#100happydays Day 50 - 56! Week 8 Is Done And Dusted

We have officially crossed the half way stage. Can't believe that week 8 is out the way. Only 44 days left to go! Are you all finding happiness in the little things? Why not comment about what you found happy today - even if it was just a cup of tea at the end of the day!

Day 50) BANK HOLIDAY! No alarms for Megan! Had a lovely day in bed and did a whole load of colouring in my book. I also managed to watch an entire series of Grace and Frankie on Netflix in one day.

Day 51) Had a lovely catch up with Belinda over dinner at Giraffe in the sunshine. Then off to ballroom dancing for a lovely Waltz and Cha Cha session. Such fun.

52) I spent my Wednesday at Holiday Club, this was fine but it was followed by a very long meeting. I was very glad to see my bed after that! (Reusing an old photo as I was actually too tired to take a photo on Wednesday).

Day 53) Thursday was another Holiday Club day. We made 3D lego figures and put on a puppet show. Lots of giggles were had. 

Day 54) Baking Welsh Rarebit muffins at Holiday Club on Friday. We avoided the thunder storm and sang a little song to the rain but it still didn't go away! ALL THE RAIN HAPPENED! 

Day 55) Saturday was crazy! I drove to Portsmouth (about an hour) for brunch with Lydia, one of my closest friends from uni. It was lovely to see her and put the worlds to rights. I then drove to Surbiton from Portsmouth (about and hour and a quarter) to pick up the lovely Sarah. We drove back to Guildford (half an hour) to pick up movies, pjs and Bananagrams and then went ice skating and bowling at Guildford Spectrum. After that we drove back to Kingston (25 mins) for drinking, movies, Bananagrams and pizza. My little car was very tired by the end of it all but much fun was had all round. I now want to invest in some ice skating lessons and have learnt that I am actually quite good at bowling (when there aren't 18 other people watching me). 

Day 56) Blog related happy day! I reached 1000 views for this little rambling blog of my inner dialogues. It made me very pleased to have reached the milestone! 

And there you go! Week 8 over and done with.

Have a happy week, remember the find joy in the small things, especially when you are having a crappy day. Just finding one or two small positives can help take the edge of when life throws rubbish in your way.

Stay happy!

M xx

I Am Officially Training - A Triathlon Diary

It was very lucky that my first triathlon went so well. The reason for this is because I only had 8 weeks until my second on the day of my first! Which means, while I write my blog post I only have six weeks and 2 days to go! You would think that having done one already, and having done it reasonably well, that I would be excited for the next one.

You think wrong?

I am just as terrified, if not more so, for this one and this is because the swim is in open water. Okay, it's a lake. But it's outside, it's huge and you cannot for the life of you see the damn bottom. Don't get me wrong, I love to swim. Put me in a pool and I can go for hours. The sea? Yes, love it! The waves and funny salty taste. Trying to do handstands with your hands sinking into the sand on the bottom - hours of fun! I've even been lake swimming before and, on the whole, enjoyed it. It was lovely and warm, we were on holiday in Canada and it was a gorgeous lake. The surface was strewn with lily pads and we all waded in and went for a lovely dip....

Here's the problem... (there will be a slight digression, but stick with me, I'll come back to the lake and the triathlon very shortly). I have the worlds most over active imagination! Truth. I have kept myself awake until the early hours of the morning, the hours that NO ONE should ever see, because I convince myself that the characters from the horror movie I have inevitably watched that day are, in fact, very real! I have two examples of this that highlight just how pathetically scared I can become of my own mind.

Example A) It is a very snowy February in the UK (I know, that in itself is just freaky) and school is closed because, obviously, the whole country came to a stand still at the foot and a bit of snow that had dumped itself on us. Both my parents were home and working from home in the office upstairs, Sian was off doing I don't know what and I thought it would a really great idea to watch a movie by myself to pass the time. Yes, I know. A very normal decision to make - I thought so too. A movie to myself. Lovely. What shall I watch? Oh, I know, let's watch Paranormal Activity. Why the hell not?

