Hello, my name is Rachael and I’m delighted to be a Trigirl Ambassador for 2013!
So how did I end up on the pages of Trigirl? I have always been ‘the sporty one’ – kickboxing, lacrosse, tennis, kayaking, running, cycling – so I suppose it was inevitable that I would fall into multi-sport at some point. I raced my first (and only) mini triathlon in 2011 and I loved it. After an injury setback in 2012, I decided I had unfinished business with the whole swim-bike-run thing.
While my focus may have shifted over the years from pitch to river to trail, what has remained constant is my love of sport and competition. I work as a personal trainer so I spend a lot of time encouraging my clients to enjoy the benefits of sport and exercise, to set goals, and to challenge themselves. So I thought I would ‘walk the walk’ by stepping outside my comfort zone and into the weird and wonderful world of triathlon.
In this blog I look forward to sharing my experiences of training and racing, and hope some of you can learn from my mistakes (of which there will no doubt be many) and celebrate my successes (of which I hope there will be a few!).
I must admit I have a few concerns: I tend to swim for survival not speed; the potential for public humiliation as I wrestle out of a wetsuit is extremely high; and have you seen how tight that lycra is?!
However I love a challenge (and I love writing lists) so I came up with a plan: I aim to kick off with a sprint tri in March (don’t worry it’s in a nice warm pool); move up to a sprint triathlon with open-water swim in the balmy waters of the Cotswolds in June; and hopefully cap it off with a standard-distance race in August. If I have anything left in my legs after a 2-week trek in the Alps, I will put aside my wetsuit and go for the London Duathlon in September as a big finale.
I think I might need to heed the words of Dean Karnazes, ultra-marathon runner-extraordinaire:
“Run when you can, walk when you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.”
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