Time for a Christmas Blog I suppose !

Happy Christmas everyone – I’m flying home on Thursday (only two more sleeps !).  It’s probably a good thing as my fingers seem to have lost the power of co-ordination (if that’s actually a power……was there a Power Ranger with Co-ordination – debate !)

It’s been almost 3 months to the day since I left to start a new job out here, and we’ve been through thick and thin (mostly thick but that’s another topic altogether !) and I have to say that 3 months away is to long for me, or at least apart.  It seemed to get to about 2.95 months and then it wasn’t helpful any more…..as you may have noticed with the drop off in the blog writing.

There have been other reasons for that I have to say – the general lack of interest from my readers wasn’t a specific one (I now have more readers in the US and Russia than I do in the UK – so put that in your pipe and smoke it !).  We have almost topped 500 page views in that time, which is probably above average (well, my average at least), and this will be the 20^th blog that I’ve written, which is well below average for me, but to be honest, you’ve probably heard it all before now !

The new job is definitely one of the reasons.  It all went live at the beginning of December, with me leading the charge in the first area to go live first.  Generally it’s been a success I’d say, but it’s all a bit early to tell whether we can make the significant changes that they need.  I’ve spent the last 3 weeks putting out the fires from the previous regime, as well as dealing with the usual mad panic that all Government Departments go through at this time of the year (being “end of year”).  The usual round of “we’ve got money left over in our budget so we must get it allocated to something…..anything frankly……..so that we don’t lose it” – which was why I spent an interesting couple of hours this afternoon wandering around a Helipad looking at the electrics with one of my electrical engineers, so that he could give this client a quote, so that he could accrue budget for next year !

Another reason that you haven’t been getting your daily (or at least every other day) is that I’m temporarily homeless.  Julian is moving out of his flat tomorrow and I was supposed to be moving into my new apartment (rented by the company) in Madinat Zayed.  However, and I won’t say I told you so (cause I may not have mentioned it actually…..), but the furniture isn’t in yet and won’t be until Thursday, by which time I’ll be in the UK (did I mention that I’m coming home for Christmas ?)  So currently I’m lying on Psycho’s bed in her apartment in MZ staring at my worldly possessions in three boxes and a suitcase.  I should point out that Psycho isn’t here – she’s in Dubai waiting to fly home (she’s flying home on the same day as me………) but she’s kindly agreed to let me sleep here tonight rather than swanning off to AD. 

I met her at Yas Marina Circuit, on Yas Island, just outside AD,

and she gave me the key, and I gave here all the printing she asked me to do for her cause she hasn’t been in the office for three days !  Then we went for coffee in the posh hotel which spans the F1 circuit (which isn’t very well built, in my opinion……..)

and then, because it’s Tuesday, we went out onto the track.  She cycled one way round (44km) and I ran the other way (2 laps – 11km !).  I should point out that this is perfectly normal for a Tuesday and that there are loads of people there and the you’re supposed to go in opposite directions !  It was quite fun really – might do it again soon !

Right, I have to go to bed before I get into any more trouble – I’ve just narrowly avoided exposing myself to some drunk carol singers on Skype, which is always a good moment to go to bed in my opinion !

I’ll take this moment to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a stunning New Year (just in case I don’t talk to you before next year – cause I’m going home on Thursday and I’m not back until the 2^nd January……did I mention that ?  You can check in every now and then though, you never know, I might have found a spare moment to write some more of this drivel !)

It's Camel Time

I’m back in the desert this week (as I am most weeks), and as you know, we have sand, and we have camels – only for the next 3 weeks we have hundreds, if not thousands, of extra camels.

Because starting on Saturday is the Al Dhafra Camel festival.  The largest camel festival in the Middle East (and therefore, I suspect the World).  The whole place is absolutely plastered with flags of all nationalities, huge tents (that just seem to appear overnight out in the desert), wire fences have gone up everywhere (which have filled up with camels overnight), and the dust – 4,000 4x4s can’t move around at ridiculous speed without creating a bit of dust !

Went for a run out into the desert a couple of nights ago, for the first time in a while, and the change to the landscape is staggering.  There are encampments and camel compounds stretching for miles, all lit up like Christmas trees, music blaring, huge BBQs going, and a constant stream of 4 x 4s thrashing up and down the desert tracks and roads, as well as across the sand in the pitch black (positively dangerous frankly !).

I don’t know what won the “strangest thing to see in the desert” category actually, whether it was the open topped pickup, driving slowly through the desert, with huge speakers strapped to the top, calling out evening prayer – that was a goody, or the other one that caught my eye was the kebab shop that has sprung up about 2k down a desert track, lights, signs, gas, you name it.  Bloody gennies going everywhere – no wonder the UAE has the world’s largest carbon footprint per head !  There was a huge portacabin on the back of a lorry, all covered in tent fabric, that was quite un-usual as well.  Then there’s the mobile petrol station that ADNOC have moved in (quite a sensible move actually, it will stop the great unwashed heading into town).

