Bude Shoreline Triathlon (Porno Pants: Episode 7)

The water surface turns the suns light into visible rays, which penetrate to deep beds of kelp and rocks below. Both of my ears are water logged and there is little sound. I turn my head to breath and my right ear and eye break the surface. I see a flash of blue sky, some bubbling water and something of the dark shape that is the guy in a wetsuit next to me. The water in my ear clears and I suddenly hear a harsh churning of sound which just as quickly gets muffled again as my head turns back and ear goes under the water. This cycle of looking at the bottom, turning to breath, seeing some sky, ear clearing then blocking continues for about 5 minutes as I head out towards the buoy. The rocky bottom begins to get split up by lines of sand and eventually the dark aquamarines of the start have become completely saturated by the white sand. The water too becomes murky as the increasing waves pick up the sand and give it a smoothie-making blitz. By the time I arrive at the buoy the protection of a sea wall to my left has reduced to nothing and the full force of the surf is pounding us. Staying upright and breathing is becoming difficult, which I’m forced to give priority to above swimming for a few seconds. I manage to get to within 5 metres of the buoy and tread water for a bit, waiting for a space amongst the bodies to join in their migration around it and in towards the beach. A wave washes the buoy close to me, and for an instant I think I can make it around, only for the same wave to wash me backwards to from where I had just come. The wave passes and the buoy springs further back on its chain, now 20 metres away. I try again with similar results, and decide its best to just swim the long way round it than mess about playing dodge-buoy.


The swim at low tide- the buoy that caused all the trouble is just about visible

The rest of the race went well. I made it around the bike course with no crashes(!) and marvelled, and then checked out the two women who overtook me during the race - one on the bike and one on the run, after starting 5 minutes behind. The first was the eventual winner, Flora Duffy, who will be competing in the Beijing Olympics representing Bermuda, and was a proper little hottie with a very nice bike. The other was Helen Parkinson, who, it turns out was World Quadrathlon champion in 2006, and was a very tall hottie with a very nice behind. Both of them were going too fast to get a proper ogle at though.

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The summer of SMARTBuddy sport continues in 2 days with the Bournemouth Olympic distance tri. The only thing of note is my first progression to the world of being 30: The race is split up into age groups, and they take your age from the 31st December, which is after I will be 30. This means that I will have to start in the ‘old persons’ 30 years old and above group, and I have a ‘30’ in the age column next to my name in the start list, whihc is both untrue and unfair. Worse of all is that A’s is in the 18-29 group, and will start an hour before me so we won’t be able to race in ‘real time’ and will have to just compare times afterwards.

In summary, I’m upset about being nearly 30.