The Price of Pleasure

                                                           Chichester Festival Theatre 

Prices of everything are going up, there is no argument there. If we go to Chichester, the town that is our preferred movie, theatre, restaurant, coffee and shopping town, we know that we will get off lighter than going up to London but, it will cost more for everything compared to our small town of Littlehampton.

 

The Cross in Chichester

Cineworld in Chichester is a little more expensive that the tiny Windmill Cinema in Littlehampton, but the cost of drinks and bags of sweets is much cheaper in Downtown L.A. (Little’Ampton as the locals say) Then of course we live up the road and don’t have to drive half an hour to get there. The local advantage is that they have volunteer staff working in our quaint little local Kino, who are all both polite and helpful, yet in the defence of Cineworld, it has air conditioning and that is nice on a hot summer day but is staffed by youngsters who could not care less about courtesy.

 

 

Chichester Festival Theatre and its baby theatre the Minerva are my favourite places to go. It costs around half the price of a London theatre ticket and has superb prior to London plays and shows with big stars working for cookies compared to being in a movie. We can have dinner quite reasonably, having parked at the theatre and walked just a little way to a choice of half a dozen good restaurants. The CFT is thirty minutes away from our home on the way in, and only twenty minutes home by car later. We will be home around 11pm compared to going up to town for a show, having dinner and staying in a hotel because we are past staying up until two in the morning to drive home.

 

Start of the Sprint race at Worthing 

The same goes for our life as triathletes. The local event organisers are putting on great fun events, well marshalled and organised for around half the cost of events further afield. The Worthing Triathlon that my husband/coach/bestie and I took part in last Sunday was a qualifying event for the European Championships in 2017 as I have pointed out previously; so this means that it is accepted by the governing body, the BTF as a quality event. On top of that, it costs nothing to get there, not having to pay to park your car, not being ripped off by food vendors, it also gives away all the race photos that can all be downloaded for nixxy-poos.

 

 

Events in large cities are twice the price to enter and if you want the photos that were taken of you bursting your lungs, you will have to pay more than the race entry itself cost you in Worthing! In two weeks time we are looking forward to a big race in Brighton and Hove where, fair enough, there will be road closures, a secured transition, to cope with the registration and bike racking the day before. But the down side is the cost or pretty nearly a hundred pounds per athlete. It is not a qualifier for any major event, nor is it a championship event. It will be a class event though; the race organiser having experience from the sports earliest days to the Olympic Games. You do pay much more for diamonds than you would for crystals but they both sparkle and they both give happiness.

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection on Things Unsaid

 

Some things are best unsaid they say

And sometimes that can ring so true

The harder to mention through a delay

The first lash across the heart they flay

Another quiet prayer to softly say

Wonder what if anything one should do

Leave it gathering dust for a later day 
 

Yet the blow seems cruel and of will

Questions whirl and turn to stone

Deliberate or careless issues spill

Deep thought of ancient phantoms kill

Haul unforgotten harm further up a hill

Stiletto of spite pushed deep into bone

Watching birds sympathetically trill 
 

Joy in every aspect bar one sorry ache

Was offence ever there to be taken

Scrap by scrap trust starts to flake

Creates a downward slithering snake

Irritation mentally filed true or fake

Hope for a salve for love forsaken

Restore a bond now sleeping to awake

 

 

 

Worthing Triathlon: Standard Distance

 

My race 

After we got back from Steve coaching our club swim session last evening we ate my preferred pre race meal of fish and potatoes that was hand made for me by my super cook husband. He had made a delicious haddock and salmon fish pie with a mashed potato topping earlier in the day and all I had to do was turn the oven on so that it was ready after swimming. It was early-ish to bed last night so that getting up for Worthing Triathlon would not be difficult. To relax our minds we watched one episode each of Season 5 of Hell on Wheels and one of Preacher both of which we are loving. 

I woke at 4.30 am, got up and made my coffee/honey mix for my bike drinker. Steve woke up just a little later. The race venue is only about five miles away and since transition was to close at 7.15 a.m. We didn’t need to leave too early because at that time on a Sunday morning parking would not be a problem. We parked just a short way across the green and walked our bikes into transition, laid our bike and run kit out and made mental notes to help find the bike after the swim. Mine was directly in line with beach hut number 142 and Steve’s was in line with a dog-poo bin just out side the transition railings. 

