Prologue.

So at 5am Friday morning myself and Carl Beetham are crawling out of our beds and stumbling down the stairs in readiness for the 460 mile drive up to Kindrochit in Perthshire to take part in the Artemis Great Kindrochit Quadrathlon – incorporating a 0.8 mile swim, a 15 mile trek over the mountains taking in 7 summits over 3000 feet, a 7 mile kayak, and finally a 34 mile cycle. Easy. Probably.

As I wander bleary-eyed to the car I’m obviously not quite with it. I discovered quite quickly that when a bike rack is connected to the tailgate with a support pressing firmly against the rear window I shouldn’t turn the wiper on. It doesn’t like it! A few minutes later I’ve taken the rack off which I’d spent so long working out how to put on the night before, put the wiper back where it belongs, refitted said rack and driven back to the house to load up. 6am and we’re on the road trying not to dwell on the thought that in exactly 24 hours’ time we’ll be dipping our toes into a very very cold Scottish loch.

An uneventful 8 hours later, accompanied by the strains of The Proclaimers, Travis and Runrig, we’re there. The loch looks wide. The mountains look tall. Carl looks scared!

Kit is organised and checked and we get a crash course in compass navigation before the carbo-loading begins in the form of a pasta party. Suitably fuelled we make a break for our tepee which we’ve booked some 13 miles away. We need to be back within an hour and a half for the compulsory Safety Briefing. Plenty of time we reckoned though this “plenty of time” swiftly became a race against time as, first of all, it took so long to get there because of the state of the roads on the South side of the loch but I’d also cleverly planned to be running out petrol at this time…..and could we find a petrol station??? The briefing was looming and it was becoming apparent that we weren’t really making things easy for ourselves as I had enough fuel to get back to Kindrochit but not enough to get us anywhere after that….so we had to keep driving until we found somewhere to fill up. Eventually we find an oasis and Carl sets about losing my petrol cap as I go and pay. “Drive like the wind” was the request as we made a high speed journey back from the briefing….obeying all the laws of the land……obviously. Briefing over, transition kit bags left in relevant tents, back to the tepee, and bed!

D-Day

A disturbed night’s sleep followed for both of us. Carl was having recurring dreams about drowning, and I was having dreams that I can’t quite remember but kept waking me up in a panic until it got very boring. Carl surfaced before the alarm went off at 4am and that’s when we realised we’d made a bit of an error in our preparation. The idea was that our kit bags for the mountain stage would be transported to the other side of the loch in readiness for when we drag ourselves, or are physically dragged, from the water. The kit bags were left all packed the night before in the designated tent. All good so far apart from the fact that as part of our survival kit we had to have mobile phones in them so when Carl, phone in hand, asked me on Saturday morning where my phone was I proudly brandished mine back at him. Ah! So now we have no phones on the other side of the loch. A bit of a problem then. But the resourceful types that we almost could have been we wrapped our phones up in polythene bags, (almost) sealing them shut with elastic bands and placed them somewhere warm and cosy inside our wetsuits. Nice. So with potential disaster averted we find ourselves shivering on the banks of the loch at 6am. The countdown begins and Carl looks me straight in the eye and asks me, without even a glimmer of a smile, to try and swim with him. To say he was scared doesn’t even begin to do it justice. Bearing in mind that only in February the fella couldn’t swim a stroke of front crawl and only in the last month was he able to swim any distance without “Snorky” his pet snorkel, and not forgetting this was his first ever open water race, he probably had good reason to be a little anxious. There was nothing to be gained by me swimming off and leaving him as we were in a team together so for a while I swam along beside him. I should point out that there is a huge difference between swimming in a nicely heated pool in your Speedos and a freezing cold loch in a wetsuit. Not least is the shock your body goes into when subjected to such temperatures. Of course the wetsuit helps a lot but when you first get in it is cold cold cold. The next time you’re in the shower turn it on full blast and then flip it to cold and see how long you want to stay there. You’ll get the idea.

