Just 15 seconds

picture by Dioboss

The worst part of the triathlon is coming out of T2 (the second transition: bike to run)

The point about transition is: you have to concentrate.

Otherwise you might spend valuable seconds, say, running the long way way around the bike racks, falling over your own pedals and then pulling your elastic laces too tightly and feeling your toe slowly and irretrievably bruising between km3 and km4.

But that's the same for T1, I hear your cry, so what's so special about T2?

Well, what makes T2 different is: it's the start of run. So, you rack your bike, you change your shoes, you straighten up slowly and you gingerly test the legs that have turned to jelly from the cycle-ride and you get going and you suddenly realise that there's no point jogging the 200m from transition area to the start line... dude you've gotta RUN¹

I was in the Thames Turbo Triathlon. I achieved a personal best [:-)] 2min 20sec faster than last year, with improvement on all three legs (in retrospect I realise 5 mins was hopelessly unrealistic)

I copped a red light at the junction by waterworks; I wobbled and faltered when I took the u-turn at the roundabout much, much too fast; .... yes, I got lost in T2....; and I stopped momentarily at km3.5, adjusting my elastic laces in a (no doubt) vain effort to save my toenail. And, infuriatingly, I ended up finishing just 15 SECONDS slower than my mate John.

Not that I am competitive or anything.

When I went back afterwards to retrieve my bike my neighbours were telling war stories. "I overtook you on the bike", 652 announced to 534 (rather gleefully, in my opinion) "and I overtook you again during the run!"

"Yeah," said 534, only slightly annoyed, "so I sure whupped you in the transition, didn't I?"


In other news: in a fit of inexplicable absent mindedness last week, we somehow forgot all about the credit crunch and went and bought a house (yes, we're those ones mentioned by name in the recent Halifax market survey). Oh well, we'll enjoy it when we retire. When perhaps it will again be worth what we paid for it.

Meanwhile to any of my American readers who'd like to rent a beautiful 15th Century English house, in the charming town that Henry James loved and treasured... well now's your chance.

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¹ My children tell me that only Americans can use the word 'dude' and get away with it; but I rather think I carried it off.