It took (some more than others) a little bit of convincing to get ready, but in true SAUK style (silliness & laughter) we were soon cocooned in our wetsuits & ready for the ‘Orca’ guy to snap our start of season photo! Photo taken and there was no stopping us! Dav L & Cath Walker just dived right in (freaks!) … I am afraid I had to go in toe-by-toe, but I am happy to report that we were all pleasantly surprised as it wasn’t quite as frozen as we had anticipated.

The swim was fantastic! Thankfully no newbie-triathlete tears or freaking out like last year, just some great cruising around the lake!! With our swim over there was nothing else to do but reward ourselves with a hearty breakfast at Giraffe … and then a glorious picnic in Wimbledon Park, but I will leave the picnic story for Candice (read below)

Hope to see more of you at the lake in the weekends to come! We are there every Sunday at about 7!!

Social Picnic – Cands Marsh
After some glorious days of sun ideal for a club social outdoors, the weather was threatening to turn on us with rain predicted! But when we woke on Sunday the skies were clear and blue…..our sun dance had been answered!

After erecting the Marquee and banner in record time, dropping the beers into the kid’s pool of ice we sat down to chill in the sun! More and more SAUKers filed in and took up a spot. Blankets were laid out and a serious array of picnic food was on display. There were many happy bellies being filled even though ironically, for a Triathlon club social, only a tiny percentage of us out that day had actually trained. Seems