They are putting up a huge grandstand overlooking the show ring – so that the Sheiks can sit in the shade as the contestants for the Most Beautiful Camel are paraded, measures, and put through their paces (the reason, as I’m sure I’ve told you in the past, that Million Street is called Million Street, is because that is the prize money for the winner of the most beautiful camel contest – about 166k pounds, or so I’m told !)

It all starts on Saturday as I said, and goes on for about 10 days.  I will see a couple of days at least when I’m back down here next week, and I’ll endeavor to remember to take my camera with me so that you can all have the benefit of my experience (you lucky people !)

Other than that I haven’t got a huge amount to tell you – I shall be moving into an apartment in Madinat Zayed next week (with a bit of luck, although I’m not convinced that the furniture will be installed in time) – this is handy as my good and generous friend Julian is moving out of his large apartment in the marina and I won’t have a permanent base in Dubai any longer, so need somewhere to leave my things.

Did I tell you that I’m going home for Christmas, after 3 months away ?  Can’t remember (shrugs), it’s not important really………….I’m sure I’ll fill you in on the details at some point…….

Work has moved on a pace since last week – we’re still putting other peoples fires out, but they not out of control any longer (touch wood……) and I think I can see somewhere in the future, through the trees,  where there’s no smoke…….but it might just be the train coming the other way (mixing my metaphors again !).

Running, jumping, swimming and biking are all going on as normal (although the pool has been drained at the Tilal for cleaning this week, which was a bit of a shock, and not very helpful !) – I’m currently having a mental battle (and I mean currently – I think it’s why I’m typing this instead of actually leaving an empty office to go and do something physical)about whether to award myself a rest day today, after several hard days training, or whether to push out just one more effort to get thin before I go home next week (did I mention that I was going home next week ?).  Apart from one minor calf strain and a few blisters, I have managed to stay fit and healthy whilst losing weight and training harder than I think I have ever done, even whilst I was in the army.  Then again, I’m not likely to do a huge amount whilst I’m at home next week…….did I mention that ?

I think a rest day has finally won the argument – I don’t want to be ill or injured when I get back home next week, and recovery is as an important part of an exercise programme as the exercise itself (I read that somewhere)…….I’ve just checked my training diary and I’ve done 4 hard sessions without a rest, so I should have one ! 

I’m off now that I’ve finished arguing and have successfully beaten myself in a debating contest – sad isn’t it !

Here endeth the lesson !

For those of you not on Facebook

You may be a bit behind the curve as far as my current comings and goings are concerned if you’re not either a) here, or b) on Facebook as one of my millions of friends ……….OK, maybe not millions, but you’re all jolly important !

“I can’t be bothered” doesn’t sound very nice, but it does have a certain ring to it when it comes to me looking up what I wrote last time – I think it was a bastardised version of something from Shakespeare, concerning the likely demise of my good self through alcohol poisoning during the recent Dubai Rugby Sevens (COME ON ENGLAND).  The more observant of you will have already worked out that there’s no way I could have pre-programmed a computer to put this on here without me pushing a few buttons, and therefore that I must have survived.

You’re right and clearly deserve a lollypop or something (I’d say a cigar, but we don’t want to encourage that filthy disgusting habit now do we – we can come back to this subject later if you like !).

The Sevens were astonishing.  It’s the only way to describe something so quintessentially non-Arabic.  It sounds like a strange thing to say but I can’t think of anywhere in the world that I’ve been, for anything, where the event could have been on a different planet and you wouldn’t have known.  What I’m trying to describe is somewhere that was completely and utterly different to the world outside of it.  There wasn’t a hint of the fact that we were in the middle of the Arabian Desert, in fact there was barely an Arab in sight.  The whole place seemed to have been granted some special dispensation with regards to dress and alcohol consumption because I’m guessing that there were getting on for 50,000 people there on at least 2 of the days and all of them were drinking, in public, to excess, and dress decorum had gone right out of the window.  It was a bit like going into a British Embassy in some foreign backwater and finding yourself in the middle of Kensington…….well, sort of, you know what I mean…….(actually, it wasn’t even a tiny bit like that )

Those of you that watched any of it on the television will have been astonished by the number of people that had taken enormous amounts of time and trouble to dress up (not least the group of at least 20 men – and one woman it has to be said, and one of them was in a wheelchair, who had dressed up as cheerleaders and every time the real cheerleaders came out onto the pitch to do some routine or other, they kicked off in the stand.  After the first couple of times the crowd started to notice the fake ones and by the end of the day more people were watching the fake ones than the real ones.  They had even gone to the trouble of learning routines – astonishing, and all fuelled by alcohol in a country where it’s essentially illegal to the vast majority of the population. )

(Roll forward 5 days) I must again apologise – it seems like I’m doing that a lot latterly, for the time it’s taken to write this blog.  It’s the Saturday after the one I’m about to write about and this has been sitting open on my laptop for the best part of a week whilst I try and find time to commit to finishing it.  I’ll explain why time has been an issue over the course of the next page or so but for now, once again, please accept my apologies because you’ve had nothing to go with you coffee this last week (and my family have been using this in an effort to keep up with what’s going on in my life so they will be grateful to know that I’m alive at least……).

