Go Bananas, I came first in my category- whoop!

This is the happy bunch of bananas hours after the race, when everything around us was being packed up and the sponsors Lidl were desperately thrusting an abundance of bananas at anyone slow-witted enough to take them. I came away with a pack of water bottles and my Dad left with enough cereal bars to start a tuck shop.

I have to say, I was particularly excited about this one as these nutters above provided some friendly and worthy competition AND my Dad, just a week shy of his 64th birthday took part in his first Triathlon- Fantastic!

My good friend Tammy (the girl on the left in the photo) is a little machine; she's been training really well throughout the year and this would be the first triathlon (and not the last) where we race side by side. She got her 5 km run time down to an intimidating 20 mins something which I don't know if I've ever done, certainly not in the past 12 months anyway. I was definitely apprehensive about going side by side with her in this race.

It's great having a bit of competition in your training and direct competition in your racing. If you know the person and respect their ability to beat you, it pushes your efforts to levels you wouldn't exert on your own. I would say that it is essential to train with people better than you or people on your level who have the potential to progress as quickly or quicker than you for you to make the biggest and best gains.

So this is how I won my category: I swam without a wetsuit for the first time (apart from testing the waters at Shepperton the Wednesday before) as the water was 21.something degrees. I got to the front of the pack before the horn went off and I stayed calm throughout my swim. I picked up the pace on the second lap and increased my leg kick and stroke rate for the last 200 meters or so. It felt great just in my tri-suit and made T1 a lot faster! I saw Tammy running up the ramp out of the water at what I judged was about 10 seconds ahead of me and didn't take my eye off her until I sped past her on the bike. For her, psychologically, that was the end of her race; and it's true, psychology plays a massive part in sports racing. Your body is always capable of that extra percent of effort, and only practice and experience in all sorts of moods, environments and circumstances can help you realise this; then of course, overcome it.

On the cycle, I kept my eye on other people who I passed and passed me again and again. (My weakness is inclines but I compensate by going hard on flats and actually DO pedal fast on down hills too) I spotted people up in front who I aimed to catch up with, then once I'd caught them, I'd aim for the next. Some people I was chasing for a whole lap before I got irritated and put in that extra burst of energy to finally get there. In my head I was constantly thinking that it's no use going too hard then "actively resting" because it's that small overall consistent speed that gets you there over all those laps. So instead, I went hard and when I couldn't and more, maintained an above-comfortable steady pace until I found it it me to go hard again.

Having no desire to feel like I felt off the bike at Hyde Park, I got in a couple of last minute runs before this tri and have been doing Bikram Yoga to loosen those tight inhibiting muscles so I got off the bike feeling good. I started slow and steady, then reminded myself of all those small techniques to stay ahead. "Run from the bum" "1,2,3,1,2,3" "lean forward!" At one point I'm pretty sure I came in violation of someone's personal space, just to use them as a pacer. The run was close-knit laps so I saw Tom and smiled at him to bring him out of his serious competitive face, high-fived Dan a few times and got the 2 fingers from Tammy.

Personally this Banana man is an important one for me because it's the only same one that I did last year so I'm able to compare my times. However, last year's run was cut short due to incredibly hot weather. Here is the comparison:

Leg	2013	2014
Swim 800m	00:13:44	00:13:42 (no wetsuit)
T1	00:01:52 (suit to take off)	00:01:40
Bike 31.8km	01:19:09 (hybrid bike)	01:07:27 (road bike)
T2	00:00:55 (no cycle shoes)	00:01:36
Run 7.5km	4mins53/km (6km run)	4mins43sec/km

You can see from the brackets, there are actually loads of variables so I don't know if you can really call it a fair comparison, or whether my training has improved time or not. I think it has with the swim even though the difference is only 2 seconds better, I didn't have a wetsuit which does make you slower anyway. I'm pleased with the difference in the cycle and don't think it's just down to a better bike. I still have a long way to go with the bike but WATCH THIS SPACE it's going to happen!!!

The atmosphere for the Lidl Banana man is friendly, non-judgemental and fun (if you can't tell that from the ridiculous bananas on our bright yellow t-shirts). You get the serious triathletes racing with their thousand-pound gear, the aspiring competitors and also those that just fancy a go on and with any equipment they have found in the garage and dusted off. If you've not done triathlon before and fancy something, this event by Human Race offers all sorts of distances and relays to choose from and remember my 64 year old Dad decided to enter a few days before the cut off date which was only a week before the event and still achieved a 23 minute 5km!!! (and no he didn't train)

YOU CAN DO IT TOO!  So go on!