REASON TO: Its Beginning!!

For those that are new to my blog, welcome.

The of 16th September last year, I entered an Ironman. For those who do not know what this is, I shall explain.

It is just a little endurance race, where I will start by swimming 2.4 miles, most likely in a freezing cold lake (I do wear a wetsuit) this however will not protect my poor fingers and toes from the cold. On Completion of this I will move as quickly as I can (could be hard with frozen feet) to my bike, in the process peeling my wetsuit off. Upon arrival at my bike I will quickly (again could be hard with frozen hands) put on my helmet, bike shoes etc and then I am off for a little bike ride. Just a mere 112miles later I will complete the ride, where upon I ditch the bike and biking accessories and put on my running shoes.(This is the part I am really dreading). I then have to preferably run, however I feel walking, staggering, crawling and possibly even rolling, might come into play in this part of the race, as I need to cover 26 miles, in other words a MARATHON. WAS I INSANE WHEN I ENTERED THIS!!!!!

So 8 months down the line and some training later, I am feeling somewhat more optimistic that I haven't sentence myself to death, but maybe more of a brutal torture session that will last for quite some time. Also I am not ruling out that is quite likely I will be having vivid flashbacks and horrendous nightmare for the rest of my life.

So why am I doing it? That is a good question. I would love to raise over £3,000 for 'Tiny Lives' which is a charity very close to my heart. I know this seems like a vast amount of money, but really compared to the enormous amount of pain I am about to put myself through I think it is worth it. Nearly 8 years ago I gave birth to very premature twins. It was touch and go with both of them a few times but they are both here today, fighting fit and larger than life in personality. If you take a look at my blog entry, dated the 21st November, titled 'What motivates you' I think It really says it all but here is the slide show taken from it. Please turn up the volume on you computer and watch what it is that motivates me

If this video is not working, please click on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hl2njDgM-4

Since the start of this blog I have have been on a roller-coaster ride of emotions, with many high's and some extremely low moments, babies have been born and loved ones have been lost. But one thing that has remained constant through out it all is that on August the 7th 2011, I will be lining up currently with 2,194 other people from all over the world to take part in my first ever Ironman. (Think maybe I should also be worrying about that mass start, boxing gloves might be advisable at least for the first 500m), Oh what have I done!!!

Finally, today I took part in my first race of the season. It was a sprint held at Alnwick (Northumberland), where I completed a 500m (20 lengths) pool swim, followed by 18km on the bike and then a 5km run. It was a tropical 8 degrees at 6am and the thought of being wet cycling around Northumberland, really wasn't pleasant.

However 1 hour 16 minutes and 10 seconds later I finished my first race of the season, in 3rd place for my age category. I am so chuffed, my times are as follows:

Swim including transition 9.08 mins 08secs
A windy bike ride: 44mins 18secs
Run and transition 2: 22mins 44secs