To cut a very long story short – Friday got very messy and when I finally woke up on Saturday morning with sand in my ears and a fat lip, drinking was off the agenda for the rest of my life (I’m better now though, you’ll be pleased to know).  It took a few days but I’ve pretty much pieced together the rest of the evening – the sand in my ears was because I was doing the dying fly on the beach at Barasti (obviously !), the fat lip was because I’d fallen down a hole in the pavement and headbutted the curb (I don’t want you to worry about my good looks though, I’m fine now, clearly I bounced !).  I did have to wait until Friday to find out who “Katie Sea Swim” was though……… We’ll gloss over the part about being abandoned on the side of the road by the bus taking us to Barasti when we all got off for a pee……..

I got a text on Thursday from “Katie Sea Swim” regarding our arrangements for our swim on Friday – which was nice……..by Thursday I had started to have some vague memories of agreeing to go for a swim with a friend of a friend of someone’s friend……I just couldn’t remember who, what, why or when !

Katie turned out to be a very nice (if a bit bouncy for 7 on a Friday morning) Australian friend of the Australian girlfriend of a friend of Julian’s (are you keeping up with this ?) and we had a lovely swim around the Hilton’s beach area – I did 4 laps, all front crawl (and so did Katie) and it seems that it’s going to be  regular thing, which is no bad thing from my perspective cause I definitely need an incentive to get out of bed on a Friday morning !  This week was particularly bad because I’d been to the works Christmas party on Thursday night.  However, needing to perform on Friday morning had been a good incentive to be a good boy on Thursday night – and I must say, there’s something quite fun about watching everyone else sink slowly (or not so slowly, in some notable cases) into an alcoholic stupor !

Diversifying slightly (we seem to be working our way back through the week but believe me we’re jumping about all over the place), Secret Santa brought me a traveling flask and two thermal mugs on Thursday night – which was great.  I say Secret Santa in its broadest sense but within 1 min of opening it, Captain Sensible (our Health and Safety Manager) came over to see if I liked the present he had given me and to tell me about how he knew I’d be doing a lot of driving etc. etc. etc. – so much for secret !  Anyway, it’s a great present and a great start to Christmas.

And that’s another thing (diversifying once again), although there’s lots of talk about Christmas here, and there’s wrapping paper in the shops and trees in the malls etc. It all feels a bit token (which I guess it is really).  I was in Barastis on Wednesday and noticed a massive Christmas tree……but that was all.  No other decorations, no crap Christmas music in the background, just a massive decorated tree in a corner and the usual collection of drunk builders and Russian hookers, all in shorts, sipping cider from plastic glasses as the water laps gently against the beach – sorry, drifted off into romantic fiction mode for a second then!

Where was I ? Ah, back to the 7s – On Saturday I picked up a few friends and we headed out again.  I was driving as I was never going to drink again at this point (I’m better now, did I mention that ?) but more importantly, my ace friend Justin, who had flown out from the UK to do a bit of business and was entertaining at the 7s, had offered me a couple of his spare hospitality tickets, which I snapped up. A) it meant that I could sit in the shade all day; and B) I could graze non-stop, all day, on the usual selection of hospitality fare (and jolly nice it was too) .  It did seem a bit of a waste, not drinking free booze all day but I found it surprisingly easy as it happens.  Once again, to cut a very long story short, England won, I had a great time, the atmosphere was brilliant, Psycho liked her cake (she caught on quite quickly that I had free cake and I had to mingle with the great unwashed to deliver a stack to feed her entire extended family – which was nice), Fluffy gave me a massage on the way home (Physiotherapists are born Sadists !) and everything turned out OK in the end (and by Friday I had finally pieced together all of the events of the previous Friday !)

