Thursday 3 July 2008

Twenty four degrees....



With just over 48 hours until the flag drops the tension is really mounting here in Frankfurt... largely due to the water temperature of Langener Waldsee where we will be swimming on Sunday morning. Anything below 24 degrees centigrade and wetsuits will be alowed, 24 and above and they won't... this morning it was 24.1!! As you can see from today's picture we swam without wetuits as well as with just to get a feel for swimming open water in those conditions.

If it was purely down to swim ability then it wouldn't really bother me and I'd be more than happy to go for it 'sans suit', however.... there is a type of suit which is a kind of half-way house between a wetsuit and a normal triathlon suit, see HERE. These are allowed in temperatures above 24 degrees and will significantly reduce swim time, however at over 200 euros each (we'd need two) and considering the fact that wetsuits may still be an option on Sunday we're going to wait until the official announcement tomorrow afternoon before splashing the cash.

If wetties were allowed then we'd probably never use the pointzero3 suits but if they were banned then they'd be likely to sell out in seconds as everyone rushes to 'buy' some time... all we can do is try to be as on the ball as possible tomorrow and be one step ahead of the game if the call is made. One thing I don't want is to be stood on the start line in my Speedo's!!

I'm hoping that this evening's rain and lower temps will have cooled the lake down the 0.2 degrees needed for me to use my (also brand new) Blue Seventy Helix wetsuit... all will be revealed tomorrow...

Other than that I'm feeling more and more rested every day, ready to go for it and the weather forecast for Sunday is looking good (24 degrees, dry, light wind). Tomorrow morning we're doing a 30 minute run before breakfast with our mate Ady and then will sort the bikes out during the day before heading to the race briefing at 4.30pm.

Mum, Ray and my Auntie Les arrived today and it was great to catch up with them over a relaxing dinner. AKJ, Sam, Amanda, Maddie and Paul arrive tomorrow so with the usual suspects out on the course we certainly won't be lacking support ;)

that's about it for now, see you tomorrow,

t.

4 comments:

runtilyoudrop said...

say hi to my mates Jo Carritt and Steve Lord if you see them out there. Steve is dead serious but comes from your neck of the woods (well somewhere north of watford anyway) all the best and hope you nail it- same to Helen ;-)

Gabriel

Anonymous said...

You might as well buy the speedsuits - you'll need them for Hawaii! ;)

Tom said...

G,

Thanks for the message, we'll certainly be giving it everything tomorrow morning ;)

Also had quite a few nice chats with Jo and Steve who will no doubt be amazing as always.

Looking forward to sharing a beer with you next Sunday evening ;)

See you in Klag

T.

Tom said...

Lizzy,

That was close ;) We were on the verge of getting them but they declared it to be under 24 degrees this morning and fortunately we hadn't falled for the hard sell tactics of the people on the Blue seventy stand ;)

Will be thinking of you on your way to Beijing at mile 22 of London when I hit mile 22 tomorrow.

Cheers

t