The triathlon

Subject: The triathlon

Sons checking moms and moms checking sons, dads looking out for friends, uncles cheering their nephews and nieces it's the London triathlon with over 30,000 contestants and the Excel arena is full of wannabe Brownlees.  

One of the guys who works with me has transformed his fitness and his confidence in the last 12 months by training for the triathlon. He used up to date technique of fitness training and using modern methodology measures his body's output energy wattage which when combined with careful heart rate monitoring ensures he never performs in the red. This, along with his strict diet affords him the opportunity to be a successful triathlon athlete. When he started he finished races towards the back of the field, now he is competing at the front but it comes at a cost. 

His bike cost him a small fortune and he spent money on a specialist to analyse his running style which fortuitously knocked minutes off his time.  It's all very high tech and far removed from my day where you simply blasted away on what ever bike you had, nutrition was based on fish and chips and the concept of riding within yourself, seemed plain daft.
Excel situated alongside the River Thames was swirling with like minded, fit,  optimistic athletes who came in all shapes and sizes.  Shepherded in to groups of a hundred they were encouraged into plunging into the unappetising dockland water, a cold wake up call if ever there was one. To the sound of a loud klaxon horn and they were off striking out towards the first buoy, heads bobbing up and down in the water as the organisers busied themselves organising another batch to follow. A day long procession, competitor group  after competitor group headed off, wet-suits on, wetsuits off, cycling shoes on, cycling she's off, and finally after pulling the running shoes on, set off on the 10k run.
The support and the camaraderie around the course was enthusiastic as friends and family cheered each athletes progress. It was a day to see the Brits at their best, combining, coming together under grey sky's, a community within the community doing what they feel important. From cyclists to walkers, from rock climbers to bird watchers, from amateur football to cricket people are out doing their thing and we undervalue a society if we only judge them on drug use or teenage crime.
Much of the vision we have of anything is the one produced in the news rooms and in the documentary producers mind. To sell it has to have shock as its therapy it has to make an impact such that the reader is moved to exclaim "that's not for me, what are we coming to"? The sense that there is a subculture and we are not part of it is grist to the mill for the journalist. From the rich and their lifestyle to the underclass and their benefit reliance are the stories we consume. The tragedies of war torn regions, the heart break of a child dying, the deceit of the political class and of course the road to Brexit.
These are the stories of a nations crisis not its success story. It makes us all feel uncomfortable, unsettled, scared and adds to the psychological gloom, as if our weather was not enough and whilst the media makes its money we suffer the depreciation of uncertainty.
On Sunday I saw a different largely unreported aspect to our psyche and benefited enormously.