Garmin Edge 810 - Testing a New Tool

Another winter/off-season is over and summer is poking its head around the corner.

Before I head into full-on ironman training again, though, there's a few more "fun" events coming up.  In fact they'll be occupying the next three Sundays:  Tomorrow it's the Spring Cycle, next Sunday the Rebel Run Sydney (half marathon with St Pete) and the Sunday after that the big one, The Sydney to the Gong Ride.

A summary of my next three Sundays...

With the purchase of Black Beauty I have had the opportunity to turn the Avanti back into a real road bike - so the clip on aero bars have come off and I have taken her in to see Mark at Jet Cycles for an adjustment to my bike fit, ready for pure road riding rather than hybrid road/tri riding.  And that's left me able to do the Spring Cycle and Gong ride, both huge events on the Sydney riding calendar.

Today was time for another ride, though, and with a slightly different purpose.

Coach Dave had set me a 3 hour easy/steady ride and that was a perfect opportunity to test out the latest toy tool in my training arsenal, the Garmin Edge 810.  The great thing about the 810, and the reason for getting it, is its ability to navigate.  With my plan to ride back from Wollongong in a couple of weeks I was keen to ensure that once I hit the 180km mark, getting lost would be the one thing I wouldn't have to waste precious energy on.

So in preparation for today's ride I mapped a circuit in GarminConnect which would take me across the harbour bridge and out to Olympic Park.  Once there I'd sample a few of the bike trails then head across the Parramatta river and follow the Ermington shared cycle path before carrying on through Lane Cove and back home via St Leonards and North Sydney.

The route was a mixture of roads and bike paths, and would provide a good mix to test out the unit and get used to its operation.  It's also a route I would never have dreamed of trying to do on my own in the past.  It was really exciting, then, to be trying something new and seeing some different scenery.

This is what I would try to follow...

So, bright and early this morning I set out, ready for an adventure or two.  And the morning didn't disappoint!  By the time I returned home I had learnt a lot about the 810 and had a much better understanding of what it does really well and its limitations.  Most importantly, it'll be great for my ride home from Wollongong.  Here's a bit of a summary, though, of what I found with it.

It does great turn by turn instructions when you are following roads.  As with the car GPS units, Garmin on the bike does great navigation.  It doesn't talk to you but it puts up on the screen the next turn instruction.  Once you are a certain distance away it beeps at you and brings up the distance and estimated time away from the turn and counts this down.  You get a couple of beep warnings of this as you approach the turn and then a different beep at the turn.

If you go off course it does another type of beep (I sure learnt that one fast as I heard it plenty of times!) and if you stay off course you'll get the option of recalculating the route or finding your own way back - and you'll get a beep when you're back on course.  At one point, when I ended up on Parramatta Road, I realised that giving it the option of recalculating is probably not the best option to take as it wasn't keeping me away from one of the busiest roads in Sydney.  It might have been one of the other settings I had, but in any case I stopped allowing it to recalculate and that fixed the problem.

While the turn by turn instructions are fab, they stop working when you are on bike paths.  So there was a bit of confusion (for me) while I was on bike paths going across bridges and all the way around Olympic Park as I could see the track I needed to follow on the screen but suddenly stopped getting instructions.  What would happen then is if I didn't look at the screen at the right time I could (and did) miss turns and end up wasting a bit of time trying to get back on track.  And of course I didn't realise immediately that it was simply not recognising the bike track - I spent most of the time thinking I was lost.  It wasn't until later that I figured out that it only wanted to give me turn by turn instructions on actual roads.  It was a bit like playing one of those mystery location games as a kid:  you're getting cold, colder, warm, warmer, got it!

The final lesson, and the most crucial one is ...it pays to charge your unit regularly.  Doh.  OK, this was completely my fault and no reflection on the 810 - I've had it for a fortnight now, used it extensively in that fortnight and not charged it since its first charge when it was unpacked.

Oops.

