Retaining My Age Group World Title

ITU World Age Group Triathlon Championships. Chicago, September 2015

Chicago Standard Distance Race report

Happiness is…..

…….Winning my age group at standard distance World Triathlon Championship for the second year running. Having been defending champion in my age group 75-79 the pressure was really on.

It was after a night of impressive thunder storms that caused the race organisers to change the time of the elite women’s race and cancel the eve of race, age group bike check in, as well as cancelling the World Triathlon Sprint Championship award ceremony that race morning began. 

The start pontoon was a little un-stable when the older women’s wave went off, and also when what my husband calls the 'Old Gits' wave, left ten minutes later.  It was actually during the later wave starts, that they altered the swim course and cut it down to half distance for the half dozen AG waves that were left to start. The reason being, that the start pontoon had all but broken away from the harbour wall. 

The swim was more challenging for the Standard Distance Worlds with a slight chop and a quite strong current running that was pulling swimmers out toward the open water away from the shore and the shelter and safety of the harbour wall. I had a really strong swim that I was very happy with and after exiting the water there was a long barefoot run to transition1, of around 360 metres during which time you were only allowed to take your wetsuit off down to your waist. There then was run almost as long again through the sand and grass transition and out to the mount line for the bike section.  

All week long everybody had been dreading 40km the bike because much of the two lap route was on underground sections of a three level city main road. There has been endless talk about what glasses to wear because of the sudden changes in light and gloom. I found the route to actually be very good; it was like a time trial event or a race track. It was most disorientating without daylight to tell you what direction you were travelling in. There were quite a number of turns to left and right and some dead turns too but all the turns had plenty of room and my own two laps of the course we pretty much the same only dropping a few seconds on the second lap. My husband and I both had very good bike times. Another 300 metres back into T2 after the bike and again back out to start the run 10km proper. This meant that there must have been well over a kilometre of extra running due to the long transitions. 

The run was over the 10 km distance. Well over, and I was glad when the multi lap course was over. Comparing notes afterwards, most competitors agreed that the run was about 10.7 km. Feeling that I had given my all after the run and feeling complete rubbish, I held no hopes of a podium position and so did not check the notices on the way out of the post finish recovery area. 

Actually we had ambled back to transition to collect our kit, ridden our bikes through the hazards of the city traffic back to our hotel, run a bath and made coffee, before Steve looked online for the results. I was just rinsing off my conditioner when Steve let out a noisy whoop and started singing; ‘We are the Champions’ (That was not very good because he is no Freddie Mercury). He then danced into the bathroom in his birthday suit to congratulate me on retaining my World title. Unbelievable. 

I think it was the swim that handed me the gold medal in my age group and gave me a roughly 6.5 minute lead over the other women. 

Swim: 34.31

T1: 7.20

Bike ride: 1 hour 22.01

T2: 4.58

Run: 1hour 22.13

Total time 3.31.00 

The next morning we had a lovely swim in the pool that was the training centre for Johnny Weissmuller when he was an Olympic swimmer, years before he became better known at Tarzan. Very inspiring. 

We celebrated and relaxed in Chicago, including enjoying a 'Trump Mojito' at 'Sixteen', the 16^th floor terrace of the Trump Towers. Meanwhile my feet floated slowly back toward the ground. Mine was the only gold out of nearly 300 on the GB team in the standard distance. There was one silver and a couple of bronze medals on the team too. 

One very happy bunny here... No, two happy bunnies because my coach/husband Steve is overjoyed about it.

 

Chicago World Championships 2015

When we arrived on Monday, it felt as though we had landed in Hawaii rather than Chicago; the humidity was totally draining. Checking in for packet pick up for the Aquathlon for Steve that would be on Wednesday 16th September and the Sprint event for me on Thursday it was baking hot around the race venue with little shade anywhere. Steve can cope with hot weather a lot better than me, he loves sunshine, where as I have suffered skin problems from sun exposure and get to feel faint in any prolonged period in the sun.
On the flight out our seats were right at the back of our BA plane and those little directional air vents were not working in our section of the plane. When I started to sweat buckets as if I was under a shower, I got up to try to make it to the toilets where I intended to try to cool my face and hands but before I got there I passed out and found myself on the floor right at the back. I got up onto all fours but blacked out again. Surprisingly nobody noticed or came by. Finally by climbing with my hands up the wall I got myself up to a standing position and slowly made it to my gangway seat that, thank heaven, was just one seat away.
I slumped down into the seat next to Steve where he had been sleeping with such sack of potatoes fall that he woke with a start and saw that I was not well. He called for cabin crew member and told them that I was unwell. They brought cold flannels and then realised that that was not enough to cool me down. Steve was asked to help me get along to the galley where it was cooler. We sat there together for more than an hour, where I sucked copious amounts of ice cubes and Steve dripped ice over my head and neck and chest. Gradually I recovered a little but still felt rotten. The pilot turned the temperature of the whole aircraft down for my benefit and eventually I was able to return to my seat.
This was not a good start to the week ahead with two World Championship races coming up so quickly.
On landing, the hour plus getting through immigration was not a great help and Steve decided to get a taxi in to the city. This alone was not easy since we had as luggage, two huge bike boxes, two suitcases and our carry on bags. In the end we found a taxi large enough to take everything and without further ado made it to our hotel in the 'Magnificent Mile' of the downtown area of Chicago.

