I am doing my second triathlon this weekend (30/5/09) with 2 days to go I am somewhat ill at ease with the lack of preparation done for it.

The fear of the unknown with the first one led me to do at least 60K on the bike and 5k on the run in preparation. How have I prepared for this one - the H cup final in edinburgh mostly. I have not gotten seriously onto the bike since the last tri and I have had a bit of a lull on the swimming front. The bad news - the forecast for the weekend is HOT, the good news - we are not starting until 1730 so it wont be too bad one way or another!

Also the sea swims start in 10 days time - this whole fitness malarky is suddenly looking very serious. Am going to have to get into the sea again before then to stave off shock - perhaps Sunday to help numb the post triathlon aches. Then again on Monday to keep up with the Jones' and the Murphys

My prediction…pain.

Abs class…sounds so innocent, and in reality was innocent enough (in my 2 visits) until Thursday of last week. The last day of April will be etched in my mind for this reason and this reason alone…the abs class from hell. The really sly thing about the abs class is that you don’t find out that it was the abs class from hell until the next day, and if you are lucky its only one day that has you realising it. I woke up on Friday morning and I felt as though someone had secretly attached one of those ab isolator things to my quadriceps (thigh muscles) on both legs overnight and put it on maximum for 8 hours. Getting into a standing position from sitting was HELL, the burning on my thighs was heinous.

I can take this for a day, no problem.

I woke up on Saturday, the day of the H cup semi final. And it was only marginally better, but I had to play Saturday morning football. I was very much a passenger. Then I found out that I was in the top tier of the Cusack! It was slow going on the way up, but down the steps was torture, but then at least leinster had won. Perhaps I should get Cathy to do the extreme lunges again on the 21st….

It is true that myself and the swimmer formerly known as wolf (TSFKAW) did a triathlon recently. While I am happy to recommend doing such an event I am not happy to recommend this particular event. Why? The waves. 8 waves by 30 minutes = 4 hours of waiting to go when you are (for some crazy reason) in the élite wave. If you are a chick then do the race…you will be home in time for lunch. You go off in the first 2 waves. Smart men that we are though, we realised that this temporal glitch was going to see my breakfast of porridge wasted (in terms of energy - despite all the effort that went into making it - thanks TSFKAW)so I had to go in search of food in Portlaoise. A grubby and generally unhappy man threw 2 brown bread hang sandwiches together and that sorted that problem out.

But that only wasted 20 minutes at most…there was 4 hours of this. A gameboy or scrabble was really required.

Eventually I was preparing to race and I met the guys in my lane (3 others) 2 would be doing 750m in 10 mins (GREEEAT) I said I would be 15 mins at best.

In we went, lapped 4 or 5 times by the pacey lads and last out of the pool (it was close though - I might have been second last but of course I was in lane 5 and had to get all the way across the building to get out - and then get photographed by the goons as I jogged along in my tiny togs)

Transition - 4 mins…drying off, checking blood sugar, getting out of togs, putting on runners and top and helmet (don’t forget helmet or you will be in trouble). I made 2 major mistakes here (and they are related) 1. I did not put on my cycling shorts. 2. I took off my togs. The real solution to both problems is to wear the "tri shorts that everone seemed to be wearing (or indeed tri suits in some cases). Why? Faster transition is a good reason…a better reason is so that you don’t get severe chaffing on your inner thighs after the run section ( I think the togs may have saved me on the chaffing front - but that is unproven)…so tri shorts are a must for me for the TriAthy at the end of May.

So I was last onto the bike, I saw no one ahead of me through the whole cycle (other than people on their way back), and I was last off the bike and off on the run.

The run was HELLLLLL. After about 1k my quads were seizing up and I thought I might have to stop - but then I saw TSFKAW on his way back to the finish so I felt if he was finishing it then I suppose I would have to, despite the fact that there would be blood oozing from my thighs and I could feel the chaffing starting up (why did I not put on those cycling shorts? WHYYY?)

When I got to the turning point I was so far behind all the élite goons that the steward had left his post…groan.

On the upside I did complete and received a tinny medal and a cup of tasty soup (as well as a gourmet TSFKAW sandwich).

The weekend improved to an extent when I travelled to the UK to watch leinster beat harlequins in a dogfight at the stoop (although my legs did not function well for the days I was there and the chaffing was at its worst on easter monday)

Is there a bit of a mystery surrounding changing rooms and their setup?

It seems that the ladies changing rooms typically have "Doored" showers compared with the communal efforts over in the mens and I got to wondering why this is.

You will be disappointed to find out that neither I nor her indoors have any definitive answers on this.

Could it be some kind of personal grooming issue? It would certainly cause some degree of controversy if someone was sporting a back, sack and crack!

Would that really be noticed in the realms of the mens changing room?

On googling "changing room etiquette" or "locker room etiquette" one finds that it is a very virulent interweb topic with do's and donts for those who "fear" the changing room and its environs.

Its clear though that in the case of both sexes there are always some locker room freaks (although it should be pointed out that these peacock types seem to be more of a "Globogym" rather than an "Average Joe's" phenomenon). Although you would have to ask yourself…if there were hairdryers in the mens (or indeed ladies) changing room in irish life, would people be drying their bodies with them…and how far would they go?

This has come to mind recently as I purchased myself a chamois style "sports towel" [http://www.speedo.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product6_10151_10202_120562_-1_42308_33314_Y_120565].

The upside of this superb invention is that you are liberated from the shackles of the daily bag routine. You no longer have to wash/dry/bring a towel in every day. The downside of this is that it is the size of a handkerchief.

So….you get out of the pool…stroll over to your bag…pick up your lime shower gel (what?!!) and your sports towel…and stroll into the shower.

Now all this is fine and dandy if you are in the showers at an unpopular time (there are 4 showers in the mens, 2 on 2 facing one another). However, when the showers are busy and there are a lot of humans doing their thing then guess who the freak is? That’s right…it’s the guy with the handkerchief sized towel and the lime shower gel.

So you remove togs, rinse them, wash yourself (thoroughly of course), only then do you really become the freak show. Why you might well ask? Well you have to dry yourself with this item in a sort of rub and sqeeze type of methodology, the chamois, you see, is ultra absorbant so you dry your hair then you wring the towel dry, you dry your muscled hairless torso, then you wring the towel dry, you get the picture (clearly you methodically move down your body from the top to prevent already dried parts of your body becoming wet due to the law of gravity).

Then of course you leave the shower area and return to your clothes, but again you just look like the freak walking around the changing room in his birthday suit (when clearly you are the one who is being the greenest, what with electrical and washing powder saving). So stop with your judging and save the planet, if you are swimming every day then buy the sports towel (available in arnotts).

Not sure how well they would go down in the ladies changing rooms…I'm sure though, that they are just as ecologically aware and friendly as us men (comments welcome).