…… I am feeling good.
Apprehension, fear, worry, uncertainty, were all the feelings that I felt in the days leading up to the race yesterday.
The mere thought that I was doing this only a year after I contracted that blasted GBS was hard to believe. And yet, there I was, with my trusty bike beside me, with two good friends, Mark, one hell of a swimmer, and Eugene, on of the fittest guys I have ever met, ready to tackle the Sprint Relay in the Osim Singapore Triathlon 2008.
We kept telling ourselves, that we just wanted to finish, hopefully in the top 10, but we were just going to finish it, as a team, and have fun doing it. But truth be told, we all wanted to achieve something out of this.
Mark, as usual, came in the top 3, handed over to me, and I must say, it was really hard to get going. I was cranking like mad, but I still couldn’t get the speedo faster than the 29-30 km/h. I would have loved to blame it on the strong headwind, but I guess I just wasn’t as fit as I thought I was. The legs were stiff, the butt hurt to high heaven, and people were passing me.
Not that many, but I was still getting passed. Very depressing, but I just kept at it… Towards the end of the 20 km, I decided that this was it, I was going to finish on a high, and try not to let my team down. We were already down the order because I allowed some of the other teams to pass me, but I wasn’t going to give up.
I had a good bike, I had a good healthy (so I would like to think) body, and I had great support.
I made it in the end, and I handed over the chip successfully. I collapsed in a gasping, tired heap, but my job was done. The rain was coming, but I made it before it did eventually come.
In the end, I was quite sure we made it in the top 10, we could, of course hope that we made it in the top 5 but we will have to wait for the official results. We’ll wait and see…..
But, all I can say is, I am proud to have been able to finish, I am proud to have been able to do what I did, and I am proud of my team. So, I present to you “Always Trying”, the team that is always trying….. to better ourselves, to do things we thought were impossible, to just be us.
(from left: Eugene, Mark & Me)
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