Anyway, Carl is doing a tremendous job and I’m quite happy (in a very loose sense) cruising along beside……until my goggles leak. Now I can’t see where I’m going so I have to stop. And here is where my troubles really start. It’s quite choppy out there and in an attempt to empty my goggles I sink a bit further than I expected and breathe in a substantial amount of water. Now I’m doing my best to choke to death whilst attempting to tread water. One of the safety team in a kayak spots me and asks if I’m ok. I’m not but I say I am anyway. I’ve no idea how long it took me to catch my breath but it was long enough for Carl now to be out of sight. It’s difficult to spot a guy in a black wetsuit and yellow swim cap amongst about a hundred similarly attired bodies. I finally pulled myself together and I’m off in some kind of pursuit….until my goggles leak again. Is it a coincidence that Carl gave me these goggles I wonder? A second bailing out and I’m on my way a bit quicker this time and as I scramble over the rocks in the shallows Carl is dragging himself out right in front of me. For once in my life I’m actually happy to see him! From a non-swimmer to being able to swim the best part of a mile in a freezing cold loch in 34 minutes is an achievement that he should be very very proud of.

After a quick hot drink and munch on a cake we begin the trek into the mountains in fair weather. I’m a little too eager and set off in pursuit of the teams in front. Carl is a little more circumspect and sets a more steady pace which I finally see the wisdom in as we start to climb. It’s not long before it is getting very steep and very very windy. By the time I get my gloves from my bag we are in the teeth of a gale and my hands are so cold Carl has to help me put them on. What was a surprise to me was that I was expecting we would be following well-trodden and relatively easy to follow paths. We weren’t. Often the paths disappeared completely and with visibility down to well below 50 metres at times navigation wasn’t easy. And neither was the fact that there was so much more scrambling than I ever anticipated. I was often on my hands and knees clambering up the side of some of these things. And with the gale force winds trying to rip the skin from our faces all this started to take its toll on me. Carl was a little dynamo and just kept plugging on but my strength was gradually ebbing away. By the last of the 7 mountains I was in despair. I’ve never not finished a race but I can honestly say that I was starting to believe that this one was going to beat me. Thoughts started to percolate through my brain about what it felt like to collapse through exhaustion and that every tortuous step onwards could be my last, and I do distinctly remember inviting anyone within earshot to “get me off this ****ing mountain!” (sorry mum). Carl was trying to encourage me as much as he could but there’s only so many times he can say “keep going” before it just doesn’t register anymore. I was barely moving forward but it was as fast as I could go and Carl happily informed me that I had turned a very ghostly shade. Finally though we’re at the summit and the long descent to the kayaks began. For a start this was almost as tough as the climb as every footfall was threatening to shatter my ankles and cause my legs to crumble, and even the simple task of forcing myself to take in fluids was just making me feel sick and dizzy but I knew I had to do it as we were still a long long way from the finish. Slowly though I was recovering and whilst Carl was some way ahead by now having found a new friend to talk to/at I found myself picking up the pace and eventually, oh joy of joys, breaking into a run (of sorts). I think Carl was almost as surprised as me when he took pity on his new friend and stopped talking and turned round to find me padding along behind him, not looking quite as white as I had half an hour ago. The distraction was all the new-found friend needed and he was off leaving just the 2 of us to complete the descent after some 7 and a half miserable hours.

A quick sit down and feed later we’re pushing off into the loch in our 2-man kayak. Now we’ve both only been in a kayak once before and neither of us could get the damn things to go in a straight line for more than a few seconds. Fortunately these 2-man vessels are longer and more stable and much easier to control though we did discover that we were ever so good at turning left and heading for the bank at every available opportunity. Carl was in the bow seat with me behind entrusted with the task of trying to steer. Here our penchant for turning left became apparent and if I had a pound for every time Carl told me to “kick us out” I’d be a very rich man. Finally we got into something resembling a half decent rhythm and despite being overhauled by 3 or 4 other teams I thought we did ok for a couple of novices. However, Carl’s state of mind wasn’t difficult to read though as every now and then I’d hear the word “Bored!” drifting away across the loch. I was just pleased to be out of the mountains though my arms and shoulders were in pieces by the time we crashed into the shore some 2 hours after we set sail. Carl’s were fine but his abs were in knots, though mine were fine, which probably says something about our relative abilities as neither of us had the same aches and pains. What it says I’ve no idea but sod it, we did it and that’s all that mattered.