Those were famous last words, weren't they! Now, for those of you who haven't seen this movie, it's basically a house haunting filmed by the inhabitants of the house. There is a very angry spirit that seems to take over the woman living in the house. (Even writing this, I am starting to feel really uneasy) There is one particular scene where the couple are in bed and the door to their bedroom opens by itself. The woman then wakes up, shrieking that she can feel the demon breathing on her. Here is where I imagination kicks in. I was fine ALL DAY! I didn't even think about the movie once I'd turned it off - the rest of the day passed without any drama and I got into bed. And Oh, holy Jesus, I scared the living daylights out of myself for hours. I went to bed at around 9:30 - 10pm.... I was awake until 5am! I kid you not! Every time I started to drop off, my brain would tell me that I was feeling the demon breathe on me and I would wake up again. It was honestly ridiculous but there you have it - my imagination scared me so much that I stayed awake for 7 hours!!! SEVEN HOURS!

Example B) I can no longer have a dressing gown hanging on the back on my bedroom door. I went to see The Woman In Black in London with one of my closest friends. It was terrific, I'd see it again any day but again, my imagination likes to play tricks on me. There is a part in the show where the Woman In Black stands on a stair case and just watches the young man move around her house. It is chilling - to see the presence of her in the house and see him so oblivious to it. (I am again, starting to get goose bumps and my heart is racing a little) When I got home after the show that night, I was just slightly jittery and couldn't sleep because every time I rolled onto one side of my bed I would catch sight of my dressing gown and freak out that it was The Woman standing at the bottom of my bed. So, once turning on all the lights of course, I got out of bed and put the dressing gown in the wardrobe and there it has stayed ever since.

So yes, my imagination doesn't need much of a seed to be planted before it goes into warp drive and creeps me out completely.

Right, back to the lake and relevancy of this digression. When you are lake swimming, everything is fine and dandy when you are above the water. The water is warm (if it's in summer and the water has been heated by the sun) and you can see everything. The second you put your head under the water it gets really murky really fast. If you pull yourself down into the water further, it gets cold really quickly too. I'm sure some of you can already guess where this is heading. When I was in the lake in Canada, I went into a little mermaid dive, like I had done a million times in a pool and freaking the flip out as I suddenly panicked that the monster in the bottom of the lake might come up and drag me down to the depths. Because I couldn't see, and it suddenly got so cold, my brain went into panic mode. I very quickly made the decision to stay in a lazy breast stroke with my head firmly above the waters surface!

I'm usually a very confident swimmer - as my Dad tells all his work colleagues, I was born with gills behind my ears. I would happily spend hours in the water without a second thought about it. But I was/still am very nervous about swimming in open water before heading out on my bike and then my run. I know it will totally change the feel of my triathlon. For this reason, I attended an official training day, run buy RGactive, a company affiliated with HumanRace, who are running the triathlon at Eton Dorney in July. The day was split into three seminars, one for each event, and three groups rotated round all three seminars with lunch tucked into the middle.

I was swimming first and quite frankly was very happy to get in the water and get it out of the way. Now, as I have said, I am a really confident swimmer and I have never felt more uncomfortable in the water as I did last weekend. It is a whole different ball game swimming in open water than it is in a pool. The first thing to battle with is the cold! It was freezing!! Well, actually, according to the thermometer, the water was actually 19 degrees C but it felt more like 2 maybe 3 degrees. I couldn't breathe, let alone swim. We did some basic warm up stuff, treading water etc. Then we were told to just float. We were all in wet suits and the instructor wanted us to get used to the feel of the buoyancy the wet suits provided. This buoyancy was going to, apparently, make all the difference to our stroke.

Here comes the part where I really panic. We were asked to go on a very short swim, using the modified front crawl stroke we had been taught on dry land. Putting my face in the water has never been more disconcerting. I have never felt panic like that. My body had adjusted to the cold of the water but my face hadn't. When I put my face in the water, my body wanted to draw in breathe. This, under water, is obviously not such a great idea. I could not exhale under the water. It was so weird, I'd never experienced it before and I actually think, that because I'm normally so at home in the water, that I was feeling even more thrown that someone who wasn't too confident in water at all. It took a while, but eventually, I did feel much more relaxed, my face got used to the cold and I could breathe but those first few minutes were horrid. It was a big eye opener to just how different this swim was going to be compared to the pool in Taunton.

