I realised this morning that when it comes to mass participation sporting achievements if I’ve paid cash for something, I will train. I won’t waste money.

When I first did the Great Perth Bike Ride, I made sure that I could complete 50km before I signed up to the 53km once round the river course. There was money at stake – I didn’t want to pay an entry fee to an event and then discover that it sucked mightily – I’d feel like I’d wasted cash.

When I signed up to do the NSW Big Ride (it was around 5-6 months away) I knew that I would train sufficiently so that I knew that I could do 100 km and then get on the bike again the next day. The longest day on the 8 day, 500km tour was 93 km, and my intention was to get on the sag wagon only in the event of an unrepairable bike mechanical not insufficiently trained body mechanical.

I’ve been running now for about 7 weeks, and for about the last 5 of them I’ve been doing the Couch to 5K. I’m just doing week 4 now, and I think that the week 5 runs will be repeated a few times, but I believe I could happily run the 1.5km that I’m supposed to run in the triathlon.  While I’ve stopped going to swimming (school holidays can bugger off right now, please), I don’t have any fear that I won’t get through it because while I was going to swimming I noticed my technique improved, so combined with the training course and a 50m pool that is closed to the general public (Bliss!) I believe I won’t have any issues.

If I sign up to something, I will finish it. Sometimes my biggest motivation problem is working out what I am capable of, and then signing up to do it. I don’t believe people when they say, “Oh, you’ll be fine”, I have to know it myself.