Into the happy tent we stumbled to peel ourselves out of our now soaking wet kit and climb into our nice dry cycling gear. A wonderful feeling. I think this combined with the knowledge that we were about to embark on the final part of this challenge put us into something resembling a good mood. The final worry for me though was that this 34 mile ride was not going to be flat and some of the roads were more suited to mountain bikes rather than the racing things we were on and my legs were in a less than pristine state after the mountains. And I had good reason to be worried as first King Carl of the Mountains set a pace I couldn’t keep with and then as I was hurtling down a very fast descent after a very steep climb at about 40 miles an hour the road surface broke up so badly that something shook itself loose on my bike and started rattling so badly that I feared that something terminal had occurred. At the 10 mile point we had an opportunity to stop for refreshments and fish and chips (I kid you not) so I took the opportunity to get covered in oil. Basically a retaining bolt on my rear cassette of 9 gears had come loose and 1 by 1 the individual gears, now no longer held together, were slipping off their spindle. So, wheel out, gears pushed back on, bolt screwed back in as tight as I can by hand, a mouthful of fish and chips and we’re on our way again. 24 miles now to the finish and I’m feeling ok sitting on Carl’s back wheel happily drafting him. So happy in fact that I take a turn at the front. Competitors hove into view up ahead and we’re in hot pursuit. We must have caught and past half a dozen teams and we’re working well together taking turns at the front. My turn to lead once more and I’m really starting to feel good and I’m pushing on. All the time I’m expecting Carl to come past me again at any moment to take over but after about 10 minutes I’m starting to think he doesn’t normally sit behind me for so long so I take a look over my shoulder and I’ve dropped him. Oops. I slow down and he’s back on my wheel and I’m counting the miles down to the finish.

After 13 hours and 11 minutes we’re running, yes running(!) through the finish and I defer to Carl to slice a watermelon in half to stop the clock. Certainly a novel way to end a race.

We’ve done it! Lots of hugging and smiling ensues and the world is suddenly a very happy place.

Epilogue.

Before too long our bodies are starting to feel the effects of the 13+ hours of effort. We take advantage of the massage tent and Carl gets a 10 minute seeing to by Big Tom whilst I get the best part of half an hour with the lovely Susan. Carl’s not happy!

We try ever so hard to enjoy a beer from the free bar but it’s just not going down well at all. We eat some food. We listen to the band and watch people with far more energy than us do the Gay Gordons. We use up our final reserves of energy applauding the winners at the presentation before heading to the banks of the loch just before midnight for an incredible fireworks display.

Now we’re spent and we drift off into the darkness back to the car for the journey back to our tepee and deep deep sleep.

So now it’s all over and we can look back on it with some pride. The mountains were much harder than I thought they’d be. I was well prepared for the whole thing to be hard as constant exercise for just north of 13 hours is bound to have an effect but those mountains almost had me. But we got through it together. I almost looked after Carl in the swim, he certainly got me through my darkest hours in the mountains and I’d like to think that I played my part on bringing us home on the bike. The kayak was just a 2 hour interruption. All in all not a bad team effort. I’d say I’d be better prepared for the next time but I can confidently predict there will be no next time. We’ve got the medals and the t-shirts and that’s good enough. We don’t need 2 sets so we’ll leave it up to someone else to pick up the baton. Form an orderly queue.

For those up for the challenge it really is a great event with fabulous organisation and support and there is broad spectrum of competitors. To give you an idea the winners finished in an unbelievable 8 hours 42 minutes, breaking the previous course record by an hour! The last team came in after 17 and a half hours! Now if anything they deserve even more praise than the winners for sticking it out and not giving up. A real feat of endurance and I bet they slept well!

And there were all sorts of other bits and pieces to keep everyone amused during and afterwards and even into the next day, like archery, clay pigeon shooting, double-headed axe throwing and spear throwing as we;; as lots of messing about on the water…….only we were just too knackered to take advantage of any of it.

As a final footnote you might like to know that after we’d unwrapped our phones neither of them worked!

The Artemis Great Kindrochit Quadrathlon: Return Match

Well that wasn’t hard was it? In fact it was. Very. Let me just say straight off the bat that not only did we (myself and Carl) not achieve our 12 hour target, we were in fact 10 minutes SLOWER than last year! Gutted. Though we do have some cracking excuses. Read on.