The rest of the training day was helpful enough and I learnt some really great tips for the other disciplines as well as nutrition and kit but the swimming is the thing that I will take away the most from. It was so weird not being to swim easily! Luckily, there is a lake near me that does open water swims so I can go and practice more before that actually triathlon day. Got a lot more training to get through before then and hopefully, by race day, I will feel more confident getting my face in the water and I can just focus on the 400 meters that I have to get through without freezing, instead of panicking that I can't breathe!

Fingers crossed eh!

M xx

It Didn't Do What It Said On The Tin!!!

I suppose I should start this post by stating clearly that I am not someone who has must emotional attachment to their hair. If you do, this post may unnerve you slightly - just so you know!

Ever since I can remember, I've had friends and family, my sister especially, who freak out when they have to get a hair cut. They can't cope with getting too much cut off, or changing it's colour. You could suggest highlights but actually asking whether they had considered changing the colour would just tip them over the edge. This is in NO WAY a bad thing. I can completely understand it, people see your hair every day, you have certain 'looks' that you can do which make you feel confident and attractive. Peoples hair can define them. This is well and good.

I am not one of these people. I am someone who has a very short tolerance for the way their hair looks. Since the age of 16 I have changed my hair colour more times than I can count and it's style a fair few times too!

The most radical cut started the whole thing off. I was 16, it was just after prom and I was just really bored of my lovely, long, thick hair.... so I had it all cut off. Straight away from waist length to a pixie cut in one sitting. I gave my hairdresser a heart attack when I presented her a picture from Frankie from 'The Saturdays' and said 'like this please!'. Genuinely, she turned white and asked 'Are you QUITE sure?'
'Oh yes, it'll be great, go on!' So she did!

I went from this...

To this....

And from then, my hair changed a lot. I've been blonde, brunette, highlighted, nearly black, postbox red, plum, purple.... and then back to a plummy red recently. I grew my hair out back to about waist length, had a full fringe put in.... loved that....

FRINGE!

.... grew that fringe out, had a side fringe put in, grew that. You get the picture - I get bored. 

So Christmas 2014 was another of these incidents when I got bored! I got all my hair cut off again (not quite so dramatically this time) 

and then I died it Black Cherry Red..... and today.... I got bored again..... Yeah, I know, I have no staying power when it comes to my hair, it's a problem. I'm working on it. 

Anyway.... I wanted to go lighter because it's the summer and everyone likes to look like they've dipped their hair in lemon juice and caught the summer sun.... all that jazz. Because of this, I picked a lovely light brown colour to start off my summer transition. 

This is the box....

This is the colour my hair went....

I'd forgotten what a hard colour red is to shift! Will have to let this fade for about a month and then re-dye it the same light brown colour again.

Some of you, I'm sure, will be yelling at your computer screens 'just go to a salon, get it stripped, start over'.... there's no fun for me in that! I quite like making a little project out of it. It took some of the red out of it - my hair is more brown than it was but it's no where near the box colour yet. Let the project begin! :D 

Random blog I know but hey!

Check in with y'all soon

M xx

Marble Painting - A Rainy Day Craft

Working at holiday club can feel like a drag sometimes, especially when there is a thunder storm grumbling away outside. This kids get grouchy because they're stuck inside and the staff get frustrated because the kids are bored and acting up.

Today, however, I came across an ingenious craft activity that kept a whole of kids entertained for ages and it takes no time at all to set up, do it, or clean up! I love it.

It is *pause for effect* Marble Painting!

All you need:

• A4 card (white or coloured, it's up to you)
• Paint (of any colour)
• Marbles (or anything round that you can get covered in paint. I couldn't find marbles today so we used wooden beads for necklace making at worked just fine)

• OOOOO! And something to put the paper on that will hold the marble in - we used baking trays. They were ace and really easy to clean. 

All you do:

• Lay paper on tray.
• Dollop, spinkle, dribble paint onto the paper in various places. Don't use too much in one big slodge like I did to start with, it doesn't look as nice for the finished product. 
• Choose bead/marble/rolling implement and roll it around however you like. Flick it, move the tray around in your hands or just push the bead with your finger. As long as it's rolling around and picking up the paint, you are doing it right!
• YOU ARE DONE! Leave to dry. 

