22.

Meet this week’s Teacher Feature…

Victoria’s Story…

“…then my friend sent me the details of a triathlon that she fancied doing. My first response was to laugh really, REALLY hard!”

I was finding it really difficult to fit in exercising regularly within my life; despite only teaching 0.6 part time, I’m also a wife and mother and just kept losing motivation to fit it in and keep on exercising. I ended up asking my super exerciser best friend how she kept going, and she took it upon herself to become my motivator! 

She began dragging me out on a Friday for a bike ride but I knew I needed more to get and stay fit. I decided to start running home from the school drop off, starting with a short distance, and running for short intervals then building up.  

We established that I need targets to work towards to help me stay motivated, and I signed up for the Love Of The Seasons virtual challenge, which was great as you can set your own distance target (and get a really pretty medal when you’ve done each season!). After a couple of different challenges, I had built up to running 5km, which I was really proud of – then my friend sent me the details of a triathlon that she fancied doing. My first response was to laugh really, REALLY hard! But I read further into it and it began to appeal to me. 

The Deva Divas Triathlon is held in July in Chester, and is a women only event that is angled towards beginners. They also run a Biathlon and a Quadrathlon at the same time. The triathlon is a 750m swim in the river, a 25km bike ride and a 5km run. I knew I could probably do the ride, I was already doing the run, and I used to swim competitively as a teenager and I thought I could get back into it quite easily. They all seemed manageable separately!

To do them one after another was daunting to say the least, but I decided it would be a good challenge and target for me and told my friend I’d do it with her and another friend.  

We began training properly in January this year. I began swimming as well as running and cycling, and beginning to do two things together – a swim followed by a run or a cycle. I was doing it 3 times a week, and was generally able to manage that around the rest of being a teacher and a wife and mother. We also began going to a local lake for outdoor swimming – that was a cold shock to the system! The triathlon came around quickly, and we headed up to Chester.  

The event itself was really well run and had such a friendly, supportive atmosphere. It was clear that there were a number of women who were keen to full on compete, but also a number of us who were newbies and just wanted to complete it! But it didn’t matter; we all just buoyed each other up! The race marshals were constantly cheering us on as we passed throughout the race, and there were plenty of cheers at the finish line from racers who had already finished. It was a big challenge but I’m really proud to say I completed it all, without stopping (although you can see the relief on my face when I finally crossed the finish line!). 

It was a really positive experience, and I will admit that despite all of us claiming on the journey home that we would never do it again, the next day we were all messaging each other saying that we’d been thinking about how we could improve ‘next time’! 

If anyone was thinking about doing a triathlon, I would absolutely recommend it! I really enjoyed it being a women only event – much as I’m sure a mixed race would be supportive, it made me far less self conscious as a beginner, and although it was competitive, it wasn’t overwhelmingly and other competitors going past would shout out words of encouragement to those of us further back.  

What I would say to anyone thinking of having a go:

• Combining the different forms of exercise as early as possible is vital! (you will get jelly legs for a while!)
• Get used to outdoor swimming before the race! (cold water is actually a massive shock to the body and you’ll learn how to overcome it)
• Incorporating your exercise into something you already have to do, makes fitting in all 3 disciplines more manageable (I ran home from work, or ran to a friends house or the garden centre)
• Taking part and training with a friend will keep you both going!
• Be realistic about what you are able to fit in around your life comfortably.

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I have finally managed to keep my exercise going – I haven’t stopped since asking my friend for help and that was April 2021!  

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Click the link bellow to follow Victoria’s active journey on Twitter!!!