Right, what else has happened – well, the reason I’ve had very little time this week (or inclination, it has to be said) is because my project went live on Sunday.  All the time I’ve been out here so far was to mobilise and to get ready for the great day of 4^th December.  I have to say that I could have been out here for 2 years getting ready rather than 2 months, and it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference.  There’s never long enough to get ready, not least when you get everything you have been begging for, for the previous 2 months, dumped into your in-box on Sunday morning with demands for responses by Wednesday.  Cutting another very long story short, I’ve picked up all my toys now, and everyone has come out from under their desks – but it remains to be seen if this coming week is any better than the last one.  I drove literally thousands of kilometers this week, to the very outer reaches of the UAE.  At one point I was as close to being in Saudi Arabia as you could be without officially entering the country – I was on a balcony overlooking the immigration hall at the border crossing (we look after various elements of the whole border control area and I was “on tour” inspecting my troops).

On Tuesday morning a friend, Claire, arrived to do some work over here for 10 days.  You might remember that Claire was out here a few weeks ago, before Katy went home.  Claire is in the same group of friends (Wine/Book Club) as Mrs G, Katy and several others that I don’t think I’ve mentioned up to now.  Anyway Claire and I went out for Fish and Chips on Wednesday to catch-up (hence being in Barasi on Wednesday night – a reasonable excuse I think !) and Claire came to the golf with me yesterday because, as she put it, she hadn’t got much else to do and she’s never been to golf before and it’s free, and we came back here and met up with Julian and one of his friends and played pool and stuff, and I cooked a curry, and a jolly good time was had by all !

The golf, for those of you not keeping up with the sporting world, is the culmination of the European Tours whole year – The Race To Dubai, called over here “The Dubai World Championship” which is a bit rich seeing as only the top 60 from the European Tour can play in it.  Talking of rich, the prize money is a staggering $15m (although it might be Euros – in which case it’s even more staggering) – all that, just for waving a stick about……you may have noticed that I haven’t done much stick waving recently, I just haven’t got the time or the money at the moment – Triathlons are quite time consuming actually, and I need a new bike !

Anyway, I think that brings you mostly up to date with my rather uninteresting and generally boring life out here and pretty much all there is to tell you is what’s on the agenda for the next few days – I’m off to Abu Dhabi later (once I’ve been to the gym and had sausage sandwiches for breakfast) to watch F1 Powerboats (not the massive offshore ones that we looked at on the last trip out but the little whizzy ones that race closer to the shore, and because Claire has never been to Abu Dhabi or seen F1 Powerboats, and because she hasn’t got much else to do and because it’s free, she’s coming with me……there’s a pattern emerging here……. I might let her treat me to dinner at the Lebanese Mill later if she behaves herself …….MMMMMM KEBAB !

Then it’s back to the desert tomorrow via Abu Dhabi for a meeting in the morning and to pick up a few people for Induction training for my staff this week.  There are a couple of people coming down that have never been out there before so I’m thinking of dropping them off somewhere and leaving them to see if they can find their way back on their own !  I’ve got training dates fixed with Psycho, which is good as I currently need an incentive to get off my arse most days (I’m writing this now in my running gear because an hours typing looked more attractive than an hours running………) and then it’s just one more weekend before I FLY HOME FOR CHRISTMAS……….I did mention that didn’t I ?

I’m booked on a flight home on the 22^nd and I’ll be back at work in the desert on the 2^nd and I’m jolly well looking forward to it !  I’ve been away for (or will have been by the time I get home) 3 months almost to the day, which is the longest I’ve ever been apart by several weeks.  It should happen like that again but I’m almost over the final hurdle (I’m trying not to think too hard about it – you lot should steel yourselves for a couple of weeks silence when I do go because I’m unlikely to care about writing a blog whilst I’m consuming my own body weight in lard and alcohol !)

The only other news I guess, is that I’ve entered a 10k road race on the 27^th Jan (I think) and an Olympic Triathlon on 3^rd Feb, and with the Abu Dhabi International on the 3^rd March we have a few things to incentivise me to get back to pounding the streets.  On the downside, Psycho is leaving me L She’s off to Australia in mid-January to go back to University for well over a year.  I shall miss her for hundreds of reasons but mostly for nagging my lardy arse into doing something worthwhile with a large portion of my life out here – ironically, she blames me for getting her into Triathlons, but now she wants us to do an Ironman at the end of 2013…….why not, I’m going to die anyway, it might as well be just before my 50^th birthday !

And as they say, “on that bombshell” – I’m off to the gym !

Act One, Scene One - the night before the battle.........

 That he which hath no stomach to this drink,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And Dirhams for convoy put into his purse:
... We would not drink Heineken in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the Sevens of Dubai:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Sevens.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Sevens day in Dubai:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Sevens day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Price the king, Gilby and Costello,
Phillips and Henderson, Stynsy and Makins,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Dubai Sevens shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That drank with us upon Dubai Sevens day.

Exit stage left to the bar !