Once I got to Olympic Park I stopped to admire the scenery and have a quick bite to eat.  Next thing the unit beeps at me.  I look down and can't believe my eyes:

"Low Battery Warning"

Shoot.  OK, that's not exactly what I said...I was thinking much worse!  Here I was at the furthest point on my loop and I had 11% battery life left in the lifeline that was going to get me home.  Hmm, do I turn around and ride home the way I came?  Do I jump on the ferry and bail, or do I get going and wing it as long as I can?

Turning around seemed a pretty lame option and getting on the ferry even lamer, so I stopped mucking around and got going.  I figured I may as well get as far as I could and if all else fails I had the iPhone in my back pocket that I could bring up maps on.  It meant, though, that I wasn't going to be able to stop and take photos along what would be one of the more pleasant parts of the journey - the shared cycle path between Parramatta and Meadowbank.  Never fear, though, there is a YouTube clip of it and so here it is for you to get a taste of.  Parramatta's Ermington shared cycle path:

11% battery power, however, wasn't too shabby as by the time it finally died I was on the cycle path alongside the M2 stopped at traffic lights taking a look at the first signs pointing towards North Sydney, just 9km from home.

Lane Cove - Chatswood - North Sydney
I'm not lost!!!

All in all, then, it was a great morning's ride and brilliant to try out some different locations.

And while the 810 struggles a bit with providing instructions on bike paths, it's nothing I can't get used to and a huge improvement on having nothing at all.  I can see we're going to have some great adventures together...

That's if I can remember to keep it fully charged.

...Hmm, another job for St Pete I think!

Sydney Marathon - Irongirl Kicks it out of the Park

Well this could be a pretty short blog entry.  Here's the report card from Sunday's Sydney Marathon and a recap of the goals I had set:

So, this non-runner kicked it out of the park with a 25 minute PB on last year's time.

Happy?  You bet!
Sore?   You bet!
Tired?  You bet!
Couldn't care less?  YOU BET!!!

The day was a stunner - clear, no wind and warmed up really nicely during the morning.  As we did last year, we had breakfast and then had time to watch all the half marathon runners go past before wandering down to the start line.  The plan for the day was to find the 4:30 pace setters and try to stick to them for the duration.  So we found the two guys standing with 4:30 flags attached and took the opportunity to make ourselves known and let them know that we hoped to stick close.

They were great to talk to and they explained that one of them would be going for the gun time (gun guy - Matt) and the other the nett time (nett guy) and so we wanted to try and stay between them.  Great plan.  They had sorted out splits down their arms, iPhone GPS data and GPS watches - they were taking no chances here!  And, finally, they were intending to to run even splits throughout the race, although Matt would start out a bit faster to make up the initial 3 minutes he expected we'd lose getting across the start line.

So we positioned ourselves at the start behind nett guy and Matt and eagerly awaited the start.

It was to be a race of three parts.  The first 15km warmup, the second 15km needing a bit of work, and the final 12km where the true character test was held!

The first 15km felt really comfortable, I didn't go out too hard and stayed within myself.  The focus was staying relaxed and, as we headed over the bridge, St Pete edged ahead towards Matt and I trailed behind, happy with the pace and remaining slightly ahead of nett guy.  At around the 5km mark I had caught up to Matt and Pete and stayed with them as we headed down and back out of the Botanic Gardens.  As we headed into the gardens Matt called out to the group that they had made up their time and so was dropping the pace back a little.  Matt and Pete were running side by side and I was still feeling really comfortable and so I edged slightly ahead of them and would remain there, no more than 50m ahead as we headed out of the Gardens, through Hyde Park, up Oxford St and into Centennial Park.

Through Centennial Park and the second 15km was getting a bit tougher. I started having to concentrate more on form and ticking over the kilometres.  I maintained that small gap ahead of the 4:30 pace group and St Pete was doing a brilliant job sticking with Matt - fantastic pacing on his part.  However I was definitely starting to feel it in the legs.  A welcome distraction for part of this section was having a couple of colleagues from work catch up and go past, and having a chat to them enroute.  Russell and Monica were doing their first marathon and would end up finishing in 4:09 - a great effort on their part.