So we stumbled out of my borrowed campervan at 5am on race day, looked out across the gently steaming loch and shivered for a while. A quick trip to the “luxury bathrooms” later, all excess weight jettisoned, we set about squeezing ourselves into our wetsuits. By 6am we were dipping our toes into the loch, which admittedly was not quite as arctic as last year but still plenty cold enough to convince us, once again, that we probably should find ourselves another hobby. Too late to worry about that now though so we focussed on the fun (?) that lay ahead – that being a swim just short of a mile across the loch, 15 miles over the mountains – including seven munros (peaks over 3,000 feet) – a seven mile paddle in a 2-man kayak back along the loch, and nicely topped off with a 34 mile cycle around the loch.
For those that have read any of the previous ramblings leading up to this nonsense you’ll know that Carl is currently challenged in the arm department after a tumble off his mountain bike several months ago so, despite being given special permission to use a snorkel to avoid an unscheduled drowning, he was essentially swimming with just one useful arm. Having said that he managed to dodge everyone trying to stick pebbles and small fish down the hole and pulled himself out of the water not far behind me…..and my swim, at sub-29 minutes wasn’t too shabby at all. Try swimming a few lengths of the pool with only one arm and you’ll understand what an achievement this really is.

That though was unfortunately where the fun stopped.

As we headed up the first mountain both of us were getting increasingly concerned that this was not how we remembered it from last year. I had prepared myself to be having a torrid time from munro four or five onwards but we weren’t even at the top of the first one yet and I was dying! Carl, despite his arm injury, has been training like a mad man for months and months, but even he had a few beads of sweat breaking out. It seemed to take forever to get to the summit and I was already plunging into despair as I know how hard the rest of this stage was going to be and already I felt like I had only enough energy to roll back down the mountain, so getting over another six didn’t bear thinking about. So instead I tried to work out why my hands had swollen to twice their normal size?

Onwards we trudged and at least the weather was being kind and the gradients on the next couple of munros were less severe, or if not less severe then not quite as relentless as now we were mostly traversing ridges and not climbing all the way from sea level. It’s still plenty hard enough and pretty soon things took a turn for the worse for me as I went over my ankle trotting downhill and took a tumble. Luckily I’m invincible and feel no pain but tumbles became a regular feature of my day out as first my right ankle gave up on me so much so that as soon as I even attempted to run on anything other than a perfectly flat surface (which not surprisingly are in very short supply on a mountain) I was on my @rse. This went on for a while until I went over my other ankle enough so that that one gave up the ghost as well and I gave my @rse a rest and tried my face instead! And just in case I was enjoying myself too much with every tumble came twinges of cramp. This was incredibly frustrating for me as I know Carl wanted to go but we were a team and had to at least finish together and I was holding him up massively. Even more annoying is that I was probably fitter than I was last year, certainly no less fit, but Carl had moved on to another level entirely and he was constantly forging ahead and then having to wait for me to catch up. I was getting more and more tired and the cramp was taking a pretty grizzly hold of my legs but I had still been harbouring hopes that I’d be able to muster a hop, skip and a jump on the down slopes but my ankles weren’t having it. As I was straining to see through the tears in my eyes to spot Carl in the distance I took yet another tumble and found myself just sitting there for a while thinking what a lovely day I wasn’t having and wondering how I’d allowed myself to be talked into this again until some other kindly souls picked me up, brushed me down, and set me on my way again.

It was becoming increasingly evident (to me at least ) that our chances of breaking 12 hours were being left well behind. Though Carl, forever the over-optimist, kept telling me how long we had to get down to the kayak to give ourselves a chance but I knew deep down we hadn’t a hope.

And when we finally got to the kayaks…..oh dear, oh dear. It was to be expected that we probably weren’t going to be the greatest on this leg as first of all we are just generally rubbish at paddling and the last time either of us had actually sat in one of these things was exactly a year ago at this very race. But like we needed another reason to be cr@p we had to consider that we were only three-armed. We were all over the place. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth my addled brain finally works out that Carl had no pull on his right paddle so this meant that if I paddled normally we’d go round in circles. Of course I was too tired to work this out immediately and I’m in the back seat just about popping a kidney trying to keep us going in a straight line. The only way to do it I finally figured was if I didn’t pull on the left at all and just gave it a big heave on the right. So now we’ve got a very loose grip on our direction but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that what we were now doing amounted to the equivalent of one man paddling. So not surprisingly all the other waterborne teams, blessed as they were with four arms between them, came surfing past us. Eventually though we’re heading towards the bank and the transition onto the final bike stage. My mood is lightening (slightly) but I’m aware of Carl taking an increasing number of breaks and shuffling around in his seat in front of me. These craft are hardly armchairs so I assumed numb bum had set in and he was presumably trying to capsize us to end the agony and we could swim the rest of the way to shore? Not so. By the time we eventually hit dry land Carl had turned ghostly white. He had to be lifted out of the kayak and then physically held upright or else he would have collapsed on the spot. If he wasn’t in such a bad way it would have been funny watching him trying to drink out of a cup as he also had the most outrageous shakes and most of the water was going over his head rather than in his mouth. In fact scrap that last bit – it was very funny indeed.