Favourite Auntie

I’ve just replied to a letter (e-mail) from my favourite Auntie (long lost……), and I felt that what I was writing was interesting enough to share with you all, and it will give you some insight into the sort of effort I put into replying to people that write to me !  On the downside, Auntie, who follows my blog, will have to gloss over everything that she’s already been privy too !  (I've snuck in a few extra lines though Auntie, and there'll be a test later............)

As is traditional in our culture, we’ll start the discussion with the weather, which is now well settled into winter here with cold nights (around 18degs………) and the occasional cloud……we even had a few spots of rain yesterday, and I mean a few……probably caused catastrophic failure of all sorts of systems all over the region, along with an unprecedented number of car accidents ! (on a slightly different but related note – when the recent Blackberry server failure occurred, which caused large parts of the world to grind to a halt, traffic accidents in the UAE were reported to reduce by 40% - you can make up your own mind what people were doing when they were supposed to be driving, but as you’re not really supposed to even hold hands in public here……………………)

I’m not sure how much lower the temperatures will go (we’re down to late 20s during the day, with light winds and no humidity to speak of – which is where the relief comes in !).  I got here at the end of January this year so I’ve yet to do a full cycle but it seems similar now to then, so fingers crossed that I won’t need wooly socks !

I’m working out in the desert for 4 days a week at the moment, with frequent trips to Abu Dhabi City and Dubai for weekends.  That will all change shortly as my friend Julian is supposedly giving up his apartment in Dubai, supposedly in preparation for a new job in the UK in June (poor old boy’s a bit mixed up at the moment and can’t decide what to do for the best…….) and I probably won’t have a free room any more – on the upside, the company are hiring an apartment for me (and other regional visitors) in Madinat Zayed, so I’ll have somewhere to live and play 7 days a week.  I’ll have to cook and entertain myself but I can still go visit the bright lights whenever I feel like it !

Today I have had my leave confirmed to go home for Christmas (and I think, what with weekends and national holidays, New Year as well, but don’t tell anyone…….) so can now actually look forward to seeing everyone again shortly.  It will have been the longest period ever that we’ve been apart, so that’s something to get excited about.  The next thing after that will be the family coming out in February half-term for a break and to potentially look at houses and schools so that we can make an informed decision about moving everyone out here at some point.  There is a lot of water and bridges etc., but you have to have a plan of some sort !

The main attraction for us here (apart from the World 7s rugby circus arriving this weekend and the World Championship Golf finals next week, not to mention F1 Powerboat racing the weekend after that…..) is the Al Dhafra Camel Festival which takes place for 2 weeks during December, just up the road, at the camel track that we all know and love so much.  Already it’s starting to take shape with tents and Bedouins arriving by the day, and bloody camels wandering about everywhere.  First prize, I’m reliably informed, for the most beautiful camel contest is AED 1,000,000 (about 170,000 quid), not to be sniffed at !  The place will be teeming with Sheiks and therefore is currently teeming with gardeners and cleaners, painters and maintenance people, all falling over themselves to make a large portion of the desert look less like a pile of natural sand……….good luck is all I can say.  One good night of wind and the whole lot will revert to whatever it feels like reverting to – I can’t wait !  They say that the Queen of England has mentioned that the whole world smells of new paint…….I’m guessing that Arab Sheiks have much the same view !

It was nice of Auntie to take the time to write, it always brightens up the odd lonely moment, and there are a few – exercise can only paper over some of the cracks !  We’re moving towards a payday this week, and that always helps to paper over some of the others…..after that, we revert to wine !

And for those of you with the option, don’t forget it’s Mrs G’s birthday today – I believe that she’s 23 again if you’re looking for an appropriate card !

Well, the deed is done……..

(I’ve just come back to the start from the bottom of page three, to warn you that this might be quite a long one……..for those of you reading this at work…….)

As some of you will know I’ve been training for a triathlon for what seems like a million years now, and having entered one in March next year thinking I’d have plenty of time to do even more training (and to save up for my very own bike) I foolishly discovered I could hire  race bike from one of the local shops in Dubai, and therefore promptly got talked into entering the next available Triathlon – which was yesterday.

The more intelligent amongst you will have realised that I’m clearly still alive and able to type.  This, of course, does not mean that I am now a successful Triathlete, or for that matter, simply a Triathlete – this however, does…..

I guess I should do a little more explaining for those of you who are not regular readers, and I should remind you that this is my first experience of such an event (if you don’t count watching the Olympics on the television !) so you’re getting a very first hand view of it all………. 

There are a number of different classes that go on simultaneously at one of these local events – Super Sprint, Sprint and Olympic essentially.  They are all competed for over different distances by different age groups, abilities and sexes, and, with the exception of the Super Sprint – which is generally either an introduction to the sport, has children’s age groups, or is for the more physically challenged (who, to their eternal credit, are trying to do something about that challenge), they start at generally the same time.

