Art and Sport: Shut up and swim.

        The photo above is my husband/triathlon coach's poolside shirt for club swim sessions.

During the early morning swim set today, my friend Bekka and I got dark looks every now and again because in between swims, during the timed rest period, we over-ran the designated time allowance on a number of occasions. Bekka is the only one of my swim friends that shares my love of movies, plays and such and so when we get together, though both keen to do the swim work, we do talk at great speed in between swims. This morning, I will admit we were guiltier of this than is usual because we were at odds about the award winning film The Favourite. She had seen it weeks ago and like most movie goers thought it the best film this year.

The Favourite had returned to our little local cinema several times before there was a showing, when everything worked for my husband and I to go to see it. First time it was a late showing, 8.45pm way too late for us to go out. We get up at 5 am in the mornings to do our training for heavens sake. Then my husband was away working in France for the next set of film times and so this, was the first time it was possible for us to fit a visit in. 3.30 pm Tuesday and with a weeks notice from the weekly email. We could and did make that a date. Bekka and her friend were already in the cinema when we got there and that is how she knew that we had seen it. Her second visit to see the movie mark you.

         Me on a spring day during one of my many visits to Hampton Court Palace. 

Steve and I don’t always agree about films but on this occasion we thought that the Kings New Clothes had been waved publicly and vigorously. We both thought it was a load of tosh, absolute twaddle as far as we were concerned. OK, Olivia Colman cannot be faulted in anything she does, so we go along there, Academy Award rightly placed. 

This seemed to be a most unpleasant film, make it up as you go along stuff as far as British history was concerned. Then the costumes looked like nothing I had ever seen in all the royal portraits in all the galleries I have wandered around in my quite long lifetime. More like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland. I hated it. I don’t like Emma Stone anyway and liked her less in this, than I did in La-La Land and I didn’t like that either.

The sound in some of the scenes was horrendous and I didn’t like it at all and in fact as we sat there I was wondering how bad it must be for the people who did not have a bit of a hearing problem like myself. Horrid, weird repetitive groans and creaking noises like an old water pump. Then there was the jaw dropping use of a fish eye lens distorting the beauty of the magnificent interiors of Hatfield House and one of my favourite places to visit at lease once a year, Hampton Court Palace. Offense after shocking offense for me.

And so, that is why our timing on the morning swim schedule went sadly awry. There was a hurried exchange each time the schedule called for a brief rest. In the end it was not until my friend left after her normal 30 minutes exercise as opposed to my 60 minutes focused training work out that peace was restored. I think it cost about 200 metres of my set. I was glad to get home for a sweaty wheel spinning session on the turbo trainer with my husband afterwards. At least that went according to plan and helped worked out all the frustration involved in suffering that thoroughly nasty piece of art work by Director Yorgus Lanthimos who must already know that cannot please everybody in this world. 

Any Publicity is Good Publicity

                                         Photo: www.jacqueline-rackham-photgraphy.com

In the light of my coming of (very old) age, I did think it was a point where I could try to do some charity fundraising again. It is five years since I last tried to help the remarkable Chestnut Tree House, when the challenge that I dreamt up was to do a mini triathlon every day for the 75 days approaching my three quarter of a century mark my 75^th birthday. That was a lot of fun apart from the few days when it rained.

So my 80^th will be four fifths of the century. Now even I can’t believe that. How did that happen? Well anyway, this year I will devote my entire triathlon season to trying to raise as much as last times effort when we hit a sum well over £6,000.00. I hope to double that at least this year. 

My great age and the fact that I am still fit enough to get round a triathlon course has caused a bit of a stir and there have been a few articles in the newspapers. The ETC Magazine named me in the top 100 most inspirational people known to West Sussex, along with my hero, spaceman Tim Peake, and Olympian gold medallist Sally Gunnell, and a host of well known folk. That was very nice indeed and I loved that honour.

Recently The Argus was given information about me by the office of the fun Brighton event Run2Music on May 11^th when I will be doing the 10 km; it also has a 5km and a half marathon, all very noisy, dancing, singing, music blaring everywhere. It was a motivational piece and worked well as such. 

I usually submit my own stories to local newspapers and that makes sure all the facts are correct. Most people will not even notice a few little mistakes, it is the heart of the story that matters I suppose. I am a bit of a worrier if things are not totally correct. I was interviewed but still…..

