What a difference a year makes
I’ve finally accepted that I’m one of life’s ‘tri-harders’, the sort of person who gives 110 per cent and still somehow manages to trip over my own enthusiasm and face-plant with a mighty splat. (I‘ve been literally doing this since the age of 15. The consequent porcelain tooth implants are among my favourite trophies.) I rarely win, occasionally come second and most often drift somewhere in the serene Zone Two hinterland of the middle. Occasionally I sweep in dead last, which I consider a sort of victory, as in snatching defeat from the jaws of.
And yet — despite being ferociously competitive for someone who has never really succeeded at competing — I keep trying. One definition of my life is summed up in the aphorism that is said to define insanity, making the same mistake not just twice, but exponentially more often than that, and hoping for, if not exactly expecting, a different result. Among my husband’s friends is Stephen Pile, who wrote The Book of Heroic Failures. I love that book but I wouldn’t merit an entry. My life is more a chronicle of heroic mediocrity. In other words, I’m completely normal. Even a heroic failure has to be exceptional in some way.
I haven’t written anything here for over a year. Life got in the way, and I lost confidence after a stylish series of injuries brought on by my favoured training method: unsupervised over-enthusiasm. Add to that a few DNFs (did not finishes) and a general sense that gravity had begun to take a particular interest in me, and you see the problem.
Take the Windsor Standard Triathlon, which last year was also the British Championships. I DNF’d because I missed an entire loop of the bike course. An entire loop. Who does that? People who don’t prep their race routes properly, that’s who. People like me. Meanwhile, every attempt to improve my already tragic swim speed resulted only in slower swim speeds. Video analysis of some of these efforts showed I resembled a panicked cat hurled into a swimming pool — flailing, splashing, going nowhere useful except possibly under.
But I hit my 40th sobriety anniversary this year, and am about to turn 66. I have been feeling what could be a nudge from the ‘higher power’, or what could just be me getting myself a bit more together. As our late and much-loved Times editor Charlie Wilson used to shout from the balcony in the old rum warehouse in Wapping where I actually set next to Boris Johnson before Wilson fired him, ‘I don’t want it good, I want it by four o‘clock.’ Channeling Charlie, perhaps this blog doesn’t need to be good — just written before I keel over, sink or otherwise fail for good.
Creaky or not, I’m still sober, still standing, and not quite ready to abandon my possibly-absurd ‘couch to Kona’ ambition (the iconic full-distance Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.)
So, encouraged by coach James Riley who I engaged when it became clear that working alone left me stumbling alone at the back of every race and club run or ride, I signed up for Ironman 70.3 Bolton – a 1.9k swim and 56m bike with a half-marathon tagged on like an afterthought.
The rest of Britain basked in a glorious heatwave. Bolton, naturally, in June, opted for its own micro-climate involving rain, wind and temperatures suggesting late February. I spent 15 minutes in T1, the first transition between the swim and the bike, thawing out my fingers and feet while shovelling in hot porridge like an Arctic ultra-runner. In spite of all that, I won my age group. Yes, there were only two of us. But since you at least have to be in it to win it, I’m counting it.
That earned me a spot at the World Championships, which is how I ended up last weekend in Marbella — Bolton with palm trees.
The Marbella bike course climbed 1,850 metres into the Andalusian hills, which was unexpectedly challenging although when I muttered about this in WA and Facebook groups, I was quickly told off: ‘You can’t expect an easy ride at the Worlds.‘ The descent was fast enough to qualify as amateur aviation. The sea was so choppy that the big orange buoys kept disappearing entirely, leaving me to swim by faith alone. The run, mercifully, was flat, with spectators actually laughing as I not-quite-bounded past in what I have been told is something of a signature style.
Before the race, I was convinced I might die — crash off a mountain, drown in a rogue wave or collapse in one of the sports-asthma attacks I suffer occasionally at the end of a race in hot conditions. But here I am: sore, tottery but delighted to have finished and still be alive.
I almost came off on the bike, distracted by the majestic scenery and by my picnic of a ham-and-cheese croissant followed by energy bar consumed with gusto. I swerved dangerously close to a roadside gully, but miraculously avoided plummeting down the mountain. Someone up there clearly enjoys a laugh.
The good news? For once, the swim went well — thanks to a bargain-bin wetsuit purchased in desperation after my expensive one disintegrated on first contact with the Med.
I might feel a little out of my depth, literally and figuratively, lining up at the start of the swim next to superheroes like last week’s Worlds winner, Lucy Charles-Barclay. But in Bolton and Marbella the atmosphere was electric. I finished 24th out of 42 in my age group, and first Brit. More than 60 started in my age group; around 20 didn’t make the swim or bike cut-off. So simply finishing was apparently quite the achievement. In one of the older age groups, no-one finished at all.
Now the question looms: do I aim for Kona? If so, when? And which qualifier? Discussions with coach, husband and Serpies await.
Meanwhile, all this is leading to lots of physical developments that complement and also bring into play the mental and spiritual aspects of my 40 years of continuous sobriety, one day at a time.
After a lifetime trying to be Twiggy-thin, I now want to be big, strong, muscled — capable of picking up small cars if necessary. It’s liberating. And it has led from strength-and-conditioning and weight-training to the latest new thing, Hyrox. The fitness-racing genre has just been incorporated by World Triathlon into their competition meta, so great things are happening here and the winning factor is, Hyrox does age grouping, like athletics and tri. So it becomes doable, even for me, despite still recovering from mis-spent decades enjoying a sedentary life on the couch.
Last month my Serpie gf, Camilla Allwood, and I entered a doubles Hyrox event in Birmingham, won our age group and qualified for the World Championships in Stockholm. Because why not add another world championship to the schedule of a creaky 65-year-old with a wobbly head, a core that five years ago barely existed at all and remains reluctant to be engaged and pro-nating feet that do all they can to prevent me running in a straight line.
I harbour no illusions. I will not be setting any world records unless they invent one for ‘most dramatic near-miss on a mountain descent’. I’m doing this because it’s fun, because it’s addictive, because I stopped drinking but apparently can’t stop doing things to extremes and because it probably helps me live longer — unless I’m flattened by a rogue motorist or sunk by an impossible wave first.
I plan to write more here — about longevity, training, nutrition, all the things I’ve been reading and obsessing over. And yes, the irony of writing about longevity while regularly risking death in wetsuit, Lycra, trainers or chucking wall-balls into the air is not lost on me.
But if I wait until I’m older to talk about ageing well, I may well run out of time entirely. Longevity doesn’t reward procrastinating pensioners. And as we say in my sobriety fellowship, procrastination is nothing if not ‘sloth in five syllables’. True, if you looked at my work and training schedules, you would not think me slothful. It is extraordinary, the lengths to which some of us will go, to hide our worst defects of character!
I must accept the very real possibility of failing publicly at every stage. But as I have been snatching defeat from the jaws of victory all my life, it’s practically my superpower.
So I’m here, I’m trying again, and I hope you’ll join me — through the DNFs, the near-successes, the questionable decisions, the small triumphs and whatever happens next in the ongoing saga of a near-66-year-old, chocolate-and-croissant and now protein-shake-loving, occasionally-wheezy, slightly deranged GB-repping athlete who simply refuses to sit down.
Because really… why not?
This year I am through various sports efforts raising funds for HCPT. Read about this amazing charity and please consider donating on my JustGiving page.
Placement 