They start with a swim, usually open sea water out here, then onto a bike and then off the bike and into a run.  Yesterday (as I suspect at most events) they let the SS get through their swim and out of the water before letting the rest of the masses into the water.  I don’t know, but I’m just guessing that is so small children aren’t killed………which is nice. 

What happens next resembles one of those salmon leaps that you see on nature programmes.  Yesterday they set off the Sprint race 2 minutes before the Olympic.  I guess that this puts at least 2 minutes of clear water between the slowest Sprinters and the fastest Olympians.  This gap lasts for at least 2 minutes but it does at least mean that there aren’t 200 hundred people all trying to get to the first buoy at the same time – which is helpful if it’s your first time !  I have seen my swimming split time but it’s not here in front of me so I can’t tell you exactly what it was……..I can tell you that it was bloody awful though – on the upside, it was less bloody awful than the last open water swim I did (around the Burj Al Arab recently).  I don’t know what it is, whether it’s technique, stamina, sea water, swimming with lots of other people, equipment (I’m going to have to do something about my goggles – I can’t see a bloody thing in those circumstances) but I can churn up and down a pool quite happily for miles (literally) but when I get out into open water at 7.15 in the morning with loads of other people, I’m rubbish !

Still, I’m by no means the worst so I suppose that’s some consolation.  Trouble is, as I’ll explain later, the next time I do this I’m going to have to go twice as far !

Anyway, back to the story – when I had finally negotiated the 750m of sea water, I stagger up the beach and into Transition.  Transition is often called the 4^th element of a Triathlon and there are immense number of opinions (generally the same it has to be said) on what to do and how to do it (just Google it if you don’t believe me !).  It’s also part of your overall time, so logically the faster you do it the quicker your time will be.  You have an allocated space where you put your bike on a rack (it’s not like the Olympics in this sense – you could park a caravan in the space they get allocated. You can barely lay your shoes out next to your bike in ours !) and you lay out all your needs for the next two phases next to your bike.

These include obvious things like your running shoes, and less obvious things like a bottle of water to douse your feet with to get the sand off them after you come up the beach and before you put your bike shoes on.  Now I hear you asking why I’m not talking about anything to do with the bike phase – good question.  That’s because I decided to follow some of the internet advice and pretty much everything I needed for the bike phase was attached to the bike, or sitting on the bike.  So what happens is essentially as follows:

I stagger into transition, trying not to fall over anyone else’s crap, making sure I run over the timing mat, and trying to locate my bike in amongst all the others whilst wiping salt water out of my eyes. I have a pretty good idea where it is because I’ve been and stood in the entrance before the race and “visualised” it (don’t knock it – it works).  As soon as I get to my bike I grab the face towel that’s sitting on top of my bike and wipe the water out of my eyes whilst wiping my feet on the towel on the floor.  Grab the water bottle and spray water all over my feet to wash the rest of the sand off.  Race number belt around my waist, sunglasses on, helmet on and buckled up (important, you’re not allowed to move your bike until you have a buckled helmet on, otherwise you’re disqualified).  Then you grab your bike and run to the exit of Transition…….what about your shoes I hear you cry – Ah, here’s the cunning bit.  I have proper racing triathlon bike shoes (I won’t waste time telling you how much they cost dear……) and they are already attached to the pedals (which are cunningly fixed into a particular location to stop the shoes dragging on the ground, by a weak elastic band – the pedals that is, not the shoes).

You run with your bike, out of transition and past the “mounting line” (mount before this and you’re disqualified), leap onto your bike whilst you’re still running (you have to be there…….) and start pedalling (the weak elastic band breaks easily and away you go).  Only when you’re up to speed do you reach down and put your shoes on and do up the big Velcro straps.  It takes practice but bloody hell, it’s amazing when it all comes together !  Again, I haven’t got the numbers in front of me but I was not much over 30 seconds from coming in to going out…….pretty cool I thought, although to be fair, I have nothing to judge it against !

For me, the bike phase seems easy and my time reflected that – I flew around the 24km that we had to do (3 laps of the same circuit).  It’s at this point that everything starts to get a little confusing for the first timer.  Coming out of transition is all a bit of a blur and you’re concentrating on your own needs (like not falling off your bike whilst trying to jump on at a run and looking like a complete prat !) and are generally oblivious to anything else going on around you.  As you settle into a rhythm and get your breath back, your body has stopped complaining about using another set of muscles so quickly and you’ve washed the disgusting taste of sea water out of your mouth, you start to notice what’s going on around you.  The reality is that I then started aiming to catch people I could see in front of me. 