It really is a simple as that and you can get some really lovely abstract art from it. 

Here are a few results from today's experiment. 

So there you go, very groovy creations with very little effort. Once your done wash trays, marbles and hands with warm, soapy water. All clean, all done and some new fridge art.

Job done.

Check in soon

M xx

#100happydays Day 43 to 49

Half way.... well pretty much! 

Day 43) Lovely tidy bedroom and new sheets on the bed! Hurray!

Day 44) I was sorting out my car and this little man appears on my drivers seat. Apparently Jasper is being my chauffeur from now on. 

Day 45) Mary Kay delivery arrived!! To read more on Mary Kay, click here. 

Day 46) HUGE PIZZA!!! Said goodbye to an amazing colleague on Thursday. She will be totally missed but it was a brilliant night out and a great way to send her off on her new journey. 

Day 47) TEA! Keeping me going during a really long babysitting session.

Day 48) Caught this little guy having a drink on Saturday morning. I love seeing my garden come to life in the spring.

Day 49) After a long triathlon training day at Eton Dorney, a puzzle in the bath was just what I needed. I was quite pleased with my genius creation of a puzzle board! 

Come back next week for more happy days! 

M xx

***UPDATE 23/05/15*** Mary Kay Reviews

UPDATE 23/05/15

Since the Mary Kay party that I went to a while ago, I have wanted to buy some more products to add to my Mary Kay collection. Below is a review of the 'Satin Hands' kit which I LOVE LOVE LOVE!

So this month, when pay day came around, I indulged myself with some gifts! AND on top of all that, because my beauty consultant is awesome, she sent be some freebies for a slow delivery which was really unnecessary.... but everyone loves a freebie!

I got some new face cleanser and some new moisturiser. I used them this morning and I'd forgotten how light they are. You really don't feel like you are using anything on your face at all. The moisturiser especially is amazing! It vanishes into your skin and leaves it so smooth and soft. I love it so much, I have a really sensitive upper lip (sounds strange I know) but if I use anything too heavy the section of skin under my nose goes really tingly and sweaty and then numb. It's horrid and it lasts for ages - so when I used this moisturiser this morning and I had no adverse sensations I was really pleased! 

AND!! Because everyone loves a freebie......

I got some hand cream and a lip gloss!!! LIFE WIN! 

ORIGINAL POST

A few weekends ago I went to a Mary Kay party. It's like a Body Shop or Tupperware party but for a cosmetics company called Mary Kay. They are large in America and are starting to expand there business over here in the UK. The party was hosted by Belinda who has written a few blogs about setting up/hosting a party and some product reviews.

Whilst at the a party, I was particularly interested in the 'Satin Hands' product collection. As a teaching assistant I spend a lot of time on the playground, gardening and just general doing fairly hands on tasks with the kids that I work with. As a result, my hands can feel very dry. The skin around my finger nails and across my knuckles especially can become very sore.

Enter Mary Kay Skincare! Satin Hands to the rescue!!!

All you need is a bowl of warm water, a towel and the Satin Hands kit. It comes in this really cute little bag, which makes keeping the kit altogether really easy. My kit is Peach scented but you can get a fragrance free set if you prefer. It is £35 from their website - http://www.marykay.com/ - but I really feel that it is worth. You don't use much of any of the three products in the collection each time you use it so it should be very long lasting.

All You Need

All it takes is three steps and it only took me about 10 minutes to have beautiful smooth, soft hands.

The Three Steps

Step One) The Hand Softener. It's a thick gel that you massage into your hands, you only need a small pea size 'dollop' of it. It spreads a long way. It is almost self heating and feels very warm as you work it into your hands. Keep massaging until your hands are completely covered and the gel is spread evenly across your palms and the back of your hands. 

Hand Softener

Step Two) Satin Smoothie Hand Scrub. Leaving the Hand Softener on your hands, dispense 1-2 pumps of the scrub onto your hands and rub thoroughly until it is completely dry. The scrub is quite coarse, it has large exfoliation beads in it to lift away dead, dry skin from your hands. I stopped rubbing when the beads were the only things left on my hands - the gel they are in is absorbed and drys out as you massage it into your skin. Once dry, rinse your hands in your bowl of warm water and gently pat dry. 