And then we came to the final 12km - and that was pure pain.

At about the 29km mark Matt's pace group came beside me and so I tucked behind them for a little bit thinking that they might have to drag me through the final section.  As we headed towards the top of Oxford St to head back down into the CBD Pete started to run ahead of the group and I followed to try and get a little ahead of them again.  Pete was looking really fresh, though, and I knew there was no way I could stay with him.  He picked up his pace slightly, and disappeared down Oxford St.  Meanwhile I started cursing, for the first time in my life, having to run downhill!  The quads were starting to complain big time.

This section, though, was all about gutsing it out and that's what I did.  With the gun group right behind me I just kept repeating various mantras to myself: relentless forward motion; just keep going.  I'd occasionally check my kilometre splits and saw that they had dropped below my desired 6:23 but I knew we had run the first half ahead of schedule so I had time up my sleeve.  Plus the 4:30 pace group was still tracking just behind so I didn't panic.

At the far end of the course we were at Pyrmont and were heading up the road towards the final climb where we would do the final U-turn and start heading for the finish line.  Behind me I heard Matt say to the group "just one final hill guys, and then we're home".  "Home" was relative - we still had 5km to go, but once we got over that hill and over the other side it was a 3km flat stretch to the finish.  I got up the hill - at that point I was climbing much better than descending - around Darling Harbour and back down the final drop and the second to last aid station.  Paused there for a drink and the pace group came past, grabbed drinks and they kept going.  I tried to follow ... but couldn't.  I needed to take about 10 seconds to get the legs working again and could only watch them disappear into the distance while I got going.  That was OK, though, they were on gun time and I was only concerned with the net time.

So I dug in and got going.  Only 3km to go.  By this stage lots of people around me were suffering big time and, as I did last year, drew strength from those people and used their walking  (and occasional swearing!) as a reason to keep running.

The last aid station is always a welcome sight - only 1200m to go and the nett guy caught up to me here.  I looked at my watch and it was reading 4:22.  Fantastic - 8 minutes to do 1200m.  I would do this!  Ears pinned back I headed for home, eyes only for that finish line in front of the Opera House.

I had no sprint me in for that final stretch but that was OK - my final km split was 6:23 and that was all I could do, but it was plenty.  I crossed the finish line in 4:28 and was so happy to see St Pete standing there waiting for me.  He had paced his race so well and had crossed 4 minutes ahead in 4:24.

A great day for us both and, when asked later on by Coach Dave what I'd do differently next time, I really couldn't give him an answer.

Full marks!

Trying Not to Chew My Arm Off

So this blog entry is all about one thing.

Filling in some time before tomorrow morning's race.

Tomorrow is the Blackmore's Sydney marathon and so today is all about putting my feet up, resting and doing as little as possible.

And I HATE it!

You see, one of the defining characteristics of ironman athletes is that we all seem to be addicted to staying busy.  You really do need to be able to thrive on being busy in order to juggle training, family and work life in a way that gets you to the start and finish line of your A race.  At some point during the season we all moan and complain about it all being too much, and feeling bad about the lack of social life we lead.  However get to a day like today, when I have free rein to sit around doing nothing, ALL DAY, and I'm like a fenced in cougar, pacing around my pen, getting grumpy.

OK, maybe not grumpy.  But you get the idea.

And I don't have St Pete to take my mind off the ticking minutes.  He's gone into work for the day, leaving me to my own devices and it really has been like having ADHD.

It's not like I've got nothing to entertain me.

There are a pile of triathlon magazines on the table waiting for my undivided attention.  The Saturday paper is on the same table, open.  There are recorded programs on the TV to watch.  I can easily fill in the time.  I've tidied up.  I've caught up with printing out finisher's certificates and photos from previous events.  I've had a cup of coffee (and a piece of baklava or three...). I've cruised YouTube and Facebook.  I've bought some songs on iTunes to add to the iPod playlist.  I've stood out on the balcony having a quick chat to Mel S and stood on the footpath briefly catching up with Chrissie.

