Monday 2 August, 2004
So that’s that then, all over until the next time. I am writing this on the morning after, right calf in agony, head throbbing mildly. I’ve never understood how it is possible to drink fifteen bottles of water, six lucozades, and be dehydrated the next day. Oh well.
Anyway, it was a fantastic weekend for the LRF team, and I want to thank every single one of you, and on your behalf thank all the supporters who were out on the route. Thanks to the garish yellow tops, and the fantastic organisation of Cathy Gilman and her team, LRF were by far the most visible charity of the weekend, and the support on the last stage of the run, when it is most needed, was terrific.
The money is still coming in, and we still have Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France cycling shoe to sell, but I reckon once it’s all counted, we’ll be around the £300,000 mark.
There are lots of thank yous after an event like this. For all the moments of confusion that arose from time to time, I thought as an event it was really well organised and thank London Triathlon for that, along with the police, the marshals and support staff who are vital to making such a huge logistical operation work.
The practical support from LRF staff and volunteers, operating as ever on very small budgets, was brilliant.
Personally I owe a huge debt to Greg and John and their colleagues at Triandrun not just for their advice, support and kit but also for the speed with which they replaced my bike when it was stolen at a key stage in the training. Swim For Tri were also a great source of support and advice, not least on the Esher training day at which they simulated for us the washing machine effect of the start of the swim.
Another person for me to thank is Claire from LA Fitness in Kentish Town who last Christmas taught me the basics in front crawl, and her colleague Mark who has struggled to make my ageing body more flexible. But the most important support on the coaching side came from a relative, Steve Loraine, a former elite triathlete who put together a training schedule for me over seven months, which I more or less followed, and who was a great support over the weekend. When he first got hold of me, I was taking 40 minutes plus for 1,500 metres swimming. On the day I was just over half an hour. And on the bike, I struggled to get up to a top speed of 20mph when I started out last winter. On Sunday, the highlight of the day was breaking the 30mph speed limit in the Limehouse tunnel. My overall time, 2hrs 43, was 17 minutes quicker than my 3hr target and a lot of that is down to him.
Another important support was hypnotist and motivational psychologist Tim Smale of Mindworks who wrote to me after reading in the Times that I was raising money for LRF and who, having seen his son suffer from leukaemia, offered his services free to the team. I had two sessions with him, and I’m sure that they helped, not least when my already injured calf was punched on the swim and went into spasm. I recalled some of the messages of the sessions with Tim, stayed calm, and after five minutes or so, it passed.
As some of you know, I have had a Channel Five documentary team following me as I prepared for the triathlon. The channel and the company making the film are both making generous donations to LRF. I believe the film will be going out next month some time, so watch out for that. I reckon the presence of a motor bike cameraman alongside me for part of the bike session helped spur me on so – in a rare word of gratitude to a journalist – thanks to him. In a second such rare word, thanks too to Jon Snow who rushed straight from Heathrow after flying back from the Democratic convention in Boston to fulfil his promise to do the bike in the relay. Also, we will be having a party for the LRF team some time in September or, more likely, October, and Cathy will be in touch about that. There will be prizes for top fund raisers so don’t think that just because the event is over, the fund raising has to stop.
Of course none of us could have done the training, or the event, without the love, support and encouragement of family and friends, so when we say we had a team of 160, that is not strictly accurate, because there are thousands more members of the team who weren’t running, cycling or swimming. I would like to thank Fiona and our three children Rory, Calum and Grace for all their support and encouragement over the last few months and on the day. The kids are already talking about getting their own relay teams together for next year. I should also congratulate Fiona for proving that it is possible to do breast stroke quickly without kicking front crawl swimmers in the head, which is what one or two in my race were doing.
Finally, on a sad note, I would like on behalf of LRF to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of the competitor in the Olympic relay swim who died despite the efforts of the emergency services to revive him on the pontoon. For them, memories of the Triathlon will be filled with nothing but pain and sadness and I know we will all remember that amid whatever sense of pride or satisfaction we feel at our own achievements.
Read Alastair's previous diary entries:
