The sun was certainly shining on Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire on Saturday as Saskia and I went down to take part in our first ever triathalon. Saskia had been doing a little training for it, but true to form, I'd done next to none: only about 5 miles on a bike the day before around London. The triathalon composed of a 750m swim (just less than 1/2 a mile), a 20km (12.3 mile) bike ride, and then a 5.4km (3.4mile) run. I'm not a particularly strong swimmer (at least in open water), I haven't riden a bike for years, and I can't stand running - so it was all going to be a little emotional. When we'd signed up about 6 months ago, it seemed like a frightfully good idea at the time and we'd rather forgotten about the whole thing. Treading water at the startline waiting for the horn, I was certainly not feeling quite so keen and was rather dreading the pain of the next few hours! The swim was exhausting (swimming in a wetsuit for 750m was knackering - at least in a pool, there is an end to push off every 25m!), and eventually, having swallowed most of the murky lake water I somehow made it to shore to be pulled out of the water by the lifeguards. Then there was a 400m uphill run back to the transition area where I pulled off my wetsuit and put on my trainers. Onto the bike I went (with a gel seat for my rather precious behind!), and so began 3 laps of the Blenheim grounds, which was a lot more hilly than I was expecting. Although I had borrowed a very smart racing bike from a friend, the front gears very a little tempremental, so more often than not I was in the wrong gear! By the end of the third lap, having overtaken a few other cyclists, my legs turned to jelly as I got off the bike and struggled to remember how to run! Halfway through the run, I started feeling a blister between my toes where my wet socks (having not dried my feet after the swim) had prevented my feet from naturally drying. This of course got worse and worse, but I carried on regardless as I was adament that I would run constantly all the way (although it was more like a slow jog) and not walk at all. Coming down the final straight, the crowd's cheers spurred me on, and I managed to go up a gear and overtake a few more people in the final 200m. Crossing that finish line was a wonderful feeling - although I could hardly lift my foot up to take of the timing chip around my ankle!

Total time: 1 hr 41 mins

Cost - 2 blisters, 1 chafed nipple and a John Wayne walk...