Who knew you could make yourself so ill with nerves? I certainly didn’t until last Friday rolled around, the night before my first ever middle distance triathlon (The Vitruvian) and I found myself doubled over with cramp and pain despite having not eaten anything for hours. Yep I was that nervous. Would the past 16 weeks of training be enough? Was 27 miles in the pool be sufficient over that time period? 632 miles on the road and another 280 or so on a spin bike at my beloved BOOM Cycle classes sounded a lot of training but was it? And after 1900m swimming and 85km cycling were my legs really going to be able to carry me another 21km to the finish line? 171 miles of run training is actually only 11 miles a week.. that was one of my biggest fears – I was woefully underprepared for the run.

12 hours later and I’m at the lake shore at 7am turning back round to my lovely friend who had also dragged herself out of bed at 4:45am to be part of the madness, and I found myself repeating “I don’t want to get in. I don’t want to get in”. The fear was still there but thankfully the stomach pain had gone. It was time to put those 1100 miles of training to the test.

The swim went fine. The water stank (geese or algae?) but the 1900m passed quickly enough and within 46 minutes I found my dripping wet self riding out of transition feeling good. That feeling didn’t last too long as I found out very quickly that the undulating course was in fact HILLY. Note to all who advertise races as undulating… this word should only ever be used to describe a route being driven in a car… because on a bike… it’s known as hilly. Hilly and windy as luck would have it that day… I took comfort in knowing that it wasn’t possible for the wind to be in my face the WHOLE way round and sure enough after 10 miles a left turn took me out of the oncoming wind, and gratefully onto a nice fast section which lasted around 15 miles (I’ll accept this part as being undulating). Before I know it I’m nearly finished the first lap, save for another 5 miles of hilly wind in face section and I’m headed back out for lap 2. I enjoyed it. I sang a lot of the way (yes, out loud) and I loved it! Everything from Basement Jaxx to Dolly Parton, Queen to The Automatics. I felt strong and very glad for my hours of hill training in the spin classes… I focussed on my speedometer and tried desperately  to keep it at 15 mph… the 3 hours 27 minutes passed quite quick despite the pain spreading through my body…

Before I know it, I’m back at transition and my friends are there (lovely friend number 2 has arrived by this point, having understandably refused to get up at 4:45am!) screaming and shouting their heads off for me and I’m heading out for the run, feeling ok but with an extremely painful and familiar stitch in my left side. I’m overtaking a lot of people… but then the pain… the stitch worsens, cramp sets in and the second half is just pure pain. It’s getting hotter, I pour water over my head (that’s what the professionals do, right?) and continually tell my brain over and over to keep running… keep running and get to that next person… you can’t stop you can’t stop it’s not an option… I’ve hit the wall. I’ve not hit the wall since October 2009 – my first marathon in the Scottish Highlands, I thought I’d learned my lesson but 5 years later here I am back there fighting the uncontrollable urge to stop. The last few kilometres go by like time is going backwards but then as I really begin to lose hope that the finish line will ever appear… it’s there! I’m there grinning from ear to ear as I run the last 25m. A 2 hour half marathon and 6 hours 18 minutes overall. Pure happiness!

2 days later and I still feel so overwhelmingly happy. I’m not entirely sure why yet – I’ve never felt this elated about finishing a race before. But then I’ve never trained so hard and for such long periods of time as I did over this past summer. Hours and hours on the bike… often alone… endless early starts dragging myself out of bed to get into a cold pool to stare at a black line for length after length… lung busting interval workouts around the streets of London. Was it worth it? 100%. I might even do it again…