Cutting the cost of taking part (win a £25 voucher!)

Photo from www.b2psports.com

[competition at the bottom]

There's no doubt that taking part in triathlon can cost quite a bit of money, if you let it.  Things like bicycles aside (you can often get a bargain on last year's models at the end of the season) and although race fees can sometimes be eye-watering, the majority of the cost isn't actually racing itself but the nutrition and sports kit you get through while training.  Good quality sports clothing really is very expensive and you can't get away with a cotton t-shirt and old rugby shorts from 10 years ago if you're going to be doing more than a jog a week as you'll run into problems with being wet while you exercise (cotton is great at absorbing water but it doesn't wick it away from your skin into the air) and then either cold or chafed or both, plus the risk of bacteria growing in particularly sweat-prone bits of the garments.  However, if you are a bit clever and let a couple of companies keep you informed on discounts of up to 70% off swim/bike/run gear and build up a good collection of decent quality kit that will keep you warm, dry, cool and protected  from sun, wind, rain and chafing with good freedom of movement for years without breaking the bank.

One company that has been coming to the fore recently, in cutting the cost for the athlete (Yes, you! You're an athlete if you do regular sporting activity!), is Sport Pursuit.  It's a members only web site - i.e. you need to sign up and create an account with them and they'll send you email notifications of upcoming/opening sales - which has timed sales on top brand sports kit.

"We love buying sports kit.  In fact, we’ve scientifically proven it’s not possible to have too much.  But we got enormously frustrated at how difficult it was to discover great sports products at great prices; not just brands we already knew and loved but also those innovative cutting edge, hot off the pro-circuit, show off to your mates brands that no one else has.  

So, with no other option we decided to go out there and build it for ourselves, our friends and all our members.  "

"Pop-Up Sales from Winning Brands: New sales from top sports and outdoor brands start on SportPursuit every few days and typically last for 7 days. We’ll drop you a quick email to let you know when new sales are starting.
Exclusive Prices: SportPursuit gives you the chance to trial and discover great products and brands at the lowest prices anywhere - guaranteed. Our exclusive members-only site gives brands the confidence to discount, and we achieve the best prices for our members by ordering in bulk at the end of each sale."

This means that when you order, you have to wait until the sale ends before your stuff is shipped.  But it does mean that you get some pretty hefty discounts and you generally don't have to wait too long.

The range of brands is pretty impressive, with pretty much all active sports covered (not sure they have darts-wear ;o)) and there's a countdown on the main page that gives you an idea of when the sale ends...

And it's not just clothing and accessories, but there are nutrition sales as well...

When an item is sold out of the number they're planning to buy, you're not left hanging on the product listing page to click through to a product that's no longer available as they're clearly marked "sold out", which is handy.  And you can filter by gender, size and price which can really help when you have a set limit of what you can/are willing to spend on any given item.

That Polar RS300X with footpod is £55 cheaper than on Wiggle even with a Wiggle 12% Platinum discount!  So if you move quickly, you can get some really really good bargains but even if you don't, you're looking at 40%+ discounts on stuff. 

What I'm finding particularly useful, and it's the reason I first went to Wiggle years ago, is the range of women's gear.  It's great, there's loads of it with decent choice and proper sizing charts so you don't run the risk of being drastically wrong with sizes.

So, all in all they're pretty darned useful to help make life a bit less horribly expensive while enjoying the sports you love!

Now, here's the bit where you can win a £25 voucher with these guys.  All you have to do is three tiny things:-

1. Sign up with them, using this link here or by clicking on any of the images in this post and signing up through there.
2. Post a comment on this post, telling me what your most favourite bit of sports-wear is; brand, function, sport and why it's your favourite.
3. Come back to my blog on Monday 5th November to see if you've won! (I'll be choosing a winning comment on Sunday evening, so closing date for entry is 6pm GMT on 4th November 2012).

So, good luck, get your thinking cap on and let's see who I can make happy with a little extra spending money for their sport habit!

Champions are very nice people

I'm back from Kona, Hawaii and oh boy was it a phenomenal adventure.