World Triathlon Championships Chicago Pre event blog

The week before I leave for a journey like this, is always a nightmare since at 76, I am still working in our family antiques import/export business up until the last moment. Although I gave up doing the heavy lifting involved in packing containers full of furniture, decorative things and small items a few years ago,  I am the main stay of the office; I must finish all the manifests for the current work before we go. It does not end there since I will been attending to all business emails etc. whilst we are away in the USA, so there is not a lot of time left to sit around and get too nervous about the important event coming up next week. 

This is why all of my training is done at silly o'clock every day (yes, every day) after the alarm goes off at 5.20am. My husband Steve is also my coach and training mate and has been for the 26 years since we fell under the magic spell of a life in triathlon. I have lost count of the number of times that we have been on the GB team together going to World or European Triathlon Championships. Last year in Edmonton was the first time I had won my age group at the Standard distance since most of my previous first places were at middle, long, or 'Nice' distance. The best I had done in Standard were a couple of bronzes and a few silvers. The fact that there are roughly double the number of little old ladies in my 75-79 age group this year, I feel is totally my fault for winning last year in Edmonton on a freezing cold, wet day, and rubbing salt in the wound by finishing 54 minutes in front of the next woman. I am not kidding here, when I tell you that I have spies amongst my FB friends who have been noting my training, but of course the elite women cope with that as a daily matter of course and if I have set myself up to be chased down; that has to be a good thing doesn't it? Motivation is key. So America will be defending its honour on home ground in Chicago. All of my opposition are American and I fully understand that. I had been hoping that it would be as cold as Edmonton 2014, where there was a dump of snow just a day or two after the event. That was a big advantage to a Brit. This year the weather in Chicago has been very hot, so no thermal blankets needed there.  

Having seen the elite series race in Chicago last year on TV the whole race looked very inviting. However, we now know that a large part of the bike ride will be underground on the lower level of a triple level main road… along eight blocks in a tunnel to a u turn and back, on ramps, off ramps, laps, and not much chance of crowd support. Well ok that doesn't sound like it’s very scenic. What we all have to bear in mind is this; it is what it is and it’s the same for everybody. We are not there to look at the scenery; you can do that when you are not racing. Get your head on straight and knuckle down. The swim looks good and run looks like a spectacular city run and the finish will be hopefully noisy and welcome. And Over!  

Competing as part of the Great Britain Age Group Team is a real feel good thing to happen in anybody's life. How wonderful. How proud you can feel. What an honour. However, as a note to all the many first timers on the squad……. It’s an honour that you have earned. Enjoy. Another piece of advice to the newer team members is to always have another race on your calendar beyond your BIG race so that the end of the important event doesn't end up being the end. Always be looking at the future. 

Steve is doing the Aquathlon on the Wednesday.

I have the Sprint distance on Thursday.

We both race in the Standard on Saturday. 

Then we are on holiday and going to explore the Michigan Upper Peninsular for a week.

This is a strike off THE BUCKET LIST!

Steve and I are both life long cartophiles, if there is such a word, love maps, have hundreds.

Shoreham Air Show crash

Bridge of Tears 

 A Tiger Moth takes to the clear blue skies

Crowds hoped Red Arrows were booked

Then there are ooo’s and ahh’s and sighs

 A Spitfire passed and up we all looked

Who could say, who could know

How the turn of events would go

A sunny day out at a local air show 

Looping the loop a Hawker Hunter plane

Watchers below take barely a breath

Then a fireball turns the scene insane

When innocent crowds there met their death

Nobody thought a tragedy could occur

Waiting for the lights to change as they were

As suddenly life and death was a blur 

A main road we have all travelled along

 A hundred or maybe a thousandth time

Car radio blares as we sing a pop song

Did somewhere unheard a death knell chime

Who could say, who could know

How the turn of events would go

A sunny day out at a local air show 

The old wooden Shoreham foot bridge stands

Smothered side to side and end to end with flowers

Floral tributes brought there by shaking hands

Local grief growing with the passing hours

Nobody thought a tragedy could occur

Waiting for the lights to change as they were

As suddenly life and death was a blur

 

This poem holds my own thoughts and feelings about this terrible event that shook the community hereabouts to the very core. In the days that have passed since this horrendous event we have found that everybody knows somebody who was close by in the traffic, either just a way in front or behind, travelling in both directions. So many close calls when old Hawker Hunter plane looped the loop and crashed into the bust traffic on the A27 trunk road at the northern end of Shoreham airport. Eleven people died. It has pressed us to see that life if a precious gift that can be taken from us at any time. 