After a unusually lovely few August weeks of sunshine and warm weather I had predicted on Facebook yesterday that Sod’s Law would cause the weather to break before morning, even though Steve’s favourite Surf website had forecast condition for late last night and this morning  as ‘GLASS’…… Wrong. By the time we got to the race base at the Goring End of Worthing beach area there was a fairly strong wind blowing and dark grey black clouds all around. I’d say the sea was looking choppy if a wanted to be kind and the full high tide was not until and hour after the last wave of swimmers set off. 

The last wave was all 55+. So I would be setting off last with men and women in all the older age groups. I am in the 75-79 age group and was the oldest person racing, not just the oldest female. I figured that I would be on my own fairly quickly since I was starting with five age groups that also included my husband in the 65-69 group. 

The current was running in one direction and the wind was blowing a hooley in the opposite direction. On giving me my last, coach to athlete advice, Steve told me where to start on the beach and to take it easy in the swim section, his final words were a question “You don’t mind it being rough do you?”  

It was rough. A more than the usual amount of registered competitors had not turned up at all, some chose not to swim when they saw the state of the sea, and I am told about twenty did not finish the swim and either swam back to shore before completing the swim or were taken out of the water by the life boat. Looking at the results of some people I know, some cut the swim short but went on with the rest of the triathlon none the less. 

I allowed myself to settle in and had planned to swim only at my pool warm up pace so that I could swim slowly and deliberately rather that start with a faster pace. My reason was that I breathe to the left and so was going to be slapped in the face on the outward leg. There were big waves, about a metre I would say without exaggerating; Big rolling waves so that sometimes you could not see the next buoy at all. One of my more worrying traits is that love the feeling of being lifted and dropped by a rough sea I find it quite mesmerising; another reason to take it easy. Steve is right you see, he knows that I enjoy the power and movement of the water. 

At the swim finish I did have a job standing up because of the injury I am carrying but one of friends, who is a fire officer and knew I might find the swim exit hard was marshalling that position, took my hand and helped me for a moment to stand up straight. Thank you Garry Locker much appreciated. I was pretty pleased with my swim. 

The bike ride was very windy and I opted for safety over speed, since it was a hilly bike ride with some exposed sections. It also rained whilst out on the bike and I took the down hills sections carefully too. Since I was the oldest person in the field I had not expected anybody to be behind me after the swim but at least three people passed me at intervals on the 40km course. After they had gone I knew I was the last athlete because a motor bike marshal was passing by, stopping at a lay by somewhere until I passed again and shepherded me all the way back. On the run I did not realise that a marshal on a bike was doing the same thing until he came alongside in the last kilometre or so to ask if I was ok. The return was head on into a wind that had been building up in strength during the event and I was walk-jogging the last few km because it was difficult to breathe directly into the wind. 

Even though I was the last person, there was lots of support, all the Marshalls were just great and I saw several friends who came out on the course to cheer me on. A bit of support goes a very long way. However pretty much everybody had picked up their kit and left by the time I got in the finish. The Town Mayor who had made an appearance had also left having been on hand for presentation. That was well done with by my arrival but Mick Dicker of Raw Energy Pursuits, did give me the age group trophy that I had none the less fairly and squarely won being the only one in that group and a little prize. I was as tired as the Marshalls must have been after all their hard work putting on such a satisfying event that was a qualifier for the European Standard Distance Triathlon Championships in Kitzbuhel, Austria in 2017 

                    Swim     TR 1        Bike      Tr 2         Run              Total

Steve           25.15      2.36      1.34.00      2.11      1.11.36        3.15.38

Daf              37.05     4.42       1.52.31      2.31      1.19.42        3.56.31

 

Rest, Relaxation and Registration

 Out of transition and the way to the start 2014

 

Today started badly; the injury that has been bugging me for a while being as bad as it had ever been when I woke this morning. It took me a full five minutes to even put my left foot to the floor, then and other five to stand with the weight on both feet and not holding on the nearby furniture.

