competition

#YourGoTri – The time Kate was finally convinced to try Triathlon

/ Kate O'C / Leave a comment

It’s been a super summer of sport and between the Olympics, the Paralympics and the Brownlee’s demonstration of sporting brotherly love at the Triathlon World Series in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, “triathlon” hasn’t been far from anyone’s lips.

brownlee_bros

The Brownlee Brothers (courtesy of mirror.co.uk)

If you’ve been reading or following us for a while, you’ll know that it is Katie F, not me, who is the triathlete of the pair of us. I hate running with a burning passion, and despite being a reasonable cyclist and a not-terrible swimmer, the running alone has always been enough to put me off even considering doing a triathlon. So when British Triathlon contacted us to say that they were running a campaign called #YourGoTri to encourage new people into the sport by pointing out how easy it is to factor all three disciplines into your weekly fitness routine, Katie gave me a look that said “now you really don’t have an excuse”.

I guess now I really don’t. Continue reading →

Race Report – Thames Turbo Sprint Triathlon

/ katieferg89 / 10 Comments

My answer now to the question ‘have you done a triathlon?’ can now officially change from ‘no because I hate swimming’ to ‘yes, I still hate swimming but the fun of the rest of it made it alright really’ . And by alright I mean quite fun. And by quite fun I mean I will probably do another one…

I picked Thames Turbo on the sole reason that my club was running a novice programme where this was the end goal.I also had several glasses of wine when I agreed to it. If I am honest, I basically ignored most of the training sessions and made up my own thing because a) marathon training took up a vast proportion of my time and b) I moved back home at the start of April and away from club sessions. Oh and c) I really don’t enjoy swimming in case you didn’t know that already.

Basically, there was a bit of googling and some laid back assumptions that I would get by. Actually, my training was pretty much useless if you want to think about dedicated triathlon training. I think I swam about once a fortnight on average and I just relied on my base running and cycling to get me by. I went to about one spin class and heavily relied on the fact that my commuting and every-other-weekend (ish) cycle legs would get me through (except for the fact that I stopped cycle commuting about 6 weeks ago). Oh and my first ‘proper’ brick in this block was two days before the race where I did a hilly parkrun and bashed around some Chiltern Hills for fun. I did no transition practice (but having done duathlons, not completely blind to it) and tested out my tri top on race day.

So, a potential disaster I hear you say?

Continue reading →

The real reason I don’t like swimming…

/ katieferg89 / 2 Comments

After much pondering, moaning, vowing to get better and broken promises, I’ve figured out the real reason I don’t like swimming.

I am not very good at it. Well, probably average. (Also it is boring)

I ADMITTED IT. I, Katie Ferguson, person who wants to be good at everything, quite frankly, think I suck at it. I mean actually, I don’t know if I really suck 100% because I actually haven’t timed myself. So I might not actually suck as much as I think but it sure feels pretty sucky. I hate feeling like I can’t breathe, I hate accidentally swallowing water, I hate that feeling when your goggles aren’t on properly and you get them gradually filling up, I HATE having to be in the slow lane.

PS I just told my sister I was writing this as a topic and her response was ‘you are such a knob’. So soz up front for that. But this is talking about me and how I deal with my own performance. People have different attitudes, different drivers and different barriers, just like they have different skills, talents and ambitions. And we work to our own standards. These are mine.

Continue reading →

Foxtrot Oscar: When ‘Competitive’ becomes ‘Aggressive’

/ Kate O'C / 3 Comments

It’s confession time, chums. I played Touch Rugby with K-Ferg last night and did two things of note, neither of which involved scoring or assisting a try:

  1. Gave myself a touch of groin strain. Yum.
  2. Colossally overreacted to a man obstructing me by literally screaming “F**********CK YOOOOOOOOOU” in his face. Many eyebrows were raised.

I recently wrote a post (10 problems sporty girls will understand) where I stated that it annoys me when people, guys in particular, accuse me of being aggressive, when in fact I am just very competitive. My outburst last night however goes to prove that I can, on occasion, be quite aggressive, albeit contained to the sports pitch. But what I’m wondering is… why? Why does a competitive streak overflow from time-to-time and manifest itself as out-and-out aggression? Continue reading →

So, I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t scrap school PE…..

/ katieferg89 / 7 Comments

What are your memories of school sport and PE? Bitchy netball cliques, gym knickers and being forced to run around a cross country field?
Mine were anything but. Teamwork. Fun. Pride. Patience. Frustration. Ambition. Emotions, experiences and qualities that rounded my education and my personality. So why is it causing so many problems? How is it being allowed to fall by the wayside as the first ball to drop? You don’t let people skip maths because they just don’t like it or aren’t particularly good at it. So why are we frequently letting this happen with PE?

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10 Problems Sporty Girls Will Understand

/ Kate O'C / 6 Comments

Here’s a popular one from the archives for you peeps – still as true as ever! We’d love to hear your #sportygirlproblems in the comments below or on Twitter

1. Your bedroom is perpetually in need of hoovering.

Especially if you play anything that involves wearing studded or moulded boots… Why is it so damn hard to get rid of every last bit of mud / grass / dirt? Or worst of all, these little blighters:

artificial turf

Whoever thought 3G pitches were a good idea has CLEARLY never spent entire weeks, post-training session, picking rubber pellets out of crevasses they hadn’t realised they had.

Continue reading →

Confessions of a Lazy, Sporty Girl

/ Kate O'C / 1 Comment

I never used to consider myself to be particularly sporty. I’d always participated in games lessons at school and in various teams – hell, at the age of ten, I captained my primary school cricket team in a local competition, having never played until two weeks previously, but that’s a different story. It wasn’t until I went to university, met a lot of people who did little to no team-based activity, and I took up Rugby Union, that I was labelled ‘Sporty’.

It’s not a label I’ve ever fully embraced or, frankly, understood. Sure, I exercise, I play sport, I get antsy if I’ve been sat down or stuck indoors for too long, but  never crave a spot of pavement-pounding. Between you and me, exercise for its own sake is something I dread and (horror of horrors) find boring.

Continue reading →