Winning

I like winning. I hate losing. Nobody who knows me will be surprised by that, but I thought a little further explanation of the context of this might be useful. I can't win much, so I have to lose a lot, and as coach Perry used to always say: "if you want to win you must be prepared to lose". Now what he meant by that was you had to take risks. Everybody in a race wants to win, some more than others. And some are eminently more capable of winning than others. If you come up against someone who really wants to win and has the ability to do so, then you aren't going to beat them unless you take a few risks, give it everything, and want it very, very badly indeed. Then you'll have a chance. Sadly, I'm not fast enough on most occasions to convert my desire to win into reality, and I have to deal with not winning. I can cope with it.

However, I am training like never before to achieve two things: a top ten at Escape from Alcatraz; and to qualify for the USA Triathlon Championships. The first of these is a complete unknown. I've obviously never done Alcatraz, described as one of the toughest triathlons on the planet, but I am doing a lot of swim training - SMART swim training. I used to simply accept that I wasn't much good at swimming and at my age it wasn't worth trying to do too much about it. But now I have turned that on its head and taken swim lessons to get my basic technique up to scratch and now some high-end coaching from Bobby Savulich. Bobby is a World University Games Gold Medallist and an Olympic triallist for the USA team so he knows what he's talking about. He's breaking down all aspects of my swim stroke and rebuilding it for maximum efficiency. I'm training for swim conditioning with the local Masters Swim Class, and I am trying (with a little less success!) to overcome my fundamental fear of sealife. It seems the sharks in the Bay here don't really like humans and usually spit you out after a single bite. Oh, well that's OK then. The seals only want to play. God only knows what else is out there, but there is no way I'm visiting the "Aquarium of the Bay" to find out before I swim in it. My basic plan is to stay in a group, a bit like Wilderbeest do for safety. The other main feature of the Alcatraz event is the cycling which goes up those very steep San Francisco hills. I therefore need to be at premium weight and with my body fat now sitting at a pretty lean 8-9% that should be fine. However, I don't know how I will perform at the distances involved, which are non-standard, and I don't know what the competition will be, so I have no real clue as to whether top ten in my age-group is a realistic ambition or not. It doesn't really matter, I'll be in top shape and I'll give it my best, and if that isn't good enough then so be it. I'll deal with it.

The other target for the year is to qualify for the USA Triathlon Championships. Now this is interesting, as I don't know if legally I can do that. I am a USA Triathlon member, but not a US citizen, so what happens if I do qualify? Taken to its (somewhat extreme, I agree) conclusion - what if I qualified at those championships to represent USA? I'm fairly certain that wouldn't be allowed, so logically I shouldn't be allowed to compete at the US Championships. Anyway, I'm looking forward to giving some bureaucrat a problem!

I had a great training period over Xmas and New Year, including some great rides with Oscar, Chris and my son Alex. We killed off Chris (see the "Crucifying Chris" blog) and then started trying to beat each other up on a ride on Sunday. Alex killed us both, but I didn't give up without a fight!

Every time we got to a hill he simply rode away from us, and was out of sight within seconds. I reckon he would give Chris Froome a bit of a run. But coming down, well, that's a different story. Jason always referred to me as "Budgie" as a reference to my status as the team canary. Canaries, if you are aware, were traditionally put down the mines to see if they were safe. If the canary died, they weren't. In the same way, whenever our riding group encountered a steep-looking hill, I was always thrown down it to see if it was safe. So on Sunday as we rode the Paradise loop for the second time in two days (what a route; we HAD to do it again), I took off down the swooping hill. Just as I tipped in, there was Alex, tipping me back up as he slid through on the inside. A couple of bends later I took him back and then kept my profile as wide as possible to keep him back. He overtook me again and then HE was as wide as a truck, but eventually I took him again before the bottom. No quarter asked; none given! Oscar was helpless laughing at this father-son dual, and we all really loved it. Before long, we were at "Cafe Rapha". This was the name we gave to the cafe stop in Tiburon. Tiburon is where wealthy old Californians go to die, so every cyclist was head to foot in Rapha gear! Yes, I know: I got a new Rapha top and base layer, and yes - some Castelli socks - for Xmas. But I'm not dead yet!