We were beside the bikes now I’m gently poaching in the sunshine but Carl is genuinely frozen to the core. In an attempt to cut the time lost we had opted to not put on the (highly recommended) waterproofs for the paddle…as just HOW cold could you really get whilst working your socks off at (cold) water level? Very, as it turns out. There is no blood in his hands and he looks like my mum could have him in a fight. I wrap him in a warm dry towel and try and get his circulation going again but I’m genuinely thinking he’s not going to be able to continue. But he can. Dammit!

I think we probably won the prize for the longest transition from the kayak to the bike but eventually we rolled out of transition and we were on the final leg. Carl still couldn’t feel his fingers or toes but his legs seemed to have remembered what they were there for and within a few minutes normal service had been resumed and he was off into the distance. I get a few chances to catch up as his little tool-bag repeatedly tried to throw itself down the road but once we were on the smooth stuff to the north of the loch I had no chance. A few other teams came into focus ahead and Carl had rediscovered his race face and I was desperately trying to hang onto his wheel. Agonisingly he started to pull away and I felt my last ounce of energy seep into the tarmac. He flew past the team in front like they were standing still but I was on empty and I couldn’t catch them. Carl finally realised he’d dropped me and backed off but it wasn’t enough. I still wasn’t catching either him or the team in front so eventually he had to stop completely and let the other team go by again. Now we were back together and as bizarre as it sounds we embarked on what was probably the most enjoyable part of the race for me. I was absolutely shattered but Carl then showed what can be done if we worked as a team. I was far, far too tired to lead but Carl set a decent pace that I could just about manage if I sat an inch from his back wheel. With Carl punching a hole in the air I was able to keep up and the team in front was caught and past again in no time. If he hadn’t come back for me I don’t think I would ever have caught them but with him setting a pace and me getting the benefit of his slipstream we were getting a proper move on now.

The end was nearly upon us and we were on the final stretch of steep ups and fast downs. Predictably I was lost on the ups again but on the downs I was making up time. But just to keep me on my toes and add that final bit of excitement, within a mile or so of the end Carl mistook a sign pointing to the finish. I was in head-down hot-pursuit mode steaming down the hill after him at a rate of knots when he decides to stop in the middle of the road without warning. I might have uttered an expletive at this point as I narrowly avoided what would have been a graphic demonstration of how to remove as much skin as possible with no specialist equipment in the shortest possible time. Stupid boy, Pike.

Finally the real finish line was located and we stopped the clock 13 hours and 21 minutes after we’d set off.

I think we were both bitterly disappointed as I don’t think either of us had considered that we would actually be slower than last year. There are a number of things we can point to that would make me think we can go a lot quicker, like if I’d not destroyed my ankles in the mountains, or if we had four arms in the kayak and a couple of sets of waterproofs, but in the end we did the best we could as a team on the day. I know that a two-armed Carl could have easily got round on his own two hours quicker so I feel guilty about holding him back, but then I cheer myself up again by considering that I was the only idiot he could convince to do it with him again so I’m not going to beat myself up about it too badly.

Overall though it is an incredible event and it really does test you. About 240 people did it this year and it’s growing. The organisation is fabulous and you’re so well looked after throughout the entire weekend, not just the race itself, so if you’ve got a burning desire to put yourself through many, many hours of pain and suffering then this could be your event.

Will we be back next year? I doubt it but we said that last year too.

Carl Beetham
12 Aug (6 days ago)

to me
BTS Captains’ Challenge

Saturday 2nd October 2010:

Who’s that knocking on the door at this time of the day? Eh…what? Ouch, there’s no need to kick me, ferchristsakes it’s only 6.17am…. Argghhh. It’s 6.17am! Damn, damn, damn. The alarm’s not gone off. B*gger.

Those of you that know me well enough will know that the last event of the season, Berkshire Tri Squad’s Captain’s Challenge, will have been planned in detail to a meticulous level. Every possible twist & turn will have been taken into account, including a six minute interval between each collection, to ensure we turn up at Bray lake at exactly 7.00am. Not approximately, precisely. And then it all falls down at the first hurdle. B*gger. Sorry guys. Undaunted, Grant (Captain Four Play) drove like the wind, recovered all time lost and delivered us on the dot although perhaps not quite as calm as intended.