I was promised that a link to the charity would be included and that credit would be given for the photo, taken by my professional photographer daughter. These were not included.

 That story was taken on by my home town weekly, naturally enough, that is how news works, and they popped me the front page. That was nice, very nice indeed and the newspaper added an extra honour by changing their Facebook profile photo to include the front page this week with me and my bike there large as life in the photo taken by Jacqueline Rackham. They used the story as it stood and nobody rang to check, in fact, the first I knew about it was when my hairdresser Helen come to cut and colour my hair when she burst in saying “You are on the front page of the Littlehampton Gazette”. Of course there was no credit for the photo or a link to the charity because they had no knowledge of that one condition.

Even so my darling daughter has said that she will do an action shoot when she gets back from her photographic holiday in Scotland. She thought we should do that to keep the photos fresh and up to date.  How kind and thoughtful of her.

This thought now to conclude this bit of blathering. I was contacted in December by Einar Tho who is editor of the Haugesunds Avis Newspaper in Norway. This is because I had entered The Ironman 70.3 Haugesund and would more than likely be the oldest woman in the event. That will be my main race this summer on June 30^th. I look forward to that tremendously. Einar sent an email with an introduction of himself and followed with nine sensible questions then followed that up with more questions and some clarification.

In the fullness of time he sent me the article to see and who knows what it says because it is of course in Norwegian. I posted it on Instagram and one of my Scandinavian friends told me it said really nice things and not to worry. There was a ripple of new Norwegian follower friends and that is really good I am tickled pink about that. I hope they will come to the race and shout loudly at me, the more the merrier because that is the only down side of races abroad, nobody knows you.

Any publicity is good publicity eh?

To Donate: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Daphne-Belt

If you prefer there is also a link to AgeUK if you google Justgiving.com/DaphneBeltAgeUK

A Weekend with Daf and Steve

            another amazing photo by www.jacqueline-rackham-photography.com

I do try to make pages of my blog interesting for most people when I can, but today I thought I should give an idea of what a few days of my triathlon training is like for somebody with a fairly full life anyway and in the light of the approach of my 80^th birthday which even I find hard to believe. So, non-sporty people should maybe just look at the pictures on this day’s blog, or maybe look away altogether if they tire easily.

Friday morning started much the same as every other Friday with the alarm going off at 5.20 am

This allows us both to be ready to go to our swim session for 6.30 am start. My husband Steve coaches the faster swimmers in what I call the Animals Lane! These are all people I see under the water as much as above the surface.  For these early morning swim sets, three times a week, he swims in that lane too but loses some of his own training but making sure that the rest of his babies are working hard. There is not much rest at the end of each swim before he is shouting GOOOO again. These days I swim just outside of that lane, it is actually in the open area of the pool but most people do not want to swim right next to the fast swimmers because its too splashy. So a friend or two of mine and I swim in a very narrow stretch right next to the lane rope for the most part. We do a deep push of at the ends after turning, passing under the oncoming swimmer behind us and so we are still not taking more that one set of shoulders width of water even though there may be three of us women training in that narrow stretch.

The guys, and a couple of women in Lane 1, are doing a distance or Ironman training swim set and mine is aimed at Half Ironman distance, so the set itself, is around 1900 metres, plus there is a warm up, and for a swim down, I do about 300 metres back stroke because I like to hold on to my backstroke since years ago I did have a county record for 200 back at one time. Who know what life may throw out, one day I may just be a swimmer and not a triathlete any more.

So after the swim on Friday I did a turbo session on my own at home. Then some office work, phone calls and emails and stuff like that.

Saturday morning with another strong wind blowing, there was a turbo again but harder than Friday and Steve was there to crack the whip. He was on his turbo trainer bike next to me but just spinning since he had had a hard week at work. I was sweating buckets and being told what gear to change to and how long to go in that gear. The session was 90 minutes.

Saturday evening we have our club session with some of the same but also some other swimmers. In my lane, there were four swimmers working to this schedule and being told when to go by Steve rather than follow a printed schedule on poolside. The one hour set went like this:

400 mtr warm up

1 x 400 metres

4 x 100

1 x 300

3 x 100

1 x 200

2 x 100

1 x 200

Swim down

  Sunday morning Steve and I went to Arundel Park intending to do two laps of a regular run there.