The Glory of the April Woodlands

The Write Night last Wednesday evening was fairly painful to me. Just the waiting really. My husband Steve had come along with me to make sure that I didn't chicken out as I did on the first evening I went last summer. Having waited to read my couple of poems from the start at 7.30pm until after the interval and nearly to the close of the evening, I was in a bad way, since I am an Olympic class fidget. Sitting waiting was sheer torture for me. But anyway my turn eventually came and I did get up and read the two poems that had got the best response from my friends on Face Book. They were All Hail The Stones and When I am Prime Minister. There was a ripple of applause, no tomatoes were thrown and my first moment reading aloud in public was over. Gladly. I am an early to bed and early to rise person and have always been. Steve and I do most of our triathlon training first thing in the morning after the alarm goes off at 5.30am. It was 10.15pm when my name was called to 'Share' as they call it at these functions. I was put off by the lateness and would have to be booked in for the first part of the evening for any future visit. When I first said that to a friend in the swimming pool changing room a couple of days later she told me that it would not be fair to leave once I had 'Shared' because people had waited until I had 'Shared'. I gave that a bit of thought but decided that it merely balanced off the dozen or more people that had arrived an hour or so after the evening had started because, I suppose, they did not want to do their bit too early.

From this mornings wet and very misty morning, comes this piece below out of the sheer joy of the peace and quiet and wonder of  living close to the super woods a couple of miles from my home.

The Glory of the April Woodlands 

Thick misty rain at seven o’clock this morning

Time to leave home for our weekend run

Damp with dewdrops my nose tip adorning

We needed rain and should not be scorning

Value nature study now without the sun 

The greater the effort the higher the prize

When Bluebells bloom and we are blessed

A purple carpet on which to feast our eyes

As slowly to their highest height they rise

Early still and they have not reached their best 

Drawing one’s eyes away to the distant sight

The moving mauve of a million wild flowers

Swaying with a gentle breeze today so light

Above, the canopy of green leaves seems bright

Top lighting the richness of the glowing bower 

Soon to be overpowered by the blueness here

Wood Anemones tremble their wee white petals

Closed, asleep, hoping this misty time will clear

Wait to open its face up toward the sun to veer

Its fate to hide beneath where settle nettles 

Primroses lie around in clusters on the banks

Cowslips and tiniest velvet Violets there

Birds sing their little hearts out to give thanks

As summers engine up to full steam cranks

Winter gone, a country walk or run we can share 

How few see this free gift of flowery treasure

Breathe this perfumed air and let imagination blaze

Take some time to come out here to measure

Time wasted frittering away our moments of leisure

To amble through our woodlands deep blue haze

 

First time for everything

I met a child in the bank yesterday and we had a little chat during which he told me that he was five and a quarter! Kids like to claim every moment of extra age they can don't they? Well at seventy five and two thirds and having started triathlon at fifty, I am once more putting myself up to do something I have never done before! Tomorrow evening, I am going to one of the Worthing's World of Words 'Write' evenings. That alone is not new, since I have been before but to listen and enjoy others reading and singing their work. With a little bit of pushing from my daughter and husband and indeed Melody Bridges who puts these evenings together, I have said that I WILL read a bit of my own poetry. For some reason or other I am very nervous about this. Why? You may well ask, because all my friends know that I normally have plenty to say for myself. However, when I am asked to read aloud I become a stuttering, stammering mess. Explain it I cannot. So. Wednesday evening it is then. 7.30pm in Frasers bar at the Connaught Theatre Worthing. I have been practicing on my husband and a couple of friends have had to suffer and so far, I have not read any of the selected possibilities faultlessly. So wish me luck with my new venture, or come along and throw things at me, that at least would relieve the tension. If anybody reads all of the following you can let me know which (if any) you like best.