Satin Smoothie Hand Scrub

Step Three) Once you have patted your hands dry, use the Hand Cream sparingly to moisturise your now beautifully smooth, freshly exfoliated hands. The cream is very light so your hands don't feel like you've caked them in something oily and thick as it sinks in. It is absorbed very quickly and you can go about usual house hold tasks immediately - there is no waiting around for our hands to feel properly dry which I love. I also love the instantaneous results. As soon as I used the cream my hands felt incredible! Really smooth and soft. It's that feeling when you can't stop stroking them because they feel so new and fresh. The peach fragrance is very subtle but adds to the fresh feeling that you should now be feeling.

Hand Cream

I would highly recommend this product! It's quick, easy and it really works. For people whose hands need some love and attention, this is perfect. There is virtually no clean up process either - just rinse out your bowl and pop it in the dishwasher. Job done! 

I am so glad I bought this, I am trying to do it about once a week to give my hands some real TLC. 

Here's to beautifully smooth hands in the future, thanks to Mary Kay.

For reviews on further products check out Belinda's blog - http://justyouandb.blogspot.co.uk.

Check in with you all soon,

M xx

UPDATED 23/05/15 - The BBC 100 Book List Challenge

Blog will be updated as and when I finish the next book on the list.

23/05/15 - I am about half way through The Hobbit already! I am really enjoying it, finding it hard to put down to be honest. I'm really enjoying how closely the films stuck to the book. The story is so intricate and detailed that it would have been silly for the films to have strayed away from that. Cannot wait to read the rest of it.

05/05/15 - So, I finished the last book in the Narnia series tonight. I did not see the ending coming at all! I don't want to spoil it as I would really recommend that people go and read the series. They are brilliant... but the ending... WOW! I was nearly crying on the train home. As I've found with some of C. S. Lewis' installments in the series, the story takes a long time to get going. I mean, in 172 pages I'd say the first 90 are slow. There is a lot of setting the scene and explaining how events unfolded. It's all necessary but the pace is fairly perfunctory. However, I hit page 100 and literally couldn't put the book down until it was over.

For a children's series, I'd say there were parts that were a little dark, especially in the last book but I think that they are definitely books that young teenagers would cope with and should read! They are easy to read in the sense of vocab and print size. Contextually again, they are accessible. Lewis is a true genius at writing tales that have no deeper meaning if you don't want them too. But if you are obvservant enough, or of that inclination to see the deeper message in Lewis' writing.... it slaps you in the face in places. The last few chapters of The Last Battle especially. Anyone who's been to Sunday school will see the correlation and it is done beautifully. As a Christian, it was a really relevant portrayal of the coming of Christ and how He rules all. It was done so subtly and so softly that you don't feel overwhelmed but it is stunningly obvious what Lewis is trying to convey.

A brilliant piece of writing! I will definitely be holding onto the series to read to my children.

Now onto The Hobbit!

24/04/15 - I can't believe I haven't already put this on my blog. I'd sort of forgotten about it and then today, it just arrived in my head. It's another blog post that I can update and people can join in/follow my progress through the challenge.

The BBC has put together a list of 100 books.... well actually it's a few more than a hundred as some series count as 1. They reckon that the majority of people will only read 6 of the 100. So at the beginning of 2015 I set out to work my through the list.

I started with the Narnia series and then plan to move onto The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings.

So far I have finished six of the seven books from The Chronicles of Narnia.

I finished the first two in the a few days after New Year. I just stayed at home and read, trying to avoid the rubbish weather before heading back to work for a new term.

 

It took me a long time to get through The Horse and His Boy but I really enjoyed it once the story picked up. It just took a while to keep going. 

Loved this one! Zipped through it in a few days. I love re-reading these stories as an adult. The messages that come through them are so clear and speak in new ways reading them 10 years on from the first time I went through the series, 

This is probably my favourite story in the whole series. The adventure at sea, discovery of new lands, finding the ends of the earth. It takes me in hook, line and sinker. Fantastic writing. 