There was another storm blowing just a strong as last Sunday was during Storm Freya, but the wind coming roughly from the north instead of the south east as is more usual. The run in Arundel Park is off road for the first half and mainly up hill, some is steeply up hill and muddy and slippery. Once out of the park near the cathedral we are back on solid footing again and almost level as far as the top gate of the Castle, then downhill on the High Street as far as the post office. Then the last section is a flat footpath by the moat beneath the towers of the castle all the way back to Swanbourne Lake. Then comes the start of lap two. At the end of that, we were both pleased since we were faster on the second lap by about twenty seconds and that is an improvement for us both. It was a PB for that course for the first couple of months of this year.

Although it was a breathtakingly windy day it was mostly bright and did not start raining until we had go in the car and started or drive home for a nice hot bath and change into clean clothes. I had to tidy up a bit and chase the hoover around because this was the day for the once a month Poetry group that I host. We call ourselves Scribblers. My friends would be arriving at 2pm when we just about had time to bring every chair in our little cottage downstairs for the group reading. We are a mixed group and there are only ably twenty people on the email list for newsletters to be sent to, so this means that on any one occasion there will be between seven to eleven of us, just a nice cosy comfortable amount of people in one room of a small house. 

                       Credit again to Jacqueline Rackham Photography

We bring anything we have written on the last month and read it to the group. We also read anything else that we want to and that is widely varied, e.g. This time I read a couple of my own and then read the first poem that ever fired my imagination and made me a slave to poetry. At my senior school there were two most marvellous teachers who influenced me enormously between them. One was Mrs Thomas the poetry teacher who also mentored a speech choir that met weekly and we entered festivals and such. The second and no less of a dedicated wonder was Miss Feltham the music teacher who taught music (obviously), there was an actual music class, but also gave her time to choir practice and on a rainy day lunch time would pass our a pile of music books and play the piano for a sort of requests time for those interested.

Mrs Thomas read ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’ in the way that it would have been read at the time Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote it in about 1842. That was a bolt out of the sky moment for me, a ton of bricks jaw dropper. In looking it up recently, it stated that he was paid $25 for it, quite a lot of money at the time I suppose. I had read it to Steve in the week, when I had him captive on a work day, driving on a motorway. He advised me not to do ‘The silly voice’, I compromised and read it seriously but not as dramatically as Mrs Thomas. I am after all only me and not her.

So at school I was easily able to attend practice (because my parents were not home from work until after 5p) with the Speech Choir, the school choir practice and due to the fact that I attended both a ballet as well as a tap and acrobatic dance school I was also in the folk dance group. Oh yes and the Little Theatre school in the holidays. Best not to mention Maths and Science!

So there we are, a weekend with Daf and of course Steve who cares for me in a thousand ways, one of which is to cook me the very best food to keep me healthy, give me energy and to delight the palate and the eyes. 

 

Daf’s Big 80th Year Challenge Hand out leaflet 2

 Another of the stunning photos taken by my daughter:

www.jacqueline-rackham-photography.com

Just updated this leaflet that I am handing out.

I have been a triathlete for almost thirty years and I have set myself a challenge this year because I will be 80 years old in August. I will try to raise money for two charities close to my home. The first is Chestnut Tree Children’s home near Arundel, West Sussex for children with life shortening conditions.

The other charity is Age UK West Sussex.  Events for me this year start with:

The Frosty, swim-run at Freedom Leisure, Littlehampton on completed on March 3^rd

Then at the end of March: Swimathon 5000 metres pool swim.                                                        

I will swim on all three days of this competition making almost 10 miles in total.

In May: Brighton Run | 2 | Music (10km)

Eton Sprints at Dorney Lake, (same distance event on two days).

June: Windsor Triathlon 1500 metres swim in the River Thames

/ 40km bike/10km run

June 30^th: Ironman 70.3 Haugesund Norway-

1900 metre swim/ 90km bike/ 20km run

August: ITU World Triathlon Championship Lausanne, Switzerland

This is a Standard distance race

Follow this link to donate:

www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Daphne-Belt

Contact me: dafbelt@outlook.com

Daf's Big 80th Year Challenge

                                      Photo by: www.jacqueline-rackham-photography.com

Yesterday I competed in my first event of this year. It was The Frostbite organized by Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club in Littlehampton. It was the sprint distance that is half the distance of the main event, the Frosty. The challenge that it presented was not too scary and it is a great event for beginners and more serious triathletes alike.