And now I eagerly watch the clock waiting for midday to come simply so I've got a reason to make lunch!

All this nervous energy is hopefully a good thing.  I've had a tough few weeks training and am confident that Coach Dave has timed my build up perfectly in that, as taper approached, I definitely noticed the fatigue levels starting to creep into my stats.

Heart rate decay during a run - a sure sign of fatigue

My heart rate stats usually show a pretty consistent rate during a run.   However, a check of my profile after a session that felt less than optimal confirmed that I wasn't missing something.  Fatigue had set in and it was time to taper!

So we're there now and all I need to do is hurry up and wait.

And my plan for tomorrow?  There are several - and in a show of how far I've come and how much better I am when it comes to backing myself, here's the rundown before the race!

Number 1 Goal: Finish  
This will always be my number 1 goal!  No matter what happens a finish is a finish and the day will have been a success.

Number 2 Goal: Do better than last year's time of 4:53:06
Should be doable - I'm lighter, faster and stronger and all my run times this year have been ahead of last year's stats.

Number 3 Goal: Achieve Coach Dave's benchmark for me of 4:45:00
OK, just quietly, I think he's being really kind to me :)  Hehe, I think I can do better than that, and so.....

Number 4 Audacious, Kick it out of the Park, Goal: Sub 4:30:00
Yep, that's what I'm going to really go for, just quietly.  But don't worry, I've done my research, analysed my training stats and I don't think it's too unrealistic.  It requires an average pace of 6min 23sec/km and that's what I'll keep an eye on tomorrow. Of course all the stars probably need to align and, much like ironman, it's still a long day out there with plenty that can go wrong.  But I'm backing myself here!

The plan, then, is to find the 4:30 pace setter and try sticking with them for the duration - sticking with a pace group will be a new experience in itself, but hopefully it might make the kilometres tick over a bit easier as it'll give me something else to think about.  A bit like being on a club run.

So, there you have it.  One sleep to go and this irongirl is ready to go and do her best.

Watch this space to hear how it all went!

Training for a Cause - Sydney to Gong Ride for MS Australia

Doing an event for a cause has become the thing to do these days.  No matter what event you do - fun runs, bike events, walks, ocean swims, ironman - there's an opportunity presented to you to raise funds for a charity at the same time.

There are many reasons to do it.  Some will be doing it for very personal reasons, i.e. in memory of a family member or friend who has suffered or passed away.  Others will be using it as motivation for themselves to achieve a particular goal.  For the charities it's a great way of raising much needed funds in these times of constrained budgets and reduced public funding.

At a personal level I've only infrequently got involved with fundraising alongside my own participation in an event.  The last time I did so was in 2007 when I pulled together a team from work to take part in the Oxfam Trailwalker in New Zealand.  We fundraised together and (mostly) trained together, before completing the event together.  It was a great experience but, ultimately, it wasn't the fundraising that was the most rewarding part of it.  Don't get me wrong - Oxfam is an amazing charity and fully deserving of everyone's support.  It's just that the fundraising wasn't a motivating factor for me.  The training and then achieving the goal of completing the event was what got me excited and enthusiastic.  And that's what I look back on fondly.

It's a great example of how people are motivated by different things.

With ironman there are similar opportunities to raise funds for partner charities.  Ironman New Zealand are currently considering a new partner charity, however previously it was Cystic Fibrosis.  And as entrants we were regularly encouraged by IMNZ to set up a fundraising page and jump on the money raising bandwagon. It's not something that's ever got me enthusiastic, however, and again it's got nothing to do with the charity.  It's more about the fact that Ironman is my own personal challenge and that is what motivates me to do it - not some external factor.

However the barren wasteland that is my charitable activity is about to change for a little while!

Yesterday I entered one of Sydney's iconic rides, the MS Gong Ride.  It's a 90km bike ride from Sydney to Wollongong and is a major fundraiser for Multiple Sclerosis Australia.  As an entrant everyone undertakes to raise at least $250 each and, with a cap of 10,000 entrants, it's obviously a pretty popular cause.