These could be SS riders or competitors from the Sprint, but as everyone has their race number and their age drawn onto their arm and their leg (in permanent marker it turns out…….I wonder how long I’m going to have to wear this badge of honour for – I’m off to the pool shortly to show it off……).  The race number is for the officials and the age, I guess, is for our benefit when it comes to working out who our competition is.  Frankly, apart from checking out the girls to assist in developing an opinion, it’s useless.  By the time I was into my third lap on the bike, the road is a mass of very slow SS riders just finishing their bike phase, all of the Sprint competitors and all of the Olympic riders going at various speeds.

I was caught by the first Olympic riders well into my third (and last) lap, and I was flying.  The Olympic event is for the serious competitor at this level, as well as the “fun runners”, don’t get me wrong, but it’s as long and as fast as you can go at this level without stepping up too much bigger things.  Some of these people are obviously doing some very serious training, as well as spending serious money on equipment.  It’s no disgrace to be overtaken by someone that’s already swum twice as far as you when they are riding bikes that cost more than most cars that I’ve owned.  In my defence I was only caught by about 4 of them and I overtook one of them shortly afterwards before I had to come into transition to go out on the run. 

T2 (as it’s known – I know all the jargon now !) is the same as T1 in many respects.  I have practiced taking off my shoes whilst still riding, breaking sharply at the dismount line (or guess what……you’re disqualified !) and running almost before my feet have touched the ground (I got a round of applause from the spectators for my dismount – I take that as a big complement…..we won’t let on that I did it way more quickly than I’d planned and that my legs nearly collapsed under me……).  Run back to your station (having been to the entrance before the race and “visualised” the route in – don’t knock it, it works)hang your bike on the bars by the brake leavers, helmet off, glasses off, trainers on and away.  The trainers have elastic laces and a mixture of Vaseline and talc inside them (not mixed together, just put in different places !).  I do all of this without socks but my feet are a mess, but the talc dries up most of the sweat and the Vaseline goes some way to dealing with potential blisters), and with a bit of practice slip straight on and are incredibly comfortable to run in.  Never again will I have proper laces in trainers !

Both of my transitions, added together, totalled not much more than a minute so I was really pleased.

Once you get out on the run (5km for me) you tend to have a bit of space because the Olympic guys have still got another 2 laps to go on the bike and the SS have generally finished (because they only had one lap of the bike course to do) so you can just settle into trying to catch whoever’s in front of you, knowing that unless they are running incredibly slowly, or are a small child of some sort, that they are actually in your race, and once you get close enough you can see if they are in your age group.  I should explain that there is no overall winner in the Sprint, just age group classifications, which is nice.

To be fair, at this point I wasn’t really racing anyone as I know from training that the first 1000m is a battle with my body which is complaining bitterly about having to use yet another set of muscles in such a short space of time.  For those of you that are interested, the trick is to take shorter faster strides whilst you’re having this battle.  For me, I always start to get tight calf muscles early in the run as well but I get over this quite quickly, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not uncomfortable !  The run is over all to quickly really.  According to my timesheet, unrealistically quickly.  There are several other people with the same problem so there must have been some sort of glitch with all the electronics, so we’ll never know what my actual run time was, and therefore what my overall time was !

hen all of a sudden, it’s all over.  There are lots of people all crossing the line together, slow one’s from the SS and quick one’s from the Sprint, as well as the faster Olympic competitors on the course (they do 2 laps of the run and turn around just before the finish line to start their second lap).  You get a medal and a cold towel, a drink and that’s it – finished.  You’re officially a Triathlete (if it’s your first time).

After that I just wandered about a bit, got a drink, got changed, packed up, blah blah blah.  Trouble was, as I’d gone with Psycho I couldn’t even contemplate leaving until she’d finished, and as she was going twice as far as I was logic suggested I was going to have to wait twice as long as I had raced (a little less than that as it turned out – she was so quick that she was second overall in the Women’s Olympic – where they do have overall winners as well as age group competitions….well done her.  I was very proud of her…..I taught her everything I know as it happens……….). 

The upshot of all the hanging around was that I felt a bit of a fraud only doing the Sprint.  If I’m honest, apart from a few individual moments around the edges of transition it hadn’t been that much of a challenge – don’t get me wrong though, I’d have been a fool to have gone straight into an Olympic distance without doing what I did first, and having that line in the sand will always be something to look back on, but I’ve already changed my mind about the next one.  It was going to be a Sprint in February but I’m afraid it has to be an Olympic now.  I’m already entered for the Abu Dhabi International Sprint in March but that doesn’t really count because it’s got a 50km bike ride (unlike the normal 20km), but I’m retiring from Sprints whilst I’m ahead – As it happens, it was a good thing that Psycho was so good because it hadn’t been our intention to stay for the prize giving, and if we hadn’t then I would never have found out that I’d won my age group……….

