Triathlon Training Update: This Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time
Back in December, signing up for a triathlon seemed like a perfectly sensible thing to do.
Fast forward a few months and I’ve somehow reached the point where voluntarily cycling for hours, running through the village and repeatedly throwing myself into a swimming pool has become normal behaviour.
I’m still not entirely sure how that happened.
What I do know is that the challenge has gradually stopped being something I’m planning to do and become something I’m actually doing.
The numbers certainly suggest that’s the case.
Since 14th December 2025 I’ve completed 201 training sessions, covering 2,093 kilometres (1,301 miles) across swimming, cycling, running and walking.
More remarkably, since January 2025 I’ve gone from 21st 9lb to 17st 2lb, a total weight loss of 4st 7lb.
While the weight loss is nice, the real measure isn’t the number on the scales.
It’s the wardrobe.
For the first time in a very long time, there are significantly fewer Xs in front of the Ls on my clothing labels. I can also walk into a normal high street shop and buy clothes straight off the rack rather than having to hunt through specialist sections that seem to assume anyone over a certain size only wears black polo shirts.
That alone has been worth quite a few early mornings.
The cycling has been the biggest part of the journey. Nearly 1,908 kilometres on the bike, much of it spent exploring Suffolk’s finest country lanes.
There is something genuinely wonderful about riding through the countryside early in the morning. The roads are quiet, the sun is coming up and for a brief moment you feel like you’re starring in one of those inspirational sporting documentaries.
That feeling normally lasts until you discover the “gentle incline” on the route planner is actually a vertical wall disguised as a road.
I’ve also become one of those people who constantly talks about the wind.
A year ago I’d have looked out of the window and thought, “Nice day.”
Now I’m staring at weather apps muttering things like, “Twenty mile an hour headwind? What have I done to deserve that?”
Running remains an interesting experience.
I’ve covered nearly 50 kilometres so far, much of it around my home village. The good news is I can now run through the village without being chased by the police. The bad news is I still look suspiciously like someone fleeing a crime scene.
Apparently a large man shuffling along, sweating profusely and negotiating with his lungs isn’t a completely natural sight in rural Suffolk.
Then there’s the swimming. Ah yes, the swimming.
The goggles were supposed to solve everything. They didn’t.
My coach, Gemma, follows much of this progress from afar, which is probably for the best. It means she gets the highlights package rather than the director’s cut.
The reality is that swimming and I are still trying to work out our relationship.
Being blind down one side and deaf down the other isn’t exactly the ideal starting point. Add in a healthy reluctance to put my face fully underwater and it’s fair to say I haven’t glided effortlessly through this part of the challenge.
Whenever I attempt proper front crawl, one of three things usually happens. I swallow enough pool water to keep Anglian Water in business for another quarter, I drift into somebody else’s lane, or I become hopelessly tangled in the lane ropes like a shopping trolley that’s somehow ended up at sea.
On particularly memorable occasions, I’ve managed all three.
There are moments when I genuinely think I’ve cracked it. I’ll complete a few lengths, feel smooth, controlled and almost competent. Then I’ll accidentally swim diagonally across the pool, collide with an innocent member of the public and be brought back to reality remarkably quickly.
To her credit, Gemma insists progress is being made. Given she’s the coach and I’m the bloke who occasionally emerges from the water looking like he’s survived a shipwreck, I’ll take her word for it.
The good news is that I am improving. Slowly, certainly, but improving nonetheless. In fact, just last week I recorded my fastest-ever 400-metre swim time. This came as a surprise to absolutely nobody more than me and suggests that despite all available evidence, I may actually be learning how to swim.
There is still a long way to go, but for the first time I can see genuine progress rather than simply surviving each session. And before 2026 is out, I fully intend to be making proper use of those goggles rather than treating them as an expensive fashion accessory that occasionally helps me identify which lane I’m supposed to be in.
The biggest surprise throughout all of this has been consistency. The challenge was never really about cycling, running or swimming. The hardest part has always been getting home after a long day, looking at a perfectly comfortable sofa and deciding to go training anyway.
Nobody sees those moments. They see the kilometres and the weight loss.
They don’t see the internal debate where one side is talking about discipline and determination while the other is suggesting that a family-sized bag of crisps and a box set would be a far more sensible use of the evening.
Thankfully, the sensible voice has won often enough.
None of this would have happened without the support of family, friends and the people who have kindly donated along the way. Every message of encouragement, every donation and every “how’s the training going?” has helped keep me moving on the days when motivation has been in short supply.
Of course, not all feedback has been quite so supportive. There have still been the occasional shouts from passing cars, but thankfully the abuse from random idiots seems to have reduced significantly over the last year. Either society is becoming kinder, or I’ve simply become harder to identify as “the fat bloke running down the road”. I’m choosing to believe it’s the former.
The triathlon is no longer looming on the horizon. It’s next month.
When I signed up, July 19th felt so far away that it barely seemed real. There was plenty of time to train, plenty of time to prepare and plenty of time to worry about it later.
Well, later has arrived.
The training continues, the kilometres keep ticking by and the finish line is finally starting to come into view.
When I signed up, the goal was simply to complete a triathlon and raise some money for a fantastic cause. Somewhere along the way it’s become about a lot more than that. It’s been about proving to myself that change is possible, that consistency beats perfection and that sometimes the best way to find out what you’re capable of is to sign up for something that scares you slightly.
Or in my case, absolutely terrifies you.
There’s still work to do before race day, but after 201 training sessions, 2,093 kilometres, more early mornings than I care to remember and enough pool water to keep a small reservoir topped up, there’s only one thing left to do.
Turn up.
And find out whether all of this was actually a good idea.