It's a ride I've followed since we moved to Sydney and always looked like a great event to do - afterall, what irongirl wouldn't jump at the chance for a 90km training day down to Wollongong on the bike and back home on the train?!   This year I've taken the plunge and entered and I figured that $250 can't be too scary to raise from people?

Can it?  Well I'm about to find out!

As a way of making it a bit more interesting (I hope), I've upped the stakes and hopefully provided a bit more of an incentive for people to join in the fun with their wallets.  It seemed that you'd probably all think that a 90km ride for me would be a bit of a doddle so I started thinking about being iron-tough and riding home instead of taking the train.  I could round it out to 200km and therefore make it longer than I'd do in an ironman.

But to do that I'll need more than $250.

And then the brain went into overdrive....how about setting a second level, at which point I'll dress in a silly costume?  Think Xena, Warrior Princess, Wonder Woman etc.  (St Pete is keen on The Incredible Hulk....yikes!).  And that's not all - Sarah, my friend from bootcamp, has decided to do the ride with me and when she heard my madcap idea of riding back she decided that she'd join me ... as long as I raised double what I set for my own ride back.

So here it is - MS Australia - a fantastic cause for an horrific disease that we can all only hope we don't get.  And my training day on 3 November will be determined by you, my friends, family, supporters and readers.  This is what I'll do in return for your donations:

$250   Do the ride (and enjoy the train ride home)
$500   Double de Gong (ride down and ride back and make it a 200km journey)
$1000 Double de Gong Madcap ( ride down and back, 200km, in a crazy costume)

So, what are you waiting for?  Get to it!  Check out the Sponsor Me button on the right hand side of the blog, or go to http://register.gongride.org.au/2013-Sydney-to-Gong-Bike-Ride/Irongirl101

Love your work guys :)

Create Maps or search from 80 million at MapMyRide

Sutherland 2 Surf - Race Recap

Well, well, well.

What a day.

The Sutherland 2 Surf was just a fun run but, still, I had a plan. First and foremost, finish and improve on last year's time of 65 minutes. Based on this year's half marathon I figured I should be able to do 61 minutes, however wasn't 100% confident having had a rubbish few weeks running while recovering from this year's Ironman New Zealand and Ironman Cairns.

But while expectations weren't high I still set myself a little "awesome" goal, that I didn't share so widely, thinking wouldn't it be fantastic if I could shave a minute off that half marathon pace and get in under 60 minutes.

Could I really do it?

St Pete and I had a stress free day on Saturday - easy walks and a nice early night, getting up at 5am Sunday with plenty of time for a bowl of porridge before we headed to the train for the journey down to Sutherland.

Worst thing about the day was getting there and waiting.  We got to the start line in plenty of time but it was only 5 degrees! Yes, I know, soft Sydneysider...

 Eventually we figured out that the local hall right by the start line was open for late entries ... and that was where all the smart people were waiting - inside where it was much warmer!

Eventually, however, we had to make our way to the start line and finally the gun went off and we were into it. The conditions were perfect - no wind, clear skies, this was going to be great.

St Pete and I started out together and immediately had to start dodging and running around walkers.  While they had been given different coloured bibs, for some reason the organisers hadn't coralled them at the rear of the starting area and so they were interspersed throughout the field.  The only upside to having all these walkers to get around was that it slowed me down and ensured I didn't start too fast!  Despite the positive angle, I sincerely hope this approach was just a one-off slip up on the organisers' part - it no doubt frustrated a lot of people.

Anyway, we got going and after the first kilometre St Pete said "adios" and headed off ahead of me.  He didn't know it at the time but I had hatched a second plan.

Hang on behind him for as long as I could.

During the next kilometre I managed to stick to him pretty well - there were still a few walkers around and so that was no doubt holding him up and I made the most of it.  At around the 2km mark we hit the first aid station and I slowed down to pick up a cup of water to have with a gel (I didn't have any water with me before the start so missed taking my gel - so planned on taking it at the first aid station instead).  Although I didn't stop running, I lost touch with Pete as he simply ran through without even slowing down.

I could still see his bright yellow cap ahead, though, and so worked hard to stay in visual touch.  By the time we got to the 4km mark I had almost caught up to him and at this point we hit the first and biggest hill of the course.  It went for about 300m and so I put my head down and focused on staying strong to the top, hoping I would still be in touch with Pete at the top.  Alas, by the time I got to the top he had gone out of sight and I wouldn't see him again until the finish line.

The rest of the run, however, went better than planned.  I kept a bit of an eye on my watch and was amazed to be seeing kilometre splits all sub 5:30 and one split a 4:46!  I knew I was ahead of my target pace, then, and figured I had probably technically gone out too fast.  However as with the half marathon decided I just needed to back myself and hang on until the end, hoping like anything that I wouldn't blow up.

At the 8km mark we reached the crest of a hill and saw the ocean at Cronulla beach for the first time.  It's always a great sight, however I knew that the last kilometre of this run is always tough.  Sure enough, 1500m to go and we turn hard left at Cronulla and head parallel to the shore to the Wanda Surf Lifesaving Club, where the finish line is.

By this stage I was busy checking and rechecking my splits and average pace, which had been consistently sitting around 5:09 - a pace I never hit in training!  But I was also suffering big time and this last section is really tough.  It seems like there are never ending hills and it feels like the longest 1500m ever.  Finally we turn right into the carpark and head around the corner and downhill again to the finish line, at the same time I'm continuing to run past people and chick a few blokes.  That always feels good, but not as good as seeing my time as I crossed the finish.

No, I didn't do last year's time of 65 minutes.

No, I didn't do this year's half marathon pace of 61 minutes.

No, I didn't do my "awesome" time of 60 minutes.

I backed myself, pushed hard, and hung in there for 57 minutes 17 seconds.

Job.  Done.

Sutherland to Surf - A "Fun" Run

This weekend is Sutherland to Surf weekend.

This is a great local fun run held down in the Sutherland Shire which takes you on an 11km journey from Sutherland to Cronulla. Even better, the overall topography shows it as a downhill course - although don't forget, this is Sydney and so there are some climbs to negotiate!

Create Maps or search from 80 million at MapMyRun

The reactions of people when I've told them we're doing this run has been interesting, though, and the message has been universal.

At only 11km it must be pretty easy for me and why would I bother doing it?

Haha, easy? I wish!

Yes, I guess it could be relatively easy if I treated it as a bit of fun and just cruised through. However it's not, because I use these runs to practice running under pressure and these upcoming off-season runs will be all about setting better times than I did for the same event last year as a way of trying to build an overall speed increase into my general running. In order to run faster I need to get used to running at a faster pace over a longer distance and this is what these standalone events do.

Training runs don't give you that same mental focus, mainly because there are interruptions such as pedestrians to navigate and traffic lights to wait for along the way. Plus you're not mentally prepared and a training run is scheduled around everything else and so you don't tend to train from a nicely rested state.

So, the plan for Sunday's run is to come in under last year's time of 1:04.59. Despite the gains I've made this year I'm far from confident. My running since returning from Cairns can only be described by one word - rubbish. It can easily be explained and understood - it's taken a good 6 weeks to recover from doing 2 ironman events in the space of 3 months, but that knowledge hasn't made me feel any better prepared to do a good time.

But the logical side of me has emerged and, as usual, the data has been analyzed. What do we know? We know that in May I ran a pretty decent half marathon and came in under the magical 2 hours. In that I ran the first 11km in 61min 13 sec. So I know I should have that in me.

So that's become my main goal - sub 61 minutes. And that will require an average 5:34 pace, something I've not been hitting too well at training these past couple of weeks! But I also need to remember that this course is downhill overall ... and did I mention I'm still recovering?

So, we will see. A day of rest today, a good night's sleep (no trying to watch the Tour de France tonight!) and I'll be ready to do the best that I can.