Just like The Horse and His Boy, I struggled with this one originally. It was such a strange concept and a lot of book seemed to have been read before any of the action really got going but the concept in the end was great and I liked how it started to tie all the characters in together before the culmination in the final book where they all reappear. I had not read this volume of the series before so it was a great discovery of a book I did not already have vague memories of.

I am still reading The Last Battle which is the final installment of C S Lewis' series. So far, it is really good. About half way through. Will update as and when I finish it.  

100 Happy Days Week 6 Days 36 - 42

Week 6 has come and gone so quickly! Can't quite believe that I am nearly half way through the 100 days project.

Day 36) Went to Greenwich Park with Year 5 for the day. We went to the Royal Observatory. It was excellent. Even I learned a heap of info about space. If anyone ever gets the chance to go - do! It was fantastic! 

Day 37) Tuesday was not a good day! At all! Everything went wrong and I was very happy to see my bed at the end of it. 

Day 38) FOOT TREATMENT! This cream is awesome. I have really horrid feet but since using this from The Body Shop they have really improved. 

Day 39) I took a very tired selfie on Thursday. I ended up in bed and asleep before 9pm. I was absolutely shattered! 

Day 40) Pizza and Ginger Beer! That about sums up my Friday evening... and why not! Little treat to myself after a very long week! 

Day 41) THIS BED! Oh wow - it was just the most comfortable thing ever. It puts my own bed to shame and I LOVE my bed. So yes, this was my happy day for Saturday.

Day 42) Me and Mum at the end of our triathlon. Both looking happy but tired after the best part of 2 hours out on the course. I was so pleased with how my first attempt at a triathlon went. I was bouncing for the rest of the day! If you'd like to read a review/walk through of my event, click here. 

This is almost a week late, so I'll be posting another weeks happy days in about 24 hours. 

Come back and see that too!

Check in soon

M xx

A Final Result - A Triathlon Diary

I did it! I totally did it! It was terrifying, it was painful, it was stressful but it was 100% worth it. My first triathlon has been completed!!!

The week leading up to my triathlon was not a brilliant one. I was crazy busy at work, I was exhausted and I sprained my ankle so couldn't really do any last minute training. By Saturday morning I was already feeling pretty nervous. I still had 24 hours to go and I was starting to feel the butterflies starting to roll in.

I have recently been elected onto my church's council and Saturday morning was my first away day with the rest of the council. It was a really good meeting with lots of personal and communal steps taken in the right direction for our church and for our own journey's in faith. So, I had that to distract me on Saturday morning, and it did a really good job. From 9am until around 2:30pm, the nerves went away! It was great, I was completely distracted from the fact that I was about to embark on a challenge that I wasn't sure I wanted to do anymore.

The little friend inside my head kept asking the question 'Why did you sign up for this?' and I couldn't really come up with a decent answer. I didn't really know why I was preparing to do a triathlon anymore - all the enthusiasm and the excitement of training and working hard had vanished. All I could see was a 2 hour long session of pain and embarrassment....... at this point it was Saturday afternoon, I still had about 18 hours to go and I was already a bit of a mess.

We (mum and me) left the meeting early and bombed home to set up the car and drive down to Taunton straight away. Dad was being our lovely chauffeur so that both of us could sleep/rest before and after the event without the stress of driving. Thankfully I slept for most of the two and a half hour drive so wasn't feeling obsessing about everything. I think that once there was nothing left to focus on, my head just went into melt down mode about the whole event and the confidence in my training went out of the window.

Saturday afternoon slipped by slowly with a book and some TV, anything to distract my head enough to put the butterflies to sleep for a while. Big carby dinner and then I hit the sheets pretty early. My bed was the most comforatble thing I have ever slept on. My aunty had put two matresses, one on top of the other, because they had a spare and OMG! It was heaven, I had the best night sleep I could ask for before my first triathlon.

On Sunday morning there was still a lot of waiting around. Breakfast and getting ready, waiting for Dad to come back from the dog walk - all the waiting was just making me feel SO sick. Breakfast just made it worse too - the butterflies went to town when I fed them. I swear they were practising for some sort of high speed, death defying stunt show inside my tummy.