The Captain’s Challenge is a socially-oriented multi-club relay event where teams of four (11 this year) compete in a handicapped long-ish distance triathlon. The unaffiliated (no-one will have us) Team Four Play and Team Four Play Too, comprising Grant, Tony, Steve and Martin and me, John, Luke and Robin, all seemed stoked and keen enough though my hold-all tri bag seemed to be the butt of their early morning wit. That was until Luke announced that he’d decided to uphold the reputation of his father, the well-known long distance ‘clean’ swimmer Dickie George, and swim it without a wetsuit. Laugh? I nearly got the drinks in. The big difference is Luke, your ol’ man is a big fella who carries a bit of, shall we say, timber, has been doing it for years, and often practices in the Atlantic, in winter. You however have only started swimming this season, have never swam ‘clean’ and there’s more fat on a chip. Oh, the naivety and innocence of youth…especially in eleven degrees and a pair of Speedos!

Race referee and race director and fellow squash players, Howard Vine and John Booker explained we were to swim out anti-clockwise to the three mast boat, circle it and come back via the blue buoy. Er…exactly which three mast boat was he talking about? With fog falling and mist rising visibility (along with temperature) plummeted and where any boat lay was anybody’s guess. So with the cheers of the thronged masses ringing in their ears our first eleven swimmers hit the water and quickly disappeared from view. Fast forward five minutes and John Veale was back out in third place and I was in at the deep end. My that’s nippy. And where the hell am I meant to be heading again? Actually, it was not too bad and I was doing OK until I had to get out. I don’t know why it is that I can’t stand up when I’ve swam for any length of distance but I can’t and had to crawl out on all fours, before being lifted up by John & Robin and carried over the line. Dignified to the very end.

Now it was Luke’s turn to hit the stage and he did so to friendly hoots of laughter, disbelief and unbridled derision. But he who laughs last, laughs…er, last. As he sped out from the shore Luke’s cunning plan was that he’d actually swim twice the distance of anyone else by heading in completely the wrong direction. Not just marginally incorrect or a few degrees to the right but in COMPLETELY the wrong direction. Which proved to be a tremendous tonic for all those on the shore and raised our spirits like nothing else could possibly have done…until at about 50m he disappeared from view still heading somewhere only he knew. Now whistles were blown, brows furrowed, captains consulted, life-guard qualifications verified and referee rule books examined. The life boat was duly dispatched and the ‘blue-boy’ was eventually found somewhere approaching the ‘blue-buoy’ and guided back to the safety of the shore and to the relief of all those concerned. Even the Labrador dogs which had been encouraged to go out and search for him in the expanse seemed to wagging their tails more excitedly!

An hour later the swim discipline was all done and dusted and upon the strength (or lack of) of our swim performance the handicaps were duly awarded. Team Four Play were downgraded to B status; Team Four Play Too to a girls’ squad. B*gger, why did Grant have to knock on my door anyway?

The bike was a four mile out & back loop from Holyport Green to the Drift Road. Pretty much flat and straight it meant a four mile ‘balls-out’ sprint where you were always either chasing or being chased. The range of Cervelos, Argon 18s, S-Works and assorted expensive tackle along with the aero-helmets and disc-wheels of the Hillingdon boys meant some serious competition was afoot. But the happiest participant was undoubtedly Robin. The race being set amongst the finest farm land Berkshire had to offer, meant his 16 year old cast iron framed Bianchi would once again be sharing the roads with other out-dated agricultural equipment! Having managed to get his trusty steed down from the bike rack prior to the event my back will never be the same again. The last time they made bicycles this heavy they were purple, wore tassels from the handlebars, used three ineffectual hub-centred gears with a lever strategically placed to indiscriminately castrate Britain’s youth and went under the brand name ‘Chopper’. Never again, please.

The most surprising aspect of the bike was just how tired the relatively short stint made you; I for one was jiggered after only one lap and when a guy on a blue Planet X passed me as though I was standing still giving me no chance of catching his wheel, I knew I was a spent force. Thankfully the others were all strong and kept us in the hunt. Or at least until the run, which again at only a mile a lap meant an out and out sprint with no time to catch your breath or take it easy. To his credit, young Luke showed the value of young legs and he was our strongest runner by…er…a country mile. Carry on like this boys and we were in danger of being upgraded… to ‘adult girls’!