 

 Arundel Park run route

 

Some twenty minutes later it had un-locked some. After a ten minute soak in a nice relaxing tub I was ready to try to stretch it all out a bit. This is annoying, but I am not feeling too badly about it because the massage sessions that I have had two shots at now, have given me much more mobility and I am hopeful that we will get to the bottom of it! Pardon the pun, to those who know where it hurts.

  Lake Michigan, Chicago

 To make the day feel different from a normal Saturday, I made a rare move and put on a skirt for a change. I’m not saying how rare this is but walking into Arundel from the car park I did feel as though I had forgotten my jeans. Breakfast in Osteria,  seated in the window watching the High Street, where they were preparing for the final few days of the Festival; The Arundel Festival is a big affair , and very well done I have to say.  Shakespeare in the Earls Garden, music and street performers, Dragon Boat racing and the Gallery Trail to name but a few of the features.

 

Out of transition on to the bike course 2015

There was no parking anywhere and the wardens were doing their darndest to clear the street. There were expensive looking sport cars parked both side of the hill for some reason. It is a mystery to me why anybody would want to buy a car like any of those, in a country where the traffic only moves and a nose to tail speed. Maybe it’s the BRRRRRUUMMMM BRRRRUMM noise that makes the owners so happy.

 

 

 

 

On our return home we both spent the next hour making preparations for Worthing Triathlon tomorrow in which we are both competing, hopefully to gain a qualifying slot for the European Championships in Kitzbuhel 2017. Steve and I checked out our transition bags and got out the things we would wear to the race in the morning. Actually it is Steve who does the checking if truth be known. He tells me to get my bag downstairs, and outside since it is a nice day, take all the contents out of my bag and put them out on the garden table. I check all of it carefully. Then he comes over and checks it himself and watches me pack it all back inside my bag. At this point I should say that I agree with him, I cannot be trusted to make sure that I have everything I need. I am not an air head as such you understand, but just the opposite, my head is full, quite full, and whirling at the speed of light. I still see many paths in my future, not just one or even two, as written by Robert Frost in his famous poem below. So today’s message is; Keep a look out so that you do not miss an important turn.

 

 

The Road Not Taken 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

 

 

Trouble Spots and Hot Sports

 

A great fun triathlon event that I went to with my friend,
 Mary Ann Wallace.It was in Key Biscayne in Florida.
 It was so hot I thought I would melt. Look at that beach!

 

This morning has been quite busy and after stripping down our bedding and chucking the fitted sheet and the pillow cases in the washing machine, I set about sorting out more of the surplus rubbish from the big move at work. Steve had brought home a pile of odds and ends, bags and boxes that have been sitting quietly on the top of the little office we had in the warehouse unit that we have now moved out of completely. 

Steve had brought the assortment home, on the theory that if we had not found a use for it in the last twelve years, that it is highly likely we will never need those items. So having done a few emails on my desk at home, as usual, there is always something that needs answering; Steve asked if I would like him to transfer the rubbish into the car to take to the tip. 

Huge flashing warning signs started to explode in my head, remembering the last time he was so helpful! Steve has been barred from the tip for putting things in the wrong containers. I have also barred him from the tip, since I have developed a nice friendly relationship with the guys who work there. It took me about thirty minutes to sort out the things Steve had brought home. I explained that not only do you need to sort trash into ‘like’ bundles, you also have to know your way around the tip and therefore you have to load the car in the correct order or you are in trouble, and making life more difficult than it needs to be. Eventually I had everything sorted, all paper and cardboard together, all electrical items together, wood metal and plastic, all in separate bags plus two old vacuum cleaners, why did we keep those for goodness sake. 

I belong to the small, and getting smaller, group of people who prefer to treat others how they would like to be treated themselves and I find that this attitude helps a lot. A friendly smile and a warm ‘Hello and how are you’ goes a long way. A small tip, very discreetly given is also helpful, though not officially approved of. Working at the tip is a horrible job and it is best to remember, that the guys working there are doing a job that I for one would not enjoy being obliged to do. It would also be fairly hard to be stuck with a mucky job like that and be expected to be helpful and civil.

 

*************** 

Having cleared my car of trash, the next stop on my list, was to call into the doctor’s surgery. I had hand written a short note asking my doctor or the duty doctor, if you don’t want to wait several weeks for a reply, it is best to not be too firm about wanting to see the doctor that you are registered with. I am more concerned with getting the result that I have requested, rather than waiting two or three weeks for the next step. The note was to ask that I be referred again to the consultant in the dermatology department at Southlands Hospital. It is about a year since I was last there for treatment of a little skin problem caused by so many races that have found me biking and running in the blazing sun for all the hours of daylight and more.

 

I think this is the finish in the Hawaii Ironman World Championships

The timing clock reads 16 hours 30 minutes and 21 seconds... a long day.

 

Over the last handful of years I have had a couple of these little gremlins removed or frozen every year. The first one needed a minor piece of surgery to remove and it was followed some time later by a letter from the dermatologist saying that it was a Rodent Ulcer and that this ulcer was right at the end of the leaf shaped piece of skin he had removed and that there was the outside possibility that every scrap of it had not been removed and that there was a possibility that it might return. Well, it has and right bang in the centre of the original scar. It seems to be growing more quickly this time and has started to seep a tiny dot of a blood like substance. There is another small changing speck on my forehead a few inches away from the other. I hope that I do not have to wait to long to get an appointment. They may only be tiny dots but the worry is greater.

 

 

 

 Another hot day in Kona, Hawaii

 

 

 

 

 

House Rules and Guidelines

  Outside out business premises

My husband has been testing the boundaries of late and I have not been too mean about it because I know it has been a difficult time in our business with the change of warehouse situation. Now I have had to call a top level meeting to re-establish the previous guidelines. The first and most important protest that I have brought up is that I don’t want the entire house to be his office. Steve did nod nicely when I called this to his attention and he did clear some parts of our main room in the house, that being what most people would call the lounge or the sitting room. Our friends and family know that this, in our case is a combination room. We sleep in a large French bed at the back garden end of that space, close to the french doors. There is not a dressing table, there is not a wardrobe. Moving toward the middle of the room there is a French table that can also be used as a desk this stands at the dividing point of that once upon a time dining room area. The rest of the space is a relaxing, sitting, chatting, reading, TV, radio, music playing place, then just in the bay window stands a marble top Gueridon at which we eat our evening meals, sitting on the little French arm chairs in the bay window overlooking the small front garden and street. This lengthy description is to make the point that it is a room that we have jointly put a lot of thought into making it exactly what we both wanted. That is why I do not want its style and character ruined with office clutter. During this last week I have removed and couple of things every day whilst Steve has been out.

 

 

 After a presentation from Inspire leisure

The upstairs front room has been carefully planned also. Steve knows that I like to write for pleasure and relaxation and I have chosen the bay window as my writing station. I have also claimed about a metre of space behind my chair and requested that I have some time alone in that room, at least a couple of hours a day, when I would prefer not to be doing business work on the computer. Some times Steve goes along with this and sometimes not. I try to be agreeable to office work first thing of a morning, after all the training and before he goes out, it works mostly but he still rings me to send an email here or there or make an invoice out. I also expect to have more work to do on his return in the afternoon. We are both still working, he more physically than me these days, but I am still the head washing ironing and gardening lady. He has his own desk, his own computer and his own set of drawers plus a filing cabinet and umpteen shelves in one of the back rooms. We won’t mention the Turbo room.

 

 

 Tuff Man: The marathon section in Kingston

For over twenty five years I was the third person in the list of importance under this roof, so now that Steve’s Mum is holding court in the pink satin salon in heaven, talking about when she was young in Bankgrove, the big house she lived in with her parents, where there was a french maid, a gardener and a pool boy, I feel I can ask for more consideration. It may sound demanding but I won’t be backing down.

 

 

 The Gardens of Versailles on an anniversary celebration

Two weeks ago Steve brought his triathlon transition bag into….. yes, I am going to call this ‘MY SPACE’, he said he would sort it out and repack it ready for the next event. It sat there for two weeks before I gathered it all up and plonked it in the back bedroom/office/dressing room/store room. It is almost presentable here now.  

On the whole, my husband is a very sweet, and mostly considerate. He is also funny and excellent company. I like him as much as I love him. He likes to cook. He likes to do the food shopping himself daily. He is my first choice of companion to go out with to the cinema, theatre, dinner, lunch, coffee, and of course training. Mostly we do as he suggests. So I don’t think it that unfair to ask that my very few little rules and guidelines be remembered.

