Why Tri
My Uncle Colin (pictured, right) set up Ryton Tri Club, he's my coach and a top coach at that (BTA Northern Region Coach of the Year 2005) and runs his own gym Tri-IT Fitness Centre as well as competing in cycling and triathlon and has recently opened his coaching services to the public as everyone has potential, finding how to use it is the hard part and having someone to guide and mentor you makes the big difference. For you very own personal training regime visit TRI-IT-WITHACOACH, this coaching website is run by my coach Colin Gardener and is a key factor behind getting fit and my success as an athlete; The best thing about the club was the people, the support was awesome, everyone encouraged everyone else and so on, the feeling of pride easily overcomes the effort, I learned that fairly quickly,
Do you know what triathlon is???? I would like to know more |
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THE BEGINNING
At school I was an active kid, having fun and exercising went hand in hand,
I hate the word "exercise" and "training", it puts you off, it not all about "no pain, no gain", max efforts should be few and far between, how about being free to go where and do what you want at anytime, without fear of not getting there, doing something that you will remember for the rest of your life, something you can share/joke about with your friends and family for the rest of your life, that's what gets me up in the morning,
I went for my first run at the age of 13, I was aiming for 3 miles but was knackered by the end of the street, lying on the bathroom floor for about an hour afterwards was hardly my idea of fun, but I kept targeting the 3 mile mark, it didn't take long and caught my dads attention, he said, "So your going for runs now Gary, I'm going round the bridge" (It's a 6 mile loop, in the past I'd have followed on my bike). "Sure why not" I felt proud of the fact he'd asked me as my brother was the running potential in the family, I'd always stay on the side lines, time for some pay back!!!, and that's how it went, I had this uncanny desire to prove myself and it doesn't take long as a kid to start turning heads.....
The first triathlon I entered was Cockermouth Sprint Triathlon in 2001 at the age of 16, basically my dad was doing it and he asked if i'd like to have a go.... why not, may as well, I borrowed my Uncle Clive's road bike (I called it the wind machine, because it was a ton weight and it was as aerodynamic as a parachute!)
The funny thing is the wait before the race is usually worse than the race itself, you get the what if syndrome, what if something happens, what if I have a hypo in the middle of nowhere, what if I fall off the bike and look like an idiot, what if i get a puncture or get lost, what if I go too hard too soon and run out of steam, what if I finish last. You get worked up into a panic, your legs turn to jelly and your guts feel like there turning inside out,
The thing is I've had hypos in the middle of nowhere, I've had punctures, I've got lost on a countless number of occasions, I've gone off like an idiot and burned up after the first 5 minutes, I've fallen off a number of times and been dragged into an ambulance before I do something stupid like try to continue, but I've never given up,
To get good at anything takes a lot of dedication, to prevent yourself going mental you might want to find ways of making things interesting like taking daft videos and playing them to everyone's amusement, especially my own afterwards, one such example was when myself, me dad, Paul Cooke (Cookie) and Ian Maddison (Madders) took on the 6 PASSES (Quicktime video, duration about 6 minutes), which is a grand tour of the Lake District including in order, Honister, Newlands, Whinlatter, Hard Knott!!, Wrynose and Kirkstone passes.
All together it was an awesome training ride, who wants to see it from behind a car window when you can get up close and personal with each one. Just another mini adventure....