The award ceremony was a hoot with Team Four Play being awarded a bottle of wine each for being the most unprepared team of the event (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) and young Luke being given a special prize of a swim cap with an in-built GPS homing device – the four points of a compass and the words ‘please return if found’ written on it! A very special mention has to go the organising team, Berkshire Tri Squad, as this was a superb social and fun event with just the right amount of good-natured competition for an end-of-season bash. And the cakes were the business. Thanks for letting us enter and we’ll be back, all in wetsuits, next year.

Oh, and my alarm went off at 5.25…that afternoon! Ta, Carl.

PS For the record it was about a 3km swim, 40 mile cycle and 10 mile run, give or take a lap.

BTS Captain’s Challenge 2014: Everything comes to he who waits…

Last Saturday saw what was, for many participants, the final race of the triathlon season, Berkshire Tri Squad’s Captain’s Challenge: a challenging yet socially & fun oriented team relay event where BTS and fellow tri clubs enter teams of four competitors and compete over the usual disciplines to varying distances dependent upon age, experience, gender & ability. Unsurprisingly, for stalwarts ‘Team Four-Play’ it was our first race of the triathlon season as none of us like to peak too early, and we were all keen to avoid injury prior to our arrival on the competitive scene. Probably.

Seven o’clock saw three of us wondering if our wet-suits still fitted as the last time they had been in the water was at last year’s race, but if we looked a tad nervous, it was nothing compared to new recruit, Richard Cumner, who was facing his first ever ‘wetsuit swim’ in his first ever open water swim, Uh oh. Being Captain I did the decent thing (for once) and nominated him to go first! Nah, I went in and even though I was last out of the water I’d managed to hold onto the tail of the pack. That was when the fun started as I’d forgotten I can never stand up after swimming and stumbled around like the drunken fool I’m usually taken for. Transition was never my strong point. Subsequent swims, in the positively balmy water of Bray Lake, were all completed with aplomb, though it has to be said that we were neither pretty nor quick, and most other teams were dried-off and hitting the croissants by the time Mike Warner finished off the final of our allotted nine 350m loops.

In the manner of a boxing-match referee stepping-in and stopping the fight before any permanent damage is done, race-organiser Lynda Hart now understandably relegated to us to the ‘mixed team’ level and deemed it necessary that we need complete only eight laps of the 5km cycle loop and eight of the 1.5km running lap. Aha, but little did she know that we had a plan of great cunning… Step forward Martin Pottage! Martin’s no swimmer but my, can he push a peddle. Having just returned from a couple of weeks hill-climbing in the Basque country, and completing last week’s tortuous Etape Cymru in sub-5, he was on-fire. Quickly realising the error of her ways, Lynda grudgingly accepted my ‘eight-loop team nutritional strategy’ plea but did quite rightly force another running lap on us. B*gger.

Secret weapon #2: You’re not going to believe this, but it turns out that our 57kg twenty-one year old new recruit can run 5km in under 18 minutes. Comfortably. And I didn’t know it. No, really. The run was great fun and even Mike, who has more metal-work in his legs than Barry Sheene (I kid you not) polished off his one loop more in the manner of Mister Sheen! And so we have one loop left to run and I find myself on the start/finish line with the two other final runners from the other two teams who could win it: Craig, I think from Ful-On Tri and one of the boys from Reading Tri20. I’m off first as Ricardo gracefully sprints home, with Craig about 50m behind and the Reading Tri20 fellow a good 300-400m further back. Now, I know I can hold-off Craig as I’d followed him on an earlier lap and he and I are about the same pace, but the Tri20 guy is young, fit, strong and uber-competitive. As I round the last bend, with about 200m to go, his team-mates are yelling encouragement and I know he’s coming…but there just ain’t the distance and I hold him off, crossing the line to take the win for Team Four Play. Last year we were comfortably last placed and this year, first. Who’d a thunked it. As Lynda succinctly put it “if at first you don’t succeed, tri, tri, tri again!”