 

 

 The original Gayer Anderson Cat at the British Museum

Please do not come into the house wearing trainers especially when they are covered in mud. Please do not leave the garage door open, especially when our best bikes are standing there. Please do not put items directly on top of the boiler, just a little quirk that one but it worries me. Please do not leave windows open when there is nobody at home. Common sense that one. Please do not be disrespectful to my favourite ornament (a full size copy of the Gayer-Anderson Cat), don’t ask please. I don’t like arguments, I think they are nasty. I like straight talking. I like a few house rules that we can both stick to. I don’t like nagging and I don’t like being nagged.

 

 

 

Injury and Recovery

With my penultimate event coming up this Sunday I am so pleased and relieved that after just two visits to sports massage therapist Vicky Vickery, I have a lot more movement and a lot less pain than I did before my husband told me I had to get something done about my injury. 

It had got to the point where it was excruciating to move myself from any horizontal position. It was pretty weird to get to the point, that although I was able to walk, ride my bike, and run with not much more than a slightly tight reminder that something was not right at the top of my Hamstrings and into my lower butt area. When it came to swimming the message being sent from my body to my brain slowly got more serious and finally, demanding that it have my problem properly in investigated. Whilst swimming, the same slight feeling of tightness intensified to a slight tweak of pain during my body’s long axis rotation, when my right arm stretched out and my left foot kicked down. Then at session after session only the swimming was showing signs of getting worse. It started to hurt pushing off at each turn in the pool, I have got a good push off, I would say, even at my age, it is a good as anybody that I train with; Sometimes my husband will push off in the next lane (fast lane) and will wave at me before his strength and speed pulls him in front of me. 

Crunch time came when a few weeks ago I found that I could not put my left foot to the pool floor to stand or turn and added to that, was a very painful spasm period on any attempt at trying to stand up straight. Once I was fully standing the pain would ease off after a few steps. At that same time, I was finding it difficult to get out of bed, both in the night and in the morning, again having to support myself and very slowly lower my left foot to the ground whilst straightening up slowly. 

I admit that I did start to think that maybe this was not anything that could be treated and that it was just yet another sign of old age creeping on. So putting a time scale on this; I had my first treatment last week, that was according to Vicky just trying to loosen off all my leg and butt muscles and see how than went before ‘Delving Deeper.’ 

On the Friday evening of that week I did a swim-run-swim-run-swim, just a mini event that was a test and almost everything seemed better apart from the fact that it was hard getting out of the pool, but no after effects. The next day, Saturday, I biked with Steve and it was still ok, apart from the getting out of bed lark. Saturday evening I swam, the swimming was fine but it was still impossible to put the foot down or get up or turn without hold the side of the pool. Sunday I did our usual hilly hard 10km run and took no longer than I had any time over the last couple of months. Monday 6.30 am swim again. It was still painful on stopping and standing. 

The ‘Deeper Delve’ came later on Monday morning and that did hurt. Any time I stop talking through a massage is a clear sign that it hurts. Vicky said it would be a bit tender and to take it easy for the rest of the day and let her know how it felt later in the week. Well it was tender on Monday and Tuesday although we did take a test bike ride, when it was fine. During this period I have found that the only position I could sleep in, was flat on my back with a pillow under my knees. During the night I got up twice. I am a recovering insomniac from the years of caring for Steve’s Mum during her late eighties and nineties. What I do when I wake now, is a little routine: go to the toilet, walk into the kitchen and look at the moon, maybe make half a cup of hot chocolate, or drink a few sips of water, read a page or too and then do a bit of deep breathing, when I now do fall asleep again. 

Last night I woke, slipped slowly down off the bed; our bed in ridiculously high, almost 3 feet, but that is another story. I stood straight up without the painful twinge, the same again later and no problem getting up in this morning and not a problem swimming either. I know that I am not quite out of the woods yet but I see a huge improvement and feel sure that even with a more challenging event looming at the weekend, I am greatly relieved that I can start thinking that sooner or later I will see the back of an injury that knocked my confidence for quite a long time. 

