Smothered In Dog Oil

It’s the morning of  the Nottingham ‘Piddly Little’ Tri and we’re at Parkrun. Obsessive? Well, L's not actually getting a crafty Parkrun in first, she scanning bar codes for them. Her event doesn't start until a leisurely 12.30.

Unlike the rather wet outlook for my race tomorrow, today is glorious sunshine for hers. We arrive and I head off for my briefing at 11am whilst she gets herself ready for her actual event. Their briefing will be on the start line.

L is probably still proclaiming that she can’t see further than next weekend’s Hellathon as awaits the start covered in her race tattoos. They’re very fetching, she can keep those on for later.

The event is also known as the Sprint Distance which is a 750m swim, 20k bike and a 5k run. It’s also a qualifier for ITU Sprint Distance World Championships and ETU Sprint Distance European Championships. Gulp.

The dogs and I put on our 'we are supporting...' stickers and settle in to watch.

My girl has a solid swim and a great run. It’s on the run that she’s rapidly reeling people in and even the commentator comments on that. We just need to work a tad on the bike leg... but that's not going to be an easy subject to broach to a cycle-phobic.

I grab a pre-event massage and a young girlie lathers me up with dog oil. 

Slightly appalled at what she smothering me in I double check that it is not (a) a product designed for using on dogs nor (b) a product made from dogs. She assures me it’s neither and it’s from Yorkshire, which explains everything. Then she digs her thumb in my calf to shut me up.

Actually she’s very gentle, which may or may not be what I need but it’s not what I’m used to with Dancing Boy, my usual torturer. When she’s finished with my calves she also asks if there’s anything else I’d like massaging as we have five minutes. All this customer service for a tenner but I decline her kind offer. I mean what’s five minutes.

I am sharing the massage tent with a chap with a very swollen ankle who is getting it professionally taped up. Apparently he injured himself at one of those dangerous parkrun things but he’s hopeful of completing the swim and the bike, then ‘seeing how it goes’ on the run. Badly I would guess.

L then leads me astray and takes me for two very welcome and calming pints in Stapleford before pasta back home.

(Saturday 30^th May)

This Is More Like It

Today I have to register for the half a***d and attend a race briefing, of which there are four sprinkled throughout the day and I aim for the 12:30 one. I take the dogs with me whilst L runs there.

As we wait for her we watch the Nottingham Triathlon that is going on all day. This is merely a sprint distance event 750m swim/20k bike/5k run but the buoys in the rowing lake look well spaced out to me... and that is only 750m! It’s going to be 1900m tomorrow. Gulp.

I go to registration and get my race numbers, timing chip, swim hat, tattoos etc. Yes I did say tattoos, this year they are using ITU style tattoo numbers that you stick onto your skin.

Then they hand me a pint of beer as I head into the briefing. This is more like it. Sadly it turns out to be non-alcoholic.

The briefing is more or less what is in the published race guide, only with added humour and photographs that you can’t actually see because it’s too light in the tent where they’re holding it. No matter, we’re all hyped up now. Although I feel some of my fellow ‘athletes’ are contemplating not coming back tomorrow.

Then I go for a pre-race massage in the capable hands of the former landlord of one of our local pubs. I kid you not. It’s a small world as they say.

Back home, L says she was once told that you should drink alcohol the night before a race because it helps you sleep. So I have a beer, a real one, to go with my pasta and the athletic looking Bakewell Tart that is lurking threateningly in the fridge.

(Saturday 31^st May)