The podium

So! You may be able to guess from the title of this post that we (I love that Royal We) have made it to the heady heights of the podium! OH cooked up a storm, quite literally as it happens, and powered on to a fabulous 3rd place finish at this weekend's three quarter distance warm up race. Not too shabby if you ask me. So I thought I ought to blog about the event, for posterity, you understand.

First point of note was the crazy crazy wind. The place where this event is held is pretty open to the elements as it is (it's going to make for an interesting 2012 rowing event) but this weekend the wind was brutal. So brutal they ended up taking down all the bannering for the event as it was smashing about all over the place. Taking it down seemed quite sensible to me - I thought as soon as I arrived that they looked like they had the potential to do someone an injury (get me and my Health & Safety thoughts) and I really could not be doing with taking OH to the hospital because he'd been knocked out by rogue signage. All the bike racks in transition kept being blown over; OH would have me believe that his dreadful time in T2 was a consequence of this. During his bike ride, the officials had taken away one of the racks near OH's station as it wouldn't stay upright (there were no bikes on it, don't worry). Upon entering T2, for some reason, this removal got OH into a right dither - he knew he was 3rd rack from the left and suddenly there was no '3rd'. What to do? You'd think a man of OH's intelligence would be able to work out where his rack space was, non? But no. He couldn't. For approximately one whole minute. And then when he did finally locate his space, he tried to convince me that the dastardly wind really was well and truly against him seeing as it had blown his running shoes away and he couldn't find them either.

But, anyway. Onto the swim. You know how he hates the swim. And to be honest, looking out at the white crests of the waves (really, actual waves) crashing over the surface of the water, I wouldn't have fancied it either. Down by the shore line (where I positioned myself later for filming and photography purposes), I kept thinking about that dreadful movie with the boat and George Clooney and the fishermen and my hands started to sweat. Urgh. But actually, even in these conditions, I think the boy did good. I think he was out of the water in about 12th place, which is a marked improvement on last year's efforts. Of course OH thought the whole thing was terribly distressing and will probably require some kind of post-traumatic swim therapy now. This will be the triathlon-related story he will dine out on for the next year: the tales of breathing in the gaps between the peak and the trough of the wave, the point at which he nearly gave it all up, the smashing of the water against his face. Chuck 'Fedex' Noland's final escape was nothing in comparison to this! Hmm, ok, yes darling, whatever.

So, for completeness, he did a blisteringly good job on the run (maybe those 3 pairs of super pricy running shoes were worth it?) bringing him over the line in a most well deserved and pride-inducing 3rd place. The prize, I hear you shout? £20. Really. He's actually out for a few drinkies tonight to celebrate. Let's hope he doesn't spend it all at once.