Thank you to everyone who helped celebrate our wedding on Saturday. We thought it went really well and hope that you all had a good time. It seems that the party afterwards didn't disappoint. We will put some photos online when we return from Honeymoon.
Unfortunately the weather out here in Chamonix has not been very good (similar to weather on our wedding day!). However, we have got some of the Paragliding theory stuff out of the way and have also been gear shop traversing in which is off course good. The weather looks set to improve so hopefully we will be able to get up into the air tomorrow and start flying around the mountains. As and when we get any decent pictures we will add them on here.
The aim of the trip was to ascend the 15 peaks in Wales which are above 3000ft.
After our failed attempt on the 26-Aug-06 we decided it was about time to try again in slightly better weather conditions. The mountain forecast was good, so a last minute decision was made, and we all met in North Wales late on Friday night.
We got up at 05:00 to position the second car at Bethesda (Our Planned Finish). It was then time to try and eat some breakfast before heading over to start at Pen-Y-Pass. We finally started at 07:35 after having to go back to the campsite so that Kev could retrieve his car keys which we were sure we would need at the finish in order to drive his car back to the tents!
The UK Ironman 70.3 Event has gained a reputation as the “Toughest 70.3 in the World” and having completed it I can certainly see why. My pre-race preparation was good; I was well hydrated and had eaten lots of carbohydrate rich foods. At the start of the race I was feeling pretty good.
The Swim (1.2 Miles) I don’t get put off by a mass-start openwater event like a lot of people do, so this definitely gives me an advantage. The swim start went well and I soon settled in and become more relaxed in the water. We were all wearing green swim caps, which corresponded to our age-group, so I was somewhat concerned when I started seeing more and more white swim caps. I kept thinking that the group behind, who were set-off 10 minutes after us, had caught me up. However I soon realised that the white caps actually went off before us and I had caught them up – this boosted my confidence and I finished the swim feeling good and in a time of 00:34:12
Transition 1 (Swim to Bike) Just before I reached the edge of the lake I put into practise a technique I had read in a Triathlon book. To kick your legs faster and lower them slightly in the water in order to try and encourage the blood flow down into your legs and combat the dizzy feeling you get when you stand up from the swim. This worked really well and I was amazed that when I got to the shore I was able to stand up straight away and run to the Transition area without any problems.
The transition area was a few hundred meters up a grassy slope. I used this time to strip off the top half of my wetsuit. In the Transition area I took the time to put on some socks, collected all my bike gear, and headed to the cycling start. My Transition 1 time was 00:05:18
Thank you to everyone who helped celebrate our wedding on Saturday. We thought it went really well and hope that you all had a good time. It seems that the party afterwards didn't disappoint. We will put some photos online when we return from Honeymoon.