Here I am looking slightly embarrassed by it all as I wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on until I heard my name -  I had to hand over all the things I was holding (the camera, for Psycho’s presentation) and put a shirt on.  They gave me the wrong medal as well, but hey ho, who cares – onwards and upwards.

So that’s it, my first Triathlon.  Bit of a blur really, followed by a long period of inactivity and sore shoulders, but a great experience none the less.  I’m off to the pool now with my training book to start planning my assault on the Olympic distance – but I want there to be no illusions about me setting out to win anything at this distance, I’m already just thinking about just getting round (just getting out of the water actually…………)

Happy Days

You know when they say "I love it when a plan comes together” – well, that was last night !

To make a short story longer, we have to go back a few months (when the plan hadn’t even been thought of) to my previous job working out here in the desert.  As most of you will know, and if you don’t then it’s time to go back and read the previous blog, I lived here in the Tilal Liwa Hotel (where I am writing this at the moment) for about the first 5 months of this year, working on a contract which was part of a much larger contract for one of the Government departments here (The Department of Municipal Affairs – sounds grand but is essentially the local council run on a national level).

I was covering the Facilities Management workstream and was working as part of the Support Services Directorate (which included other stuff such as IT, HR, Procurement, Accounts, and for some strange reason, PR & Comms).  Alongside of Support Services were a series of other local council type directorates such as Land and Property Registration, Customer Services etc. etc. etc.  Parks and Recreation was a Directorate all on its own, which will give you some idea of the importance they attach to their parks over here – they also had the largest budget of any of the departments within the whole ministry………where that money went was anyone’s guess but Internal Audit were scrutinising their expenditure with a fine toothcomb when I left………. Anyway, Bayleaf (as in Bayleaf the Gardener) was the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Parks and Recreation as I was the SME for FM.  His real name was Ian as well, and I’m certain he features in some of my adventures from the last blog.  He was the one that organised the BBQ in the desert and who came with me and the Physiotherapists to the largest sand dune in the world, so I know he’s in there somewhere…….

Anyway, where was I, oh yes, the plan – for a number of reasons Parks and Recreation didn’t get fully completed at the end of the contract (I had already left by then, but I believe that the client simply didn’t want the final aspect of the training which was scheduled, and that Ramadan had just started which was complicating things beyond practicalities) and Ian was paid and packed off.  This was in July or August and it’s taken until November for the powers that be summon Bayleaf back to finish his task (apparently the Municipality decided that Parks & Recreation didn’t have a choice !).  Bayleaf flew into Dubai last week and arrived back in the desert yesterday.  I knew all of this because I’d kept in touch with him, and with a number of other people who I have lived and worked with during that contract, especially the Arabic members of the team.  They, the Arabic members that is, are generally still around in one form or another (I’ve just got one of them a job with my new company, and I’m lining up another one as we speak) and one of them has been asked to be Bayleaf’s Arabic support for his month back in the sand.  It just so happens that she lives near me in Dubai (she’s the one who’s wedding party I went to when I got back here) and because I’ve been back and forward from Abu Dhabi and Dubai, I’ve been giving her a lift when she’s needed to go to Abu Dhabi to sort out this piece of work.

So I’ve been in touch with all of the details of Bayleaf’s visit……….. We just haven’t told him (can you see where we’re going with this now ?).  Now Bayleaf knew I was back in the Middle East because we regularly communicate via e-mail and Linked IN, and he had some idea that I was working on a contract in Abu Dhabi, what he didn’t know was that I was back in the Western Region and that I was staying in the Tilal Liwa at the same time as he was……….until last night that is.

Everyone had promised to not to let on that I was going to be here as well and Rasha (his Arabic support) texted me to let me know his whereabouts towards the end of the day so I could pick the best moment.  I went for a swim with Psycho (90 lengths – 2250m ! Awesome……except I’m supposed to be winding down for the race on Friday !) and then went for dinner.  As I got around towards the restaurant I could see Rasha, and a couple of other ex-colleagues, in the bar, and there, with his back perfectly facing me, was Bayleaf !  It couldn’t have been simpler to sneak up behind him and whisper something in his ear – I won’t tell you what that was because there are children that read this blog and this was part of a very adult conversation !

I couldn’t see his face but I’m told that it was the proverbial picture.  All the others around the table had played their part and we had got him !  Afterwards, when we were talking later in the evening, he said that a lot of other niggling things fell into place at that moment, and things suddenly made sense – I remember the same feeling when Mrs G had organised a surprise party for my grown-up graduation way back when (never do that to me again by the way !), but the whole thing was perfect.  We had man hugs and back slapping and all that stuff when you realise you’ve been the victim, and later we raked over the coals of the sting in glorious detail as we sat and caught up on the past few months – happy days.

We will do it all again with wine in a few days but until after the race on Friday I’m being a good boy (well, that’s the theory anyway !)