It is not just at Harvest Festival time that I sit quietly now and again and give thanks. I give thanks for my wonderful family, I give thanks for all the friends I have accumulated over the years, I give thanks for good health and for all the things in my life that make me happy. I would like to give thanks for world peace, but that ain’t happening just yet. I also give thanks for those who advised me to get treatment and go to Vicky Vickery for her fine work.  Even when I am feeling down I still think about the good things in life, because although waking up in pain is not ideal, it’s a whole lot better than not waking up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cartophiles, Arctophiles, and Unicorns

My husband has been kept very busy recently with moving our business premises during the last couple of months. That sounds like a long time but it involves moving our antiques showroom and combining it with our container packing department next door. There are a number of reasons for this and one is that as Bob Dylan many years ago declared: The Times They Are A-Changing. The days have passed when we had casual members of the public come wandering in looking for a kitchen table. Now they are scrolling through antiques sites on the internet and that is where sales are coming from. So the need for a decoratively pleasing look is redundant in a warehouse situation. We all have to move with the times.

 

There has been loads of rubbish from our business relocation, taken to the tip because when you have plenty of space, you gather much more than you need and keep everything you might one day find a use for. In addition to all this, another problem is that both my husband and I are seriously afflicted by nasty cases of Cartophilia. We had shelves of maps in our warehouse office. Not helped by both being guilty of this. We love to travel and therefore, we love maps. This was even evident when we first ran off with each other about forty years ago, when we lived in a room over the very first Body Shop in Gardener Street, Brighton. Our first decorating operation there, was to paper the entire stair well area with a complete set of bombing practice maps of the UK from WWII. We gather maps all the time and from everywhere. Those shelves of maps will have to become boxes of maps for a while but neither of us will want to throw any of them away. Many of them are not current which makes then just as endearing. We have a six foot map of the USA on our turbo room wall: Yes, we have a turbo room, though some might call it the box room.

 

 Whilst I am in confessional, I am also an Arctophile which means that our home has bears all over the place, I have been thinking about giving one away here and there before I pop my clogs and they all get thrown in a black poly bag and taken to the charity shop. The giving away thing has not happen yet.

 

 

 

Here we have Big Ed wearing Steve's old school cap and a badge saying he has completed Offa's Dyke Path. He has a dislocated arm that needs attention. The big guy here is fifty year old Shorn, who is our tri club mascot and is wearing trunks and a running vest with an Ironman medal. Shorn was my daughters bear before he got into sport.

 

We have completed a number of long walks, The Pennine Way, West Highland High Way, Offa’s Dyke Path that has nothing to do with gay women but is an ancient border path between England and Wales. We have trodden some of the Coastal Path, South Downs Way of course because its so close to us, and many holiday walks in Switzerland, Austria and even the Michigan Upper Peninsula in the USA. The Camino de Santiago; The Way of St. James is looking closer than the horizon and may be on the five year plan, or closer than that for the 800 kilometres of Northern Spain…. That has to be done. It has to be. I can’t help it. There are walking routes from many places to Santiago de Compostela; we even noticed the pilgrim shell symbol on the pavement in Gdynia, Poland on our recent trip there.

 

 

Polar Bear here is well over sixty and has had a pretty cushy life, hence the wry smile. 

This morning, Steve had given me a list of business emails to send out and had then gone downstairs. Ploughing through my jobs I had a question and went downstairs to asked Steve about one of my jobs of the day. I found him standing by the kitchen sink, wiping a sponge gently at the face of a polar bear soft toy from his own childhood. He quickly put it down as I went in, saying that it had got quite dusty in the showroom, where it had been part of the décor for years. After he left for work this morning I cleaned Polar Bear nicely and he is now sitting in the sun drying.

 

 

Mister Whoppit is a signed and numbered (2819 of 5000) copy of speed ace Donald Campbell's mascot who survived that fatal crash on Coniston Water in 1967.

Dreamers yes, but we are dreamers who have worked to fulfil as many of our dreams as possible in the short time life offers. Not all of those who wander are lost.

 

No Pain No Gain!

Swimming to a bronze medal in the Sprint event at Worlds in Lake Michigan, Chicago 2015

Two days before competing in the Standard distance. 

