left transition, then when I reached down to have more discovered it was no longer on my bike so I was a drink free zone in amongst all that rain).

I plodded off for the run knowing that my overall time was looking good, I was in the same range as last year which both amazed and spurred me on. I walked a little bit of the run, made sure to get liquids on board and as I was heading back towards transition o the first lap again my name wafted over the air and it turned out to be another friend. It was great again and spurred me on.

I continued and as I was reaching the end I had reached my very own end. Coming into transition I was almost hyperventilating. Everything hurt. I also managed to build up quite the groaning stakes for those last few meters culminating in my very own Roger Bannister moment collapsing over the finish line into the arms of one of the marshals. It was 1.52 since the claxon and I was done. Done in more ways than one.

Looking back over it all now, I can't say I massively enjoyed the experience. While the swim wasn't great and certainly isn't something I want to repeat, I think familiarity is setting in and even a new PB isn't enough to make me think I had fun. Not sure how I feel about that.

For another year though we all excelled in ExCel. Money is in the process of being raised, muscles are the process of recovering and I'll worry about it all tomorrow instead.