From the famous Island Lava Java cafe/grill...

...to everything, everywhere in the town being covered in Ironman associated stuff and pop-up stalls.

To volunteer shift #1, escorting athletes through transition to show them the route, help rack their bikes and point out important, er, points...

Lookit the queue that brewed - it's a tough job getting over 2,000 people through to show them the route and rack up and we ran thin on volunteers to length of athlete queue quite quickly.

 And spotted the odd elite...

Raelert brothers

The entrance hall of the race HQ - King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel - decorated with a floral m-dot...

And Ironman brand on -everything- that moves, or doesn't move.

 The place heaving with people with minimal body fat...

Dig Me Beach

And handy placement of the race week schedule on the pavement.

I did a sneaky Brit-centric chalk on the bike-out route from transition, in the hope it might make someone smile.

Didn't really get a chance to take any photos on volunteer shift #2 apart from lots of sweaty, knackered athletes in between crossing off names and handing out medals and finisher goodies.

Faris Al Sultan (5th place)

Part of my little list of athletes to give medals to (Rebecca Romero was on page 1 of my list)

Big chunk of ironwork!

Crowie

Kristin Moeller

But did run into and and had a chat with elites at the cafe on the way back from my surfing lesson...

Andreas and Michael Raelert (and me inna middle)

And new world champions at the volunteer after party.

Pete Jacobs (and me)

They were more than happy to just have a chat, like a normal person and even a normal person with a sunny and cheery, sociable personality.  Triathlon is still like that and I hope it stays that way.  I do worry about it getting really popular and then the elites becoming less and less accessible and "normal".

Also met loads of other good people too, mostly the Team Freespeed guys, IronRosey and @devoniain. 

What struck me about a lot of people who were there that I talked to was the attitude of "well, just come and race here next year" as if it were something that you can just arrange to do with no doubt of it happening.

Maybe 2016's goal.

HAWAII!!!)!£*$&)!^!^VV

Chrissie may not be racing this time, but she's there and so is the race

I've been a good girl and done all my training last week and I've done my rehab exercises and not done any weight bearing or resistance stuff with my left arm.  Can I go to Hawaii now please?

Actually, yes!  I'm off (horribly early) tomorrow morning and thanks to an early birthday present from my parents I don't need to worry quite so much about DVT for the 20+ hours of travelling in each direction.  Thanks to it being silly hot out in Hawaii, I'll get away with hand luggage only - I'm not that big (OK, a bit chubby at the moment), and hot weather clothes are thin and small.  Also, my fins -just- fit diagonally in the little wheelie case I have.  I'd rather not have to check in luggage if I don't need to, so the only restriction now is on toiletries and I can manage for 8 nights with a top limit of 100ml on any particular goop or liquid.

I'm really kinda excited about going to the Ironman World Championships to be there for the event, be involved as a volunteer, and see all of the cool kids of the sport, including the lovely guys of Team Freespeed who I met on a few event days this year.  I've got a few things to do while I'm out there, including watching the shoes and taking photos for the IMTalk Blue Seventy Aquathon, athlete escort on Friday, then finish line medal presentation duty on Saturday.  And a few other bits and bobs, like going for a swim out to the Coffees of Hawaii coffee boat etc.  I'm stocked up on waterproof sun screen, all packed and ready to go!  Wooooooo!

Bushy parkrun is 8!

And what better excuse to go for a run in the chilly autumn sun :o)

MOOOO! (yes, I know they're cervine, not bovine,
but they do moo!)

I got the train to Teddington as I'm still not cycling yet.  It's really very close to Bushy Park parkrun start and only 17 minutes from Wimbledon station - very handy for lots of London and Surrey people to get there.

It's Autumn and rutting season for the deer, so there are lots of warnings in the park that there are rather possessive stags parading about, bellowing and being a bit aggressive about their harems of does.  As long as you don't get too close, they're fine and won't charge, but oh boy are they vocal!