For myself, being longer in the tooth than most of the others (rising 80) I chose to do the short race. The first reason for that decision was that for a start, it is only the first weekend in March and so having completed the 400 metre swim, one is expected to leave the pool in your wet tri-suit (you can put a coat or something on if you are sensible) and go out on Littlehampton promenade and complete a 5km run or 10km for the longer race. The decision proved to be a sound one, since after a week of spring weather it had turned back to the ugly face of late winter and named storm Freya came along with the timing of a maestro and hit the coast with torrential rain and wind gusts of 40-50 mph providing Banshee like background music.

When my husband/coach checked the day out at 5 am, he turned to me a said I don’t think you should do the race in this b-awful weather. In a rare moment of defiance, I usually do pretty much as my coach suggests, I told him that I was doing it no matter what the weather. It is not often that I object to his sporting decisions and so he agreed, provided that after my swim I put on a hat coat and gloves to do the run in the rain and howling gale.

The frosty is a really nice sociable event that certainly most local people like to do as part of their pre-season training, there were lots of smiling faces even with the storm and as we all passed by bus and other sea front shelters, we were reminded that some poor souls were trying to get some sleep at that un-Godly hour as we passed homeless people wrapped in cardboard and plastic, hunkered down as best they could.

Running to the east, on the first stretch of the run route, after a quick once around Mewsbrook Park, I was thankful that the storm was blowing on my back making it easier to get into my stride. At the turn point at the far end of the seafront road came a different story altogether and it was hard to even breathe for the entire length of Littlehampton prom and so we were all looking forward to the return leg, back to the Freedom Leisure Swimming and Sports Centre and the wind behind us again. It was strange that in conditions like these, that the rain, lashing as it was, seemed acceptable with the help of nature pushing us to the finish. I presume that I was not the only one sensible enough to have taken warm clothes to wrap up in afterwards having clawed off the soaking wet sports clothes and dried ourselves.

Personally I was very happy to have the first event done and dusted, since I am doing all the events in my 80^th year programme, and there are quite a few, to raise money for two local charities. This was the easiest one tucked away. Next up is the national Swimathon when I will swim the longer challenge this time of a 5000metres swim, that is 200 lengths of my nearby pool in Littlehampton where I live. The Swimathon is on for three days running and I will do that 5000 metre swim on all three days. Almost ten miles.

2019 Main event of the season will be Ironman 70.3 Haugesund, Norway. This race involves:

Swimming 1900 metres in a lake, then a 90 km bike ride around the Norwegian Fjords in that area, ending with a half marathon, (21 km) run around Haugesund town and harbour.

Then later in August I am already qualified for the GBR age group team to compete in the ITU World Triathlon Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland. The National Aquathlon Championships follows in September; a swim in the River Arun and a hilly run in Arundel, West Sussex.

The charities I am doing all this to help are:

The Chestnut Tree Children’s Home, for children with life shortening conditions.

And also for Age UK West Sussex

The link to donate is: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Daphne-Belt

 

Daf's Charity Leaflet

Hello,

   I have been a triathlete for almost thirty years and I have set myself a challenge this year because I will be 80 years old in August. I will try to raise money for two charities close to my home. The first of Charity is The Chestnut Tree Children’s home near Arundel, West Sussex for children with life shortening conditions.They do the most marvellous work there.

The other charity is Age UK West Sussex. They have 'Drop in' centres and arrange classes and meetings almost every day at different places locally. 

Of the events I am doing to raise funds for both super worthy charities for this year;

First up, my season starter is:

The Frosty, swim- run at Freedom Leisure, Littlehampton on March 3^rd

Then at the end of March: Swimathon 5000 metre pool swim.                                                    

I will swim on all three days of this competition making almost 10 miles in total.

In May: Eton Sprints weekend at Dorney Lake where I will do the same sprint distance triathlon event on two consecutive days.

June: Windsor Triathlon 1500 metre swim in the River Thames/ 40km bike/10km run.

June 30^th: Ironman 70.3 Haugesund Norway- 1900 metre swim/ 90km bike/ 20km run.

August: As one of team GBR I will compete in the ITU World Triathlon Championship Lausanne, Switzerland.

