Tandem Triathlon 2014 - 20th Marathon and half way through this challenge !!

And so it was that I completed my 20th Marathon today. It was fitting that I completed this at one of my favourite races of all time. The Tandem Triathlon, or to be correct The Bishops Castle Tandem Triathlon. This is a seriously class event and one that I have attended almost every year since 2003. The event is done with a partner and one of you swims, you both bike on a tandem and then the other runs. I have generally done this with a mate or the wife and have usually ended up doing the run section. I therefore feel I know the run route well. Its 10 1/2k of running in Colstey Wood with the turnaround point at the summit in the middle of the Bury Ditches Hill Fort. It was with trepidation that I mentioned to one of the champions of the BCTT, Adrian, last year that I would be keen to do 4 laps at the end of the bike to complete one of my Marathons for this challenge. He listened intently to my request at the prize giving event in 2013, then promptly turned and made an announcement about the challenge to everyone present! Ah, no backing out now. This was never going to be an easy run on its own, let alone having been on the bike for an hour. It sounds distinctly veering towards one of those stupid long distance triathlon type races and even back in the day I was never any good with anything lasting beyond a couple of hours. Hmm. Then with the prospect of missing out on lunch as well, I was seriously out of my comfort zone.

So about 10 days before the event today I realised that I hadn't been on a racer for about 2 years so decided to nip out on a couple of evenings on a short route about Abney to stretch the legs, remember how to change gears and brake and generally get the body used to a cycle position. Bloody hell its hurts your ass. I had forgotten all about that.

Right prep done it was time to nail it off to Petes after work, stay at his and then head down early in the morning for the start of the race. We got there in good time having driven through some heavy rain showers but arriving in sunshine and after registering headed up to the woods to set up camp, drop off running and support gear, and let the marshalls know what was planned. We then headed down to the start to get ready and pack Pete off to start the swim. Now it is pretty standard to turn up to the Tandem Tri with your tandem in all number of pieces, as it may well have not been ridden since last year and you do have the entire swim to get it back into a vaguely rideable condition prior to the off proper.  Amazingly this year, all I had to do was take the wheels off and put on the rotors on, oil both chains, change the seat heights and adjust the gears, having done most of the major tinkering earlier on in the week! Unfortunately whilst I was doing this, Pete, a BCTT novice, was being directed all over the place whilst he was trying to find the swimming pool entrance. The icing on the cake was, at the eventual entrance to the pool, he was met by a lady that told him to go all the way round to a different entrance in the sports hall and walk through it all the way back to about 2 meters away from where he had been only to meet the same lady again who then explained to him that 'those were the rules' and then let him onto pool side. The net effect was that he ended up starting late and didn't get a chance to have a pre race wee. Well, it wasn't really going to be a race for us anyway this year!

 Pete was under explicit instructions to not let me race on the bike so that I could focus on the run later on. So I generally chatted around the bike course whilst intermittently yelling at him to give it beans over the top of each small rise. OK so we weren't racing, but there was no way we were going to be embarrassing ourselves either! Thanks to Pete the Power House, my saddle kept on being twisted by the copious Wattage laid down through his handlebars and finished the cycle ride with a large degree of back pain. Still I saved my legs and had a relatively easy cycle up the last hill as Pete buried himself and did himself proud to deliver me to the start of the run. I learnt a whole load of new words from Pete the Power House during the descent from the top of Colstey Bank down into and through Clun where we had to take some evasive action to a suddenly stationary car and deviated our route through a garage forecourt!

Now as I had discovered recently the art of Marathon running to consistent pacing, acceptance, breathing and mental gymnastics. I had therefore decided that I would look to average just under the hour for each of the 4 laps of the run course. So on the first to laps I would run steady but get a few minutes in hand for the tougher laps later on. My first lap was about a 56 mins followed up by a 55 mins. My legs were starting to feel shot and as this was likely to be the case Pete had stepped up to run lap three with me. Apart from the inane chatter, he pushed me to break up the sections and keep running at all the right bits to allow me to go on to complete the marathon including all the water stops and clothes changes in 3 hours 59 minutes and 20 seconds. Really really pleased to get under 4 hours on this course in a tired state and having biked for a hilly hour or so. All we then had to do was complete the cycle back down Colstey Bank and then the 5k back to the start.

I think Pete was quite concerned that I was going to struggle to control the bike on this high speed descent, with good reason as we hit 83.9 km/h completing the first kilometer in 54 seconds! However I don't think we wobbled too much, well not that I noticed anyway! Pete pretty much pedalled all the way back on his own and helped to spin some life back into my legs by the finish line. Our final finish time bringing us out unsurprisingly in last place. No-one else was quite stupid enough to tackle 4 laps of this course. When I work back the results taking into account my recorded run split for the first lap, knocking off the delayed start and my long change out of my cycling stuff and into my running stuff we finished in a very respectable 15th place! Brilliant. Pete the Power House, I salute you Sir, many many many thanks for helping me complete this marathon. It is always an honour and I completely understand that following 3 assists that you are now bowing out of future daft challenges in this context, although I remain pretty confident I can pencil you into something interesting 'a lot' later in the year!?!

So now 20 Marathons have been completed in 16 weeks. It has taken a good couple of hours to sink in and now I am really pleased to have remained fairly injury free and illness free to complete things thus far. Wow. I look back and it has been a long time since the 8th of March with ups and downs, mostly mental. Some of which have cocked up the day or the weekend for my family and obvious thanks and patients going out my wife for her continued unwavering support. There have also been many many highs as well and great experiences when out on my local hills getting cheered on by my boys. It is now simply a case of counting them down until hopefully completing this challenge on November the 1st.