I just made it to the start area at around 08:50 to catch the end of the pre-run speeches and awards for the year at Bushy parkrun.  As it is the 8th anniversary, Nell McAndrew (OMG, she's only a year younger than me!) was there to start the run off and pose for photos with finishers.  She's so supportive of parkrun, running and sport in general - a great role model for women and girls in terms of healthiness.

There were -loads- of 50 and 100 shirts, not obvious from this picture

Nell prepares to take the megaphone to start the run

A reasonably pretty run ensued, with a field that must have broken the 1,000 runners mark for sure.  And for each 100th finisher, there were very pretty cupcakes and fizzy (prosecco for grownups, cola for the kiddies and teetotallers) to welcome them in...

Mmmcake!

 I caught sight of my lap splits from the 3rd km onwards and was quite pleased.  Thought I might even beat last week's time by quite a margin, but had a basic arithmetic fail (as well as Garmin saying the course was 5.13km).  Still... I managed to wind up the pace by 7-13s per km, km on km all the way through, with a good high cadence, even though I was wearing a t-shirt, long sleeved running top, long sleeved merino base/mid layer and a long sleeved cycling top on top!  Nice.  Beautiful day, lovely parkrun, good performance on the road of recovery and I'm a happy bunny!

5 hours? Is that all?

So, as you all know because I keep banging on about it, I'm recovering from a broken collar-bone at the moment.  If you've never broken a bone related to upper limbs you probably don't realise quite how many things it impacts that you wouldn't necessarily expect.  You'd expect that "all" you can't do is anything relating to directly weight bearing and lifting with the affected limb.  You wouldn't necessarily and immediately realise that you can't run (easily or naturally and certainly while the break is quite fresh you don't want to be jiggling the joint and broken bits about), you can't cycle at all ("surely you can cycle one-handed?" nope.), you certainly can't swim (and if there's any serious abrasions or related surgical wounds it's an even worse idea) and that stuff like washing, getting dressed, getting in and out of bed/cars etc. is really hard.  So you may not realise that despite it being only one little bone (that was "multifragmentary with anterosuperior, superior and posteroinferior intermediate fragments" which were "malpositioned and displaced" - i.e. broken into a few bits that were in the wrong places), life is impacted quite a bit.  Since I had the plate put in, the clock reset on healing but I already had 10 days of lack of exercise and my arm being permanently bent at the elbow so an extra 10 days of immobility in the muscles and joints of that arm as well as an extra 10 days of gently sliding fitness.  From the day after surgery to put the plate in, I religiously did the basic exercises (pendulum swings, assisted arm raises and cross-body swings progressing to unassisted) to restore mobility to the elbow and shoulder.

Last Thursday I had a hospital check-up that took me off the leash for a few things; showering and bathing (getting the wound/incision site wet), spin bike (no hands on handlebars), and running.  Which meant that I had a green light to get back into training.  With 4 weeks of zero exercise, I need to get it into my head that I can't just pick up where I left off at Galway 70.3.  The physio appointment on the same day as the check-up also gave me an assessment of progress (ridiculously good progress) and some extra exercises to finish off the mobility rehabilitation (straight arm raises overhead, using a mirror and both arms at once to make sure motion is even).  With that green light grinning at me, I let Rich know that I can start doing stuff again and he's given me some training sessions to do that take me up until I go to Kona.  Limited to running and spin bike, with 4 weeks of inactivity, as well as being in the "off season" now, I have a programme this week which totals an incredible 5 hours.  Having been training for months where the average planned sessions in a week was around 13 hours and a peak of 18.5 hours, 5 hours seems weird.  I know a large part of it is the lack of long bike ride at the weekend (that's 4-5 hours straight away) another chunk is no swimming (about 3 hours in a week) and the rest is taking it easy after a break.  But still, 5 hours seems like sod all.  I'll be a good girl though (apart from a little parkrun on Saturday which isn't on the schedule)

Have any of you struggled with getting back to fitness after a long break?  How did you motivate yourself if you didn't feel like doing any exercise or what did you do to hold yourself back if you were desperate to get on with it?  I know that Mike is heading back down the road and has come across revelation number one; how about the rest of you?