03/09/2024
If you were to open the shutter and peer through the window into my brain you would be met with a scene of pure chaos. A computer crashing with 378 tabs open from the search 'what to do if you are not at all prepared for the worlds toughest triathlon....the Double version.......on a BMX Brutal Events! Let's be clear the sensible and right thing to do is to defer. That option isn't available. So I should DNS because I cant run without pain and cant ride without pain and so I haven't been doing either. Any triathlon needs training. This triathlon needs extensive and intensive training. You can't just rock up, suffer, and do it. It will take all you've got and you need a bank full to begin with. Proper, fit, brilliant triathletes struggle. For anyone else, particularly this chaotic, ill prepared, big dreaming, wannabe triathlete, the odds of completion are next to nothing with a bank of prep.
The options being considered at a blistering rate of indecision, back and forth and panic are
1 DNS - The sensible and right thing to do
2 Step down to the half - less sensible but manageable and potentially achievable (it's a shorter period of suffering)
3 Step down to the full - insanely difficult (I am a 16 1/2 hr Outlaw on a pan flat bike and run course with good prep)
4 Just do the swim of the double and get sponsorship for that - hard but without a follow up bike and time restrictions probably doable with some serious suffering
5 Start the Double and see how far I get be it 1 lap of the swim or complete the swim and miss the cut off or maybe, in dreamland, complete the swim in time and start the bike. Maybe even do a lap of the bike before calling it a day. I've paid for it might as well? This option however means I miss the chance to 'complete' the half or the full though because the swim alone will take me out of time to drop down. Make sense? Anyone still with me?
1 is the right thing to do, 2 is as sensible an option of attempt as there is. 3 is ridiculous, 4 is a compromise but negates 2, 3 & 5. 5 is whatever it will be but negates 2 & 3.
Whatever decision I make I need to address the issue of respect. I have very little self respect left. That's my issue. The sport - I respect the sport and I've suffered with triathletes good and bad to understand that respect. I respect this event. Having volunteered last year I was left in no doubt what it takes to tackle this event. I respect everyone who is on the start line on Saturday and who has tackled this event before. Successfully or not! The BMX idea isn't out of a lack of respect or even an idea that i can do it on a BMX. It's a way of focusing peoples attention to a cause I am fundraising for with a view to maximising any fundraising effort. Then there's Charlie’s Wings. A charity borne out of disaster to try and make things better for others. I have the utmost respect for Charlie's Wings and any disappointment that comes out of all of this is my disappointment at not raising s**t loads of cash off the back of this insanity.
I'm not sure why I've shared this now I've got it down. Maybe it will help me decide what to do or maybe it gives you a snapshot of the turmoil within or maybe it will stop you wanting to hurl cabbages and tomato's at the fat, unfit clown on a BMX if you see me out and about near Llanberis on the 7th and/or 8th! Although if you did want to do that and you would make a donation to the charity I would happily supply the veg and jump in the stocks!