It was time for the pressing and ironing this morning and I’m not talking about shirts and trousers. No, this time it was the seating area that needed attending to. No, no, no, not the chairs around the dining table or the Eezy-boyz that Steve and I slob out in at the end of the day to catch up on the world and its wickedness. No, we are talking here about me going for treatment to a sports massage therapist who has taken on the task of massaging my legs out of the very tight mode they seems to have adopted of late. It was my second visit to Vicky Vickery in Arundel who is working hard on my Hamstrings and my Gluteus Maximus and Medius and even the darling little Gluteus Minimus, all of which seem to have turned to stone or a least have got very, very tight. For the less sporting folk who may read this; we are talking about the backs of my thighs and my butt muscles.

 

Start of the bike section on my way to gold medal in Worlds in Edmonton Canada 2014 

Vicky, is a lovely young woman looks belie her strength and knowledge. She has a fairly widespread sporting background herself and maybe that is how she found herself in this occupation and today making my eyes water a little as she kneaded away at my Gluteal muscles like a master baker with a very stiff bread dough (I hope my bum muscles are not all that Maximal but its hard for me to see since they are behind me). I wish I could say the treatment was a pleasure but as most sports people know, having tight muscles relaxed and softened cannot be described as pleasure. The pleasure comes by having the pain that you came in complaining about melted skilfully away by a therapist with strong hands, arms, shoulders and back.

 

Second lap in Edmonton cold and wet as England

 

My husband took my to see Vicky because my problem was getting worse rather that better to the point quite unusually that I am losing sleep because being horizontal it the thing that is causing the most pain, I can ride my bike without too much trouble and I can run with no more discomfort other than a slight reminder of the rigid region of my ancient anatomy. When the treatment was over, she left me to have a bit of a stretch and get dressed and said she would bring me a glass of water before I left. It made me smile that she gently tapped the door and asked if I was decent before coming back in which, come on now, it is funny, since I don’t really have many secrets any more from this young woman.
 

National Sprint Championships at Eton Dorney Lake first time their was a woman 75-79 winner 

As an incurable ambassador for my sport I did spend some of my time trying to get her to come to our club swim session since because so many of her clients are involved in triathlon she is quietly gaining an interest, and swimming would be her least worked on of the three disciplines involved.

 

A training run in the Vineyards of Burgundy, France on a work trip. 

Massage is something that has to be faced now and again if not as a regular part of a sporting life. The body needs attention just the same as your bike needs servicing.

The L. Guess Jewellers Waterfront Swim

Steve, with two of his favourite girls Katie and Charlotte before the River swim 

On our usual Sunday run this morning, I found  it quite a hard effort and was surprised that it was hardly slower that we have been doing of late. That was pleasing after my first week doing any sort of sensible, proper training week and finishing the week with the fun event at the Lido on Friday evening, then a bike session on Saturday morning and Club swim on Saturday evening.  I didn’t however have any problem completing the drive to the tea shop in Arundel for tea and cakes and chatter afterwards but declined politely when Steve asked if I wanted to join him in doing the swim in the River Arun in the afternoon.

 

Our friend the lovely long distance swimmer Sarah Cotton First lady vet today. 

There was a choice of a 3000 mtr swim and a 1500 mtr swim which was what Steve chose to do to round the week off. Since the River Arun is the second fastest tidal river in the country, the idea is for the event to be held during the slack period of the incoming tide before it turns to race out again.  This is a quite naughty river and the slack period can be 30-40 minutes or totally non existent or later, or earlier than predictions. Personally I think the River possesses a childishly behaved twisted sense of humour and I for one do not trust this wicked stretch of water for a moment, though I love and respect it dearly. The start had to be delayed for a little while since a large vessel was leaving the harbour and the full high tide is the only time when that is possible.

 

 

Even so, after the ship had passed out to sea, Steve found on checking his Garmin that his swim up river to the turn buoy took 9 minutes 10 seconds and even at the fabled slack tide took 20 full minutes exactly to return over the same course. This means that it was still on its way IN. Steve was 1^st over 60 yrs + in 29.50. 

I was watching from the riverbank promenade and could see how hard people were finding it to swim against the current on the return. Some swimmers who had entered the 3000 metre event stopped at the half way point.

 

Prizes were presented by well known swimmer Mike Latham who so recently swam the channel in a gruelling 21 hours 2 minutes.

It’s a great local event and was very well supported with an enthusiastic crowd.