A triathlon. On New Year’s Day. The day after Hogmanay. Who would contrive such a thing? A good idea in theory, start the year with something positive, but dragging myself out of bed to get to the start it didn’t feel positive. It felt hellish. Mike Lynch had pestered a couple of us to enter, myself included, and as I stood outside the Commy Pool at 11am, shaking and shivering, I realised that it was probably teatotallers that’d thought of this. Groan. It’s no surprise that non-drinker, Mike, rounded the corner looking sharp and ready. Thankfully he was followed by Matt Grove, who…didn’t.
Due to our late entries we had a short amount of time before the start, but we used it well. After registration Mike went poolside and got into “the zone”, and Matt spent much of the time in the toilet. As for me, I went for a dip in the diving pool – I thought that if I was sick in a pool, it’d be better in the non-race one. Three sound strategies, I’m sure you’ll agree.
The race itself seemed to breeze along without much incident. Eight lengths of the pool (each person starting every 10s at one corner and shifting over with every length completed), then onto the bike for three clockwise laps of Arthur’s Seat, before ditching the bike for a final run round one lap of Arthurs Seat. Mike’s swim was faster than his time last year, Matt’s swim was <try to think of something positive before posting to site>, and I think mine was non-spewy, which I think of as a definite result. Once onto the road I spotted Carnethy Iain Nimmo, who was trucking along well. I also spotted some Carnethy support teams of Mary Lye and Matt Jones, a hello from Adam Gamble was out getting a run, and I’m reasonably sure I heard Fiona Mac shout some encouragement at some point. Cheers all! I didn’t see Mike or Matt, but it was quite hard to see people amongst the competitors, simply because of the staggered start and multiple lap course – everyone was passing everyone all the time. Weaving around people certainly helped take my mind off the fact that I was freezing, and that I should really wear socks. Thankfully, it was all over soon enough, and we could retire to the Commy to compare notes. Results posted quickly, Ian and Ann Nimmo were both taking part, along with Mike, Matt and me. There were reports of Carnethy Juniors taking part in the junior races, and that young Charlie Burnett scored a third place! Excellent work! As for us adults, Anne Nimmo had the result of the day with a 2nd place in her category. Well done, all! Apologies if I’ve missed anyone!
Jim Hardie