You can find a link to donate to either or both causes by simply entering:

Just Giving Daphne Belt on your computer, when entries for both pages with appear one after the other.

If you have any questions please email me: dafbelt@outlook.com

All of this above has been compressed into a small piece pf paper that I can carry with me at all times and hand out to anybody I know who I hope will make a donation to either of these great causes. Ant amount large or small will be gratefully given to the charity automatically if you use the Just Giving Daphne Belt link.

Scribbler's first gathering of 2019

 

Scribbler’s poetry and writing meeting last Sunday was so funny that I had to leave it a day or too to calm down before I wrote a report on our latest get together. The subject that I had suggested for us to put up for discussion was swearing in poetry. I had brought in because I knew that our newest little scribbler, who had read her very first poem at the previous meeting, had told me that she had written another poem but she was not sure if it would be in order for her to read it because it contained some swearing.

Now people handle bereavement in different ways and I know that because I was a volunteer at Cruse for a while in Worthing.  My friend Tina had lost her man cruelly and suddenly, at six months notice, last year. Her partner John was a man who worked with us, using his small truck within our antiques business sometimes.  It seemed to my husband Steve and I that dear Tina had gone into a classic case of denial for a while, seemingly coping well, when l in fact she was not. Then later on, became very angry and the anger, was directed at poor old John for leaving her when she needed him most.  He was such I nice guy and real gentleman, polite and very hard working.

So when Tina told me of the poem with a bit of swearing in it that she was not sure was acceptable of not, I thought that it might help to talk about it with friends. Yes, typical bereavement counselor I know. So in the group email, in which I announced the next meeting; I put forward as something to talk about; when and if the odd ‘fuck’ and other expletives were allowable. I chose to present a poet that I follow on Instagram where I encounter poets from around the globe and what a variety of styles there are.

This fellow though, seemed to have layers and levels of shading in his work that was pleasantly surprising. So I read five of his posts from Instagram that I had enjoyed or admired to our  friendly circle . Then I had planned later to blow whatever conclusions my group formed about this poets sometimes light, sometimes deep thoughtful work, right out of the water by then playing on my phone, this very nice looking man, doing his day job (or more likely a night job) as a Rap Artist containing the full blast of swearing that is often heard in this kind of poetry with a beat and a message.

However, just before our meeting started, I got an email from another poet in our group Rik, that I know in my other world of swimming and sport. When Rik cannot attend he sometimes sends an ‘Excuse Me’ poem to me.  What a laugh that was when another member read Rik’s poem out cold, having not seen it before and that opened the flood gates to dam busting levels.

Another swimming running friend of mine who is a respected GP found the forum opening gave her freedom to clear a little confusion for her. She is a talented linguist and holds some most individual ideas, she is as green as can be, ridiculously well read, and can recite the Rime of the Ancient Mariner! She does that while she runs around the countryside, sometimes barefoot picking up litter. She is also German and has lived in west Sussex most of her working life. So what she used the subject was to clarify the use the words in question. One question was “Which is it worse to call a  man; a Prick or a ‘C. U. Next Tuesday”! As Steve’s Mum used to say when she was alive!

The day’s finale came when Tina said she would read the poem that she had questioned, and made to get up to read. Now, I suspect what happened next was partially due to an attack of nerves, maybe I am wrong. Poor Tina was struck by a powerful attack of cramp and crumpled down on to all fours in the centre of the floor between us, clutching the offending Hamstring and Calf muscle. Luckily we have a GP and a physio therapist in our number and soon three people were crawling on the floor. One suffering pain and two trying to help.

After a while the poor woman managed to turn to a sitting position on the floor, took a deep breath and read her poem that was very well received and I hope maybe a little therapeutic.

To close the proceedings, I did play the handsome Rap guy in full bewarey-sweary mode, but by that time we had heard and seen and said much worse, though the video was passed around the room and nobody was shocked. We are all over twenty one and as I often relate, I have spent forty years off and on sitting in the truck drivers lounge of the cross channel ferry, so with me its not so much that bad language is new to me but more that I prefer beauty rather than words that suggest that the singer or the sung-to have some weird relationship (that I am not happy about) with their mothers. I could not say those words at all.  My respiratory system would shut down rather that supply the air to form those words. I blame my parents and the regular slap around the head I caught as a child if I fouled the air with as much as an exclamation of ‘Bum’.