So, lessons learned:

– BTS’s Captain’s Challenge is THE best race on the calendar, bar none. It’s fun, it’s free, its distances encourage a ‘balls-out’ sprint approach, they bake great cakes for you to scoff en-route, and they even give you a free beer afterwards. What’s not to love! Tell your friends, tell your family, tell people you’ve never met before to put next September in the diary.
– The greatest cheers were reserved for a wee young boy competing in his first ever event and it was truly inspiring to witness. He can’t even have been a teenager. No, he really can’t have been a teenager as the police turned up and took his parents away for obvious child abuse.
– 2014’s results were admittedly a ‘handicap travesty’ and the real winners were Reading Tri20 as they had only three members and completed way more laps than we did, in all disciplines. But hey-ho, who am I to argue!
– Rest assured we shall be back next year to defend our title but suspect Lynda may not prove to quite as generous. And I suspect our wet-suits will remain dry until that date.
– Apologies to anyone who was delayed by the Team Four Play open-top-bus cavalcade that took place around central Sunningdale earlier today. Even we were taken aback by the size of the crowds who turned out to celebrate our triumphant home-coming.
– Three cheers to BTS.

Great fun. Great result. Great cheats!

BTS Captains’ Challenge 2015: It’s that time of the year…

That time of the year when your limbs are weary from the excesses of summer activities. That time of the year when it’s high-time to start prepping the winter-bike and finally commit to fitting mudguards. Again. That time of the year when morning temperatures change and the water goes from a not unpleasant ‘Ooohh’ to a decidedly uncomfortable ‘WTF!’ That time of the year when, for some, thoughts turn to next year’s race calendar and crazy escapades begin to take shape. That time of the year when, for others, the acceptance of ol’ Father Time’s natural order starts to take hold, and, the once unimaginable, becomes not only imaginable but inevitable: retirement…

I’m afraid to say that, with seven IMs, numerous shorter distance events and several unique escapades between us Team Four Play undoubtedly fall into the latter category. I have to concede that when the 5.30am alarm call sounded, the last place I wanted to be was on the way to a decidedly nippy Bray Lake, even if it was to defend last year’s thoroughly deserved title triumph. OK, last year’s flukey and highly questionable result! And the disconsolate faces of my three compatriots that greeted me, confirmed I wasn’t the only one. This was going to be neither an easy, nor pleasant experience. But at least it was going to be the last. Probably.

Once upon a time the allocation & apportioning of the necessary laps was such an easy process as everyone wanted to do as many as possible; the hard part was keeping everyone happy with how few they were given. This Saturday’s task was going to be a tad-trickier: you do two swim-laps and I’ll buy the beers; please think about three run laps and you only need do one cycle; please, pretty-please put your wetsuit on and I’ll never, ever, call you ever again. Promise. We did finally get Simon Davy to put on his wetsuit, and this is absolutely true, only for him to be told by the assembled swimming cognoscenti gathered outside the club-house, as he strode gamely into battle “Oi, mate, your wetsuit’s inside out!” I kid you not. It turned out that he had not been in open-water since his last Captain’s Challenge, in 2013, and Mike duly confessed the same since 2014. My, how we laughed. Not.

Thankfully, this is just what was needed as a pre-race ice-breaker and believe it or not, this was the turnaround point. All of a sudden, Grant Wyatt said he wanted to lead-off the swim and do the ‘three’ necessary (to say I was surprised does not do this act of unprecedented voluntary kindness justice). Mike Warner, who only a few short years ago was within 30 minutes of having his right-leg amputated above the knee, offered to limp round the run course twice if needed. Simon promised not to ride home on the cycle lap. And we were off!

Fast-forward four or five hours and yes, it was tough, gruelling & ugly and Team Four Play were never going to win any prizes this year (other than the, gratefully received, token wooden-spoon ‘thanks for turning-up-again’ award), but my, what a hoot. With their largest race-attendance ever, Lynda, Laura, Adam, Howard, Julia, Barbara and all the BTS members & supporters managed to stage, what remains the single most-enjoyable, most-social, most-fun and most hard-fought event you’ll ever have the (mis) fortune of participating in! Boundless enthusiasm, constant cheer, unrivalled support for all, a seemingly unlimited supply of cake, an award-winning baklava AND a free beer afterwards: what’s not to love. Long may BTS’s Captains’ Challenge survive and prosper and see you next year. Probably. Ta, Carl.

PS A couple of special mentions need to be made:

– Many, many thanks to all the BTS organisers, marshals and supporters as without them in wouldn’t happen.
– The White Hart is a fantastic pub whose support also makes the event possible. We should all make the resolution of going there to wine & dine at least once between now and next year’s event. And ensure you mention the event when you’re there.
– Grudgingly, the right team won this year. In fact, all the right teams won this year.