Roll up, roll up!  Juneathon is nearly on us sign up here: http://www.juneathon.com/

What is it?  Its a festival of exercise for the month of june!

It's primarily a running challenge, but if you can't or don't want to run every day, you can still join in by cycling, walking, rowing, weights, swimming, building sandcastles or whatever. Just do something every day in June

Sounds difficult?  It really isn't, just remember you don't have to over do it, just do a little bit of something every day.   I found janathon hugely rewarding and it really got me into the zone of doing more exercise in prep for my triathlons.  I covered 98.1 miles in a month, running over 50 of them, now I have a bike I'll smash those stats, but I still doubt I'll catch the winner of who ran an immense 450 miles in January!

Thanks to Galeforce events for putting on a great event, it was my first real sprint triathlon - I did one back in 2003 but with no training I don't really count it.

The venue was easy to get to and had ample parking, I was slightly nervous using my new bike rack on the car, but it was great (thanks Halfords!).  I got there with plenty of time to spare, got my transition area sorted.  I noticed lots of people using plastic boxes to carry / store their transition kit in - much easier and tidier than a bag, so I'll do the same next time.  The swimming pool changing rooms were open, but don't really have many facilities - there was always a queue for the gents (pre race jitters I suppose).  I put myself down for a 5:30 swim based on my training the week before, so I had a long wait before starting - over an hour.  A feel laps of the diving pool, did little to calm the nerves.

Swim - 400m (07:00)

I was expecting better from myself in terms of time, but it didn't click, my breathing was laboured and it felt far more tiring than I expected and I was over taken twice, so not great in the end it took me 7 mins to complete.  Not great at all, so next sprint I'll use that time and should get in and started sooner.

Bike - 24k (56:14)

The transition went ok, I decided against putting socks on, so just dried myself quickly, hat on and off.  The swim shorts felt really tight on my legs to begin with and I was worried that the rear tire was low / going flat.  I worried too much, clipped the curb and flew off into the grass / nettles / thistles in the verge - ouch.  I was all in one piece - grazed and had a burning sensation of the nettles but I got back on and got on with the ride.  The ride itself seemed uphill to the A6 then dips and then a short sharp uphill before a downhill into Paversham.  Then a nice downhill and fast on-in.

Run - 5k (25:51)

To me it felt a little shorter than 5k, but I did better than I thought I would and after 26mins I'd finished and felt like a triathlete!

Total Time: 1:31:12

Post Tri

Unfortunately, the bike incident hurt more than I realised, my shoulder took the brunt of the fall and ached, but worst of all was the itching from the nettles - took me ages to fall asleep.  Note to self, look where your going when riding the bike!!