I'm glad that's over

It hasn't been an especially memorable triathlon season for me this year. My first race had the swim cancelled; I was ho-hum in the second; dodged jellyfish in my third outing; hung out with corporate types in race four; and finished the season on Sunday by doing only the run leg in a team event.

Nothing to write home about in that lot so, as I say, I am glad that season is over.

PB and Roger

This race I did with my mate Roger who, these days, inhabits the tail end of triathlon fields with myself! He was also the inspiration behind my marathon race effort last year (goal #4 was to beat his best time of 3:24). He was keen to do the swim and bike, letting me finish with the run. I was happy to let him do the swim - especially as there had been a number of sightings of a blue shark in knee deep water in our bay this week. My favourite quote from the shark expert was "The blue shark should not be approached, if it is sick then its behaviour will be affected and unpredictable." All the more reason for me to stay on dry land. As fate turned out there was no shark and NO JELLYFISH either.

While Roger headed out onto the 20km bike leg I went for a lap of the 5km run course as a warm up. I took it nice and easy, trying to relax (I was still sick from last week) and stretch out this damnation back/hamstring injury. (Not sure what it is but after six weeks I think I should go see someone about it. Duh!) Windy conditions made it anything but a stroll along the beach.

So I returned to transition after my warm up and waited till Roger returned. Soon enough I was out on my real 5km run. This started off ok as I motored down to the turnaround - not fast, but feeling good and passing lots of people. On the return it went pear-shaped and I watched people who looked to be going pretty slowly in front of me pull away. It felt awful. I ran about 23.40min which was a full two-minutes slower than I had run in the race on the same course back in November. I have clearly lost a fair bit of form in that time.

Oh well. We had fun. And I got a few bags of lollies for my daughters!

I am rather looking forward to dealing with my injury and getting on with a good running season ahead!