The fun and games continued last week: –
Monday 13th August: A recovery day in training, but surprisingly my legs felt really good cycling to work considering I had raced the Cambridge Olympic distance triathlon the day before. I must be getting fitter!
Tuesday 14th August: I found out when and where I would be carrying the Paralympic flame as part of the torch relay…3:37a.m. in Harrow. More on this soon.
Wed 15th August: I took part in Tri-Anglia’s club aquathlon, a 1 mile swim and 3.6km run around Whittlingham lake in Norwich. My swim time was pretty slow after going off course a bit but it was good training anyway. Once out of the water, I ran quite well to score a new PB for the one lap dash to finish 7th over-all…knocking 2 minutes of my previous outing in this event! These events are excellent practise for the World Championships trip where Luke and myself are hoping to do the aquathlon as well as triathlon events.
Thursday 16th August: This was a manic day! I received a call from the Sunday Telegraph who are writing an article on the Ghost project that I had been involved with as part of the Paralympic innovation project at Imperial College earlier this year. The group who designed the prototype are applying for a £10,000 grant from the Dyson fund, so good luck to them! The article should appear in the Sunday 26th August edition of the paper so keep an eye out. I also received a London Paralympics polo shirt in case I have to do any media work linked to the torch relay, and, as a former Paralympian, some tickets to watch the track cycling at the Games.
Friday 17th August: My parents arrived for the weekend from Newcastle.
Sunday 19th August: I took part in the Newmarket duathlon with guide Bobby De’Ath. Unfortunately I had forgotten to fit the old style Look pedals Bobby uses and accidentally left the new style Look Keo pedals on the front of the tandem from racing with Luke the previous weekend. After a short panic, one of the event marshals, Lewis, came to our rescue and loaned Bobby some shoes that would fit the pedals (Massive thanks!).
Bobby has been working hard on his running and it really showed as I could barely keep up on either the first or second 2.5mile runs…very impressive, but tough for me! We had a solid 14 mile bike leg too on what was a fairly hilly course to finish 17th from over 100 entries. Not bad and great training for me ahead of the World duathlon championships in September. The event was won by fellow Tri-Anglia member Iain Robertson in a rapid time. All round this was a really well organised and friendly event that we will hopefully do again next year.
Who knows what’s coming next!!
Iain