The Tri Show

The best bit about staying in a hotel is a cooked breakfast. Unfortunately, I was staying in the Holiday Inn at Chessington World of Adventure. The African theme went too far as most of the thousand or so kids in the restaurant were behaving like Rwawandan chimps and I felt like the grumpy old silverback!

The waitress was acting like an ostrich in a bad mood and some carnivore took a gargantuan portion scrambled of eggs with his sausages, bacon, hash browns, beans, mushrooms and tomato. Staying with the African theme, I imagined what Henry Stanley would have said and came up with "Greedy bast*** I presume?"....as he left poor veggie me with a quails egg portion and few other options.

I headed off to the tri show early because Jack Maitland and Simon Ward the triathlon coaches were doing a talk. I took quite a few notes and learnt some good stuff.....Nigel Mitchell from work/team sky was next up and he gave insight into the nutritional demands of the Tour de France. Nige was a bit late, so the compare asked me what his official title was, to which I responded "I dunno, but he makes a mean curry"...I got my only laugh of the day. Nigel is always good value and I really enjoyed what he had to say.

Then a guy gave an amazing talk on the aggregation of marginal gains concept.....it was witty, insightful and some even said how handsome the presenter was. I may give a repeat performance at the Cycle Show! Then, Liz the editor of Triathlon Plus interviewed me, asking some quite challenging questions which I hope I was up to. It's difficult with journalists as they need a good story and snappy answers but normally the reality is that it's impossible not to sit on the fence.

I headed into the show area and gave some poor guy on the "Beetroot Shot" stand a grilling. I asked him the benefits and he gave a not bad speel....along the lines of loadsa research has been done. "Ahhh.... the research from the Jones group on nitric oxide, the speeding of VO2 kinetics and enhanced TTE" I responded. He looked worried. I apologised (no one likes a smart arse) and then complemented him on how nice it tasted.

I then went to see the New Balance barefoot shoes....."wow, they are light" I said to the guy "how many grams?" to which he replied " about 100g"....."hmmmm" I said pulling out my digital scales to find they were 123g! Why did he look at me funny? Weirdo!

I missed the next talk which I fancied, preferring the idea of a visit to the Saatchi Gallery in Kings Road more. Unfortunately, it had become too much for a poor soul and he/she had jumped in front of a train.....the line was closed so I missed both the talk and the Saatchi!

It was a painless journey from there on in and I was really proud of Rosemary as she had won her race :)