Tri a bit harder - Grendon & Allerthorpe

Having spent all of 2009 tri-ing to be a triathlete, I qualified for the 70.3 world champs. Half Ironman distance was perhaps my forte. the swim is a bit longer than Olympic distance but the bike and run are about twice the distance of Olympic so there i plenty of time to get back what you've given away. With all of that in mind I decided that Sprint Distance triathlon was the thing for 2010. Alternatively this was my side project. Dave Grohl has them crooked vultures, Jack White has the Raconteurs. Sprint Triis 750m swim, 20Km bike and 5km run for those not in the know.

Grendon
Time to go and qualify for the Europeans. It was Mrs H's idea to qualify and I thought I'd join her. However, the plan was always for both of us to go. It was all (of TeamMALLIE) or nothing.
My race went well. I still had the bike and run form from the Du's and the swim didn't go too badly. Mrs H was still on the run after I'd crossed the line, done the maths and realised I'd got a qualifying spot. Out onto the course to cheer on the Gaffer. After a big cheer which was met with a "I can do it" as she tried to convince herself I took a short cut to the finish and tried to stifle my own tears whilst watching Mrs H in the hurtbox. She'd not really focused on something like this before and wasn't sure if it was a realistic ambition or not.
Meeting up at the finish line resulted in Mrs H expecting the worst. We knew an automatic qualification spot was unlikely and that the time she finished in would be essential. Maths was done on the fly but you never know for sure until you get confirmation.
Thankfully all of TeamMALLIE will be in Ireland, so they will.

QEII Sprint Tri
Not much to say other than provide this top tip. Don't ride the National 25 Mile Time Trial the day before driving all the way up north to do a Triathlon. Thankfully it was on too early for the local yoofs to start throwing half-charlies.

Allerthorpe
A pre-European warm up and a club smackdown.
Mrs H was full of cold so race duties were performed by moi.
the swim was a fist fight. I have never experienced such a crazy swim. I managed a maximum of 6 strokes before someone either swam over me or I ended up swimming over somebody else. Absolute chaos in human soup.
Out onto the bike and it's time to see what's WATT. The numbers weren't great but this was my third race of the week. Always nice to pass people but no time to say hello. I was out hunting for a blue tri top with a small St Georges flag on the back. After passing through T2 quicker than the previous nights curry through me I was out on the run chasing a small figure on the horizon in the blue kit. Even at the turn point when we passed each other in different directions, he didn't look any bigger . The final 2.5 Km saw me gaining ground on Tom throughout but not enough and he had 4 seconds to spare. I'll adopt a cartoon villains voice when I say "I'll get you next time"... but I probably wont. Tickets to watch the next smackdown at Ripon Tri are selling fast.

So it's been pretty hectic. I've been tweeting rather than blogging. I didn't realise anybody actually reads this rubbish.