All Hail the Stones 

All Hail the stones, that’s what I like to say

Whenever a journey takes me along that way

The Neolithic site has such magnetism

The difference in theories a mighty chasm

Standing there more than five thousand years

Each time I see them my eyes prick with tears

Where lies a more impressive prehistoric site

Who died in the building and what of their plight

Mystery shadows the move of the sarsen stones

Surely not for a graveyard to fill with bones

Architecture introducing tongue and groove

The mortise and tenon theory they also prove

Maybe brought there by barge facing rude waves 

That jaw dropping feat brought about using slaves

Rolled into place on stakes by a servile hoard

What methods to raise them then were explored

Ropes, A-frames, massive counter balance weight

Oh to have seen these giants hoiked up straight

Long ago lost in endless time the reason why for

No expert historian sounds entirely sure 

What was the idea or purpose or why on earth

Blood spilled in construction must have worth

As a coronation place for ancient tribal kings

To worship stars or primitive idols with wings

Now the most popular modern interpretation

Why the stones were brought to this destination

Most generally accepted as a place of worship

Thought up by an ancient entrepreneurship

Pre history astronomers with the solstice aligned

Stones mystically to capture each equinox designed 

Circle within circle around a central pagan altar

First computer worked out in a priest’s secret Psalter

Predicting eclipses or for magnetic healing

Strange affairs beneath a star studded ceiling

When the last lintel slotted in to its position

A sacrifice made of blood curdling precision

Did bare feet feel the tremor of an earthquake

A religious healer raises a cross or a snake

Like pushing a plug into electrical wall socket

A button pressed for firing an intergalactic rocket

I favour the romance and wide screen type drama

Stonehenge forever blessing England’s panorama

 

Children Wishing 

Five happy children looking skyward wishing

Each holds a big balloon on a length of string

Each bright balloon up in the air a-swishing 

Children born over time of my patient stitches

My choice their looks and what they bring

They represent ambition not a life of glitches 

Things don’t always happen as you dream

My universal group of kids play on a day in spring

No thought of the future or a later theme 

Hair in corn rows, pigtails or flaxen waves

Laughing, shouting, playing happily as they sing

None of them quarrel, nobody misbehaves 

One girl in a spotty dress with puffed sleeve

One wears a t-shirt and skirt as to youth they cling

A ginger haired boy in jeans doesn’t want to leave  

From my imagination stitch by stitch they grew

Life has pressures and danger to bring

Work and not hope gives success to the few

 

Leaving Home  

A strong willed child to say the least

And a little on the naughty side

Facing mother with her brow creased

My dad’s amusement he tries to hide. 

Sent to my room I protest still

“I’m going to leave this beastly home

You don’t love me, you never will”

I hold my dolly, her hair I comb. 

Dad say’s “Wait a minute duck”

Leave’s the room, pads up the stair

My case, my money box, he say’s “good luck”

Let us know when you get there.

 

When I Am Prime Minister 

The day when Prime Minister I become

Leadership fairer and much more sage

Will make new laws and change will come

For the young and those in older age. 

Plain bad manners and rude words

Will be absolutely and completely banned

Guilty ones sent out to live in wild herds

Guarded only by the Almighty’s hand. 

When much too much, are ones is earnings

Weekly charity work will be enforced

There will be monthly town centre burnings

Of rapists and paedophiles endorsed. 

For spending years in invalid caring

This investment will be compensated

Replaced will be the rags they’re wearing

Nurses, for just rewards rightly nominated. 

Lesser crimes still will not pass free

Pavement blocking shoppers admonished

They must endless footage of themselves see

Staring into space as if astonished. 

Cold caller menaces who a phone call place

The very plague of these modern days

Will be dispatched by rocket ship into space

Hurtling on into the suns burning rays. 

Vote for me should you like these words

Rather than a much more sinister minister

Laws as loud and clear as Beethoven’s chords

Oh yes we can, when I am Prime Minister.

 

 

 

 

Declaration of intent

Declaration of Intent

 

She had always said,

As she sat in her chair

Or propped up in bed

That she would live

Until she was a hundred

That is what she said

 So frequently to me

It filled me with dread

That she could still be there

As I aged too you see

She would loudly declare

For any that were there

To get it in their head

That she would not be dead

For years yet so if

You thought she would be

Better become aware

She would still be fed

And cared for in her bed

Still more care to give

With ten more years to live

So imagine my surprise

Now she is not alive

I believed her when she said

How long she could thrive

That she would survive

‘Til she was a hundred years

Yet suddenly she was dead

And eyes so full of tears

 

 

The Presentation of the Rose 

It became the custom over time together

To make a gift of the years first Rose

Having suffered all of winters weather

When another chance of rebirth arose

 

To step firmly forward and try again

Not an olive branch but a simple rose

Close confinement can become a pain

To start again in each spring I chose 

Faintly veiled offering of renewed peace

I watched it growing my pretty Rose

She pained as infirmity would increase

A sacrifice from me to her I suppose 

Taking the single bud up to give

Minds last weak fight to keep my Rose

Past moods and hurtful words to forgive

Her elderly last resort effort to oppose 

Giving and receiving done with good grace

The glorious beauty of this newest Rose

Hope temper can take a slower pace

As one heart gives love and another froze