Because that's all you can ever expect of yourself.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Facing Our Mortality

The last few weeks has been a time of reflecting on the risks we take in the name of living life to the fullest.

I didn't plan it that way.

Rather, it's come about as a result of a number of events that have really focused my mind on how lucky we are to be able to do what we do.

First of all has been the emergence of articles in the media lately about evidence coming to light regarding possible cardiac risks from taking part in endurance events (Over 40? Rethink your next triathlon, Endurance Training is Bad for Your Heart, One Running Shoe in the Grave).  Scientists are coming to the conclusion that the amount of training endurance athletes do can result in micro tears occurring in the heart which, if not allowed to heal properly (with adequate rest and recovery), can result in scarring and thickening of the heart tissue and lead to an elevated risk of cardiac arrest.

Then this morning we woke up to the sad news that 34 year old UK woman Susan Taylor had died while attempting to swim across the English Channel. Even more tragic, she was less than 2km from the finish.  This is similar to another issue that's raised its ugly head in triathlon recently with concerns about the numbers of athletes suffering cardiac arrest in the swim leg of triathlons. While the rates are exceptionally low, it's been enough for WTC to trial wave or rolling swim starts of ironman events in North America in order to, amongst other things, "...reduce athlete anxiety".

But this reflection hasn't been only about the heart.  Yesterday, a question came from a work colleague: Do you feel safe out there riding (...on Sydney's roads amongst Sydney's sometimes maniac traffic)?  Well, yes I do.  The simple fact of the matter is I wouldn't be out there if I didn't feel safe and, on the whole, drivers treat me with the respect that my relative size and exposure dictates.

Rather than quit swimming, ironman or biking, these examples simply reinforce for me that you can't let risk stop you from living life.  There is risk in everything we do.  While some take the risk-taking to an extreme (e.g. BASE jumping, skydiving, free climbing) for most of us the risk is really not much greater than crossing the road or driving to the supermarket.

And, with apologies to event organisers in advance (!) if I were to choose, I'd much rather have a heart attack out on an ironman course, doing something I love, than living out my life surrounded in cotton wool in fear of doing anything a little bit "risky".

When I think about those risks, though, I don't take it for granted.

A comment on Facebook this morning struck a cord and aligns so well with my thinking.  It was in response to a post by Triathlete magazine about a Caroline Steffen story (the 2013 Challenge Roth champ says she is two different people on and off the race course. Can you relate?), and the first response was: 

I sure can. When the race is going well, maybe a PR, I'm focused, nothing affects me. When I'm having a tough day, I joke around, laugh and think how grateful I am to be able to race/compete.

And being grateful is something I try to remember.

I am healthy and that allows me to be fit enough to complete an ironman event (well 5, actually, as Coach Dave reminded me last night...).
I am supported by an amazing husband who allows me to indulge in this passion.
I have a wicked coach who understands who I am and where I want to go, and shares my love of the sport.
I have fantastic parents and friends who, near or far, cheer me along the way and indulge my endless training updates.
I have a great job that gives us the financial security to afford to travel to events and buy the "essential" gear.

What's not to be grateful for?

So as long as I'm able I'll be out there enjoying life and making the most of my ability to live it to the fullest.  We don't have to be the strongest, fastest or most agile, and in fact the cardiac research seems to favour we slower athletes - the pro/elites are the guys likely to do the most damage.  (A "win" for we middle/back of the packers for once!) But that doesn't stop anyone from getting out there and doing whatever it is that brings you joy, happiness and, most importantly, a smile to your face.

Because in the end there will always be an end.  And for some, like Susan Taylor, it will be tragically cut short.  However I do sincerely hope her friends and family can take some shred of comfort from all that she did achieve with her Channel swim, knowing she was fulfilling a dream and had lived her life to the fullest.

Kia kaha.



P.S.  Susan Taylor's swim across the English Channel was being completed in aid of two charities, Diabetes UK and Rainbows Hospice for Children and Young People.  If you would like to contribute to her cause you can do so via her fundraising page.