June, July and August 2019 Update
At last I have got myself
into Blog action again and to save anybody trying to work out when I last
posted a page on Daf’s Diary, I can tell you that it was seven whole months ago.
The main reason this page has been sleeping, is because at the end of May 2019
I decided that since the summer was going to turn me into an octogenarian, that
I had better try to make sure that I had done everything I could to give myself
a fair chance to complete the heavy programme of events that I had set in stone
at the time.
My looming 80th
birthday was not the only major hurdle to climb over whilst time moved on
toward the horizon. Steve and I would also reach our 40th wedding
anniversary on May 30th. That was as amazing as me being and eighty
year old woman. Both seemed impossible to believe. It seemed to cause something
of a stir within my sport also, which I found a little baffling since being in
my last year in the 75-79 age group seemed to pass without impressing anybody very
much and yet just a few more months later appeared to be something of note.
In the 80-84 age group then,
I was qualified now for The ITU World Triathlon Championships for 2019 in Lausanne on September 1st.
I really wanted to take my place on the GBR team for that. I also received a
letter from my governing body on May 28th to say that I was also
qualified for the European Sprint Championships in Malmö in 2020 that was from
the results of the Eton Sprints earlier in May.
My races in two June did not go
according to plan and that was disappointing, ultra disappointing for me
actually. The first was Windsor Triathlon that I have competed in over twenty
times, so it can be said that I know that event well. In fact I did win my age
group in the event against the odds, so it was not all bad. About two thirds of
the way through the swim, which was in the River Thames that does have a strong
current after all, a wave of faster swimmers were passing me and I suffered an
almighty punch in the back of my head that caused the lights to go out
momentarily.
I have no idea how long for but enough time
for Steve to get seriously worried and when my head bounced back to the surface,
the first thing I focused on was my husband taking his shoes off on the river
bank obviously just about to jump in to save me.
I swam to the bank
spluttering and stopped there holding my head and trying to recover my
composure. I stayed out of reach because Steve wanted to pull me out. I did
carry on but very slowly, aware as he was, that I was shaken but otherwise fine,
all things considered. Steve was still shouting at me when I got into T1 and
bellowed that if I was stupid enough to carry on, I must at least wear my Gortex
bike coat. It did lash rain for 99% of the race but thanks to my warm and
waterproof coat, I did not freeze to death. In fact I really enjoyed the run
section that went into Windsor
Castle grounds and gave
the competitors two chances to run The Long Walk as it is called.
Alarmingly though, over the next couple of weeks,
little bits fell off my teeth and when I finally got an appointment, almost 5
weeks later, the dentist had to patch up and repair four broken teeth! He asked me if I had been in an accident or if
anybody had hit me; I bluffed through that questioning because it was too long
a story and he would probably only have told me that it was time to retire,
which would have annoyed me
because if you get punched in the head and bang your teeth together, it is not
your fault and in the middle of an open water swim with hundreds of other people
trying to take the shortest line, it is not their fault either or anybody else’s
nor does it have anything what so ever to do with my age or ability.
The second of my two June
races, Ironman 70.3 Haugesund in Norway
also went terribly wrong which was such a shame because both Steve and I had
looked forward to our first holiday in Norway tremendously. The race
director Ivar Jacobsen, had been very kind and responded himself to all my
questions about the event before I entered. He used my story….
(Mad old bat of nearly 80
doing triathlon) on the race website and during the week approaching the event
in Haugesund, I gathered loads of new friends and on social media too because
of that. That much was more than fun, it was heart warming.
This was something that I had
trained so hard for and was looking forward to enormously but in the run up to
the event, I had trouble with my gears and as many times as it was corrected it
didn’t last long. Come race day the weather was far worse than I had endured at
Windsor. Before
the swim start there was a Hollywood movie
quality lightning display with ear shattering thunderclaps.
Still I enjoyed the lake swim
and once out on the bike course still in torrential rain, thunder, fork
lightening and streams of water flowing over the road. My bike gears started to
play up again, until after less than twenty miles there was nothing left and my
little legs were spinning away on not exactly any gear at all and I was out of
the race. We do all our training together and at a point where he should have
seen me and did not, Steve came back to find me in a concerned state, and we
both turned back to the race base.
Such a shame, it really is,
but I try not to get too down when a DNF occurs as they do for everybody from
time to time but it takes strength of will. Things happen, get over it! After
all, we had enjoyed our holiday there much more than we had expected Norway
is so stunning, beautiful and interesting as are its inhabitants.
July it cannot be said was
uneventful. That is not something that describes my life at all. Triathlon is
an important part of me and it keeps me healthy, there is no argument against
that statement. Yet my heart and mind are full of other things that also give
me pleasure.
Before we left Norway, we went to the Viking Village
where I think much of Norsemen was filmed and we had a great time there. We
were a group of very different people who all get on so well. Apart from Steve
and I, a good friend who swims with us 3 times a week came along, as did a club
friend of ours who also runs with us on Sundays who drove there with her mother
who we all call Mutti, even though she is not old enough to be mother to us all
she seems to like the familiarity of the group.
During July there were two
theatre visits and an art house film showing White Crow (ballet story of
Rudolph Nureyev). There was only one local sports event ten minutes from home
Dawn on the Downs, a 12km trail run. That was
very pretty as well as a useful bit of training, as were a couple of sessions
riding loops of Box Hill that is a fun place to train and very convenient for
the purpose since it has good car parks, a very nice cafe and a visitor centre.
Then add that once per month we hold a poetry meeting in our home, just a small
group who read their own work and enjoy listening to everything else and
discussing all work that is brought.
Training continued in earnest
during August over all disciplines with the ITU World Triathlon Championships
approaching in one month’s time. As it happened I was very glad to have
something serious on the horizon to focus on since my daughter’s dog Louis, who
was more a member of family than simply a pet, died on August 8th to
totally devastate everybody.
He was eleven years old, the
best trained and most well behaved dog on earth. He came to stay with us, if
every my daughter Jacqueline and her husband Martin were away on holiday. The
day I heard about his demise I just sat a read through all the poems that I had
written about my walks and adventures with the dear little black spaniel Louis,
alias the Prince of Darkness or plain old Black Bum if he was having a mad day.
Keeping my mind on my training was the only option.
My eightieth birthday came
only a week later. We started that with a 1500 metre pool swim instead of a
structured training session. After that we did a short bike ride followed by
just a 3 km run. This left no time to think before we had a late 2pm birthday
lunch at the Parsons Table in Arundel. Jacqueline and Martin did their best to put
on as cheerful as possible faces for my big day.
More to come about the 2019 season very soon.
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