Left to right: Malcolm Hazel, Ian Garrod, Shirley Yarde, kes Alecknavicius, Bob Brown, Andrew Potter, then me, Joe Beer and Steve Lumley. It was Kona, Hawaii 1994.
Even after a poor night sleep I had a very good run this morning and was surprised when Steve checked the Garmin Forerunner and told me it was the 2nd fastest this year at the distance. It had rained in the night and looked gloomy when we left home but luckily, we didn’t get wet though the wind was picking up as we got to the end.
After going to bed at 9. 30pm last night I woke and sighed despairingly when I saw that it was only 12.30. My standard routine in the night is, ‘Wake up, get up’, go to the bathroom without putting any lights on so that I don’t disturb Stephen and that in itself is silly because all Steve has to do to go to sleep is close his eyes though he sleeps with earbuds in and his radio on a talk radio channel. So it is a walk to the loo in the pitch black dark because we have very thick curtains, then I creep back and get into bed.
The next time I looked at Clocky, it was 1.20am. I recited several poems that are lodged in my brain. Sometimes I don’t get to the end of the first one before drifting off but on a bad night I may repeat them several times. That is what happened last night. The ones I say to myself on sleepless night are not great long performances but as a rough guide, they are either sonnets or something of similar length.
I sleep best on my back but I know snore sleeping like that so a try not to. I know…. I am my own worst enemy.
The next tactic; is to think of a really nice walk that Steve and I have done on holiday somewhere or on one of our walking holidays long ago that were point to point over a week or so on ancient paths. Last night I picked one in Switzerland that we have taken a day out enjoying on most of our holidays to St Moritz. That means pretty much every winter, at least once. We have never nor I suspect will never tire of that blissful walk. We sometimes make it harder and a much longer day by starting out from the centre of St Moritz which probably doubles the distance or maybe it seems like that because we are so tired at the end of the day. It is about as peaceful as you could wish and fabulously beautiful, mountains, animals, birds to feed by hand, horse drawn sleighs going past.
Still, yet still, I gave up at 5.30am and got up went to my sewing station and did my nails, which was good use of the time, because I never get around to that job during the day which I hate doing for myself and I hate having anybody else do it either, but I do like my nails painted since at my age there is not much else left of me that I can make look pretty any more.
The photo at the top of the page turned up on Facebook a couple of days ago on a page called Old School Triathlon. It was a nice surprise for me, since I had never seen the photo before. It was taken on my first Hawaii race when I was fortunate enough to have been sponsored for the trip by Matol or Matola as it says on my vest. I look a bit bewildered; New kid on the block at 55 the first time I qualified. Marvellous experience. My race was videoed by Ian Douglas Sweet for Eurosport it was all an amazing dream for me that I will never forget.
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