We set off for the event in good time, all suited up and everything. Parking was a nightmare - it seemed like half of Taunton and their families had rocked up to watch or compete. They turned the car park of the sports centre into the transition zone so everyone was parked in the residential roads. I think we were about 7 streets away in the end. We joined the river of people in flip flops, with helmets on, bikes and kit bags that was slowly drifting towards the centre. Apparently, the etire for pre triathlon participants is tri suit under pyjamas, flip flops and helmet! It is a fantastic look, I have to say. I joined in with my lovely orange scrub trousers - a gift from the hospital, post op - and donned my helmet, just to complete the trend!

Once we had officially signed in and got marked up with our race numbers! They literally drew the numbers onto our bodies - just incase we lost a limb, said my Dad lovingly, they can match all the limbs up to your bike later.

GEE! THANKS DAD!!! He is so helpful when I am ready to hyperventilate.

We headed to the transition point to set up all our kit. You have to hang your bike is a specific point with all your cycling and running gear ready to go. Once we went in for our breifing we couldn't come back to the transition zone until T1 (where you change from swimming to cycling). This was quite intimidating as I had to be sure that everything was set up perfectly before I left - any mistakes and my transistions would be screwed. Luckily, beacause Mum has done like a million of these (well, 8 now) she knew what she was doing and gave me a hand.

Whilst we were setting up there were people coming out of the pool and going into transition for the bike section so I could watch how they were doing it and how they were getting on. It was calming to see other people going through the motions and not finding it too stressful by the looks of things. You can see people heading off on their bike and going out to their run whilst setting up so you really get a feel for what is going on and how you make it through the whole event.

We went in for our briefing at 11:00am after saying good bye to Dad and one last check list through our station. They took all of us, about 20 people, into a squash court which they had turned into 'The Briefing Room', a guy came in to explain the whole event, health and safety rules, go through the three different courses with us. It was very helpful, for one thing it told me exactly what I needed to do to get through the morning and also, there were at least 6 of us in my wave who were first timers so I felt much better about my lack of confidence.

After our chat we were taken through to the pool side and were given our timing chips. The event was SO well organised! I was wave 11, and we were getting our timing chips sorted, wave 10 were on the other side of the pool being allocated into lanes and stretching, wave 9 were in the water doing their swim and wave 12 were waiting to go into 'The Briefing Room' as we left. It was a like a little clock with all the cogs working to perfection! They were so organised that they labelled my hands with my lane number and the colour of my hat - yes, the COLOUR of my hat - for the lane I was swimming in.

Lane 3 Black hat

Wave 11

And just like clockwork as wave 10 got into the pool, we went round to the other side of the pool to get sorted into our lane groups and have a little warm up and wave 12 came in to get their chips. It was like a train station! I loved it - my OCD was very satisfied with the organisers.

Then, before I knew it, I was in the water with my hat on ready to set off. There were 4 people in a lane, all with a different hat and we set off 10 seconds apart. The pool etiquette was that if you had your toes tapped in the water the person behind you was going to overtake you at the end of the next lane. Mum was actually in the lane with me and off before me so we had already made the agreement that I would overtake her straight away as she knows I'm a faster swimmer. So, after the first length I overtook Mum with no problem, then there was a woman with a white hat in front of me. By the end of the second length I'd gained on her but wasn't close enough to tap her feet. I got her about 2/3 of the way along the third length and tapped her toes... so you would think that she would stop and wait like she was told to. But NO! she turned round as if she was about to push off again so, naughty as it may have been, I cut her up. She knew I'd tapped her and she should have waited so I forced her to. I got a right evil glare but I didn't care - after that there was a lot of space between me and the last person in the lane, a guy in a green hat. He was pretty quick so there was space for me to get into a really good pattern with my stroke. It felt great and I realised by about length 8 that I was gaining on this guy too! This surprised me but only spurred me on more to be honest. My competitive side reared her head and decided to chase him down. I didn't really pick up my speed but I didn't let up at all. Just kept eating into the meters until we were swimming up the same side of the lane together. Then I knew I could get him - and I did!!! 4 lanes to go and pretty much slapped him on the foot (I did feel bad, it was a little aggressive) and over took him! WAHOO! I had lapped every body with 3 lanes to go. With 2 lanes to go they put a little paddle into the water so that you know exactly where you are. I was feeling much more relaxed now that the swim had gone so well. With one lane to go I over took Mum for a second time and powered home to the end.

Hauling  yourself out of the pool after a swim like that knowing that you now have to get onto a bike for 23km is hard! It's a big drag and you feel like the water is trying to pull you back into the pool. The length counter for our lane was really lovely when I got out of the water though, which really gave me a boost.

'Good swim, really lovely stroke, consistent, WELL DONE!' was exactly what I needed to hear as I finished my first stage.

Into transition I went, about 4th out of the pool according to Dad who was giving me a running commentary from the fences of the transition zone. It is not pleasant putting clothes over a wet tri suit but I was glad of the running top once I was out on the bike as it was chilly! My transition was pretty slow - will need to work on that for the next one - which meant that I left for the bike behind people who left the swimming pool after me. That was a little frustrating but I was still doing okay and I was wasn't too worried about my time at this point.  My sub 2 hour goal was still well within my grasp so off I went.

The course was really hilly! It was all up or down, I don't think there was much of it that was actually flat. Mum caught me up just before the half way turn and we played tag for most of the way back. I need to work on my recovery after a big hill as that is where I lose power. At one point, at the top of the most horrendous hill ever, I had a little dry heave - all the lactic build up made me feel horrendous! Mum went past me there again and that was where I lost her. I slowed down to recover from the almost vomiting situation and she vanished into the distance. Thankfully, after that, it was pretty much downhill back to the sports centre so I did gain ground on her again and we came back into transition pretty much one after the other. I knew that was the last time I'd see Mum until the end though as she is a much faster runner than I am. She set off and just vanished into the distance!

There was a lot of encouragement coming from Dad which was brilliant, I definitely needed the boost. Although, all I could should back was 'I CAN'T FEEL MY TOES!!' which he seemed to find very amusing.

I set off on a shuffle more than a run and headed out for 2 laps of a 2.5km circuit. It's so horrible to try and get your body to adjust from cycling to running - breathing goes out of the window for starters. I felt like someone had tied and elastic band around my lungs too tight! They were expanding but not enough. I couldn't quite see how I was going to manage another 35+mins out on the course. My legs were screaming at me 'what the hell are you doing? Why are we still moving? WHAT!' But I knew that it would get easier as long as I kept going. I got a seriously painful stitch about 1/3 of the way round the first lap which was really not ideal. It was horrible so my shuffle slowed even more and then, because people are funny and the course directors like a giggle, I turned a corner and hit the most monstrous hill! I mean, it was more of a small mountain than a hill, it just kept going, I couldn't see the top because the hill veered round a corner and vanished behind a hedgerow.

I swear, one half of the 2.5km lap was just a hill! It was horrid, I couldn't do it - I walked and jogged and walked and jogged as much as I could until I got to the top. I was a little disappointed but still - it was just MONSTROUS and there were lots of other people who were struggling with it too. The encouragement from the other participants was brilliant. Everyone was really chatty and positive out there which made the whole thing much easier to get through. Second lap was just as tough but I managed to run more of the hill second time around as my stitch was gone. All together my run was SLOW but the thought of my two hour time kept me going when I really didn't want to run anymore. Coming round the final corner was excellent, I could see the finish line and Mum and Dad were going crazy for me. The commentator was chatting me in too. He must have had everyone on a system as he was calling me by name as I approached the finish. It was such a brilliant feeling! Getting to the finish line without any major injuries and within my time goal too! I was SO happy.

What I loved was, because of the timing chip on my ankle, I could get my times immediately!

I GOT A PB!!!! My swim time was the fasted I've swum in about 6 years! I was impressed. Bit frustrated with my transition times but that is something I'll get more used to as I get more experienced with triathlons in general. 

My bike was fine - I think I'll have to get skinnier tiers if I want to shave major amounts of time off of that. And some more power in my legs after a hill climb.

And the run, well, when my general fitness improves and I can actually manage the massive hill, it should be quicker than that!

But I was really proud! I finished. I actually did it and I enjoyed it too. I have definitely got the bug now.

Me and Mum after we'd finished.

7 weeks tomorrow until the next one!!

BRING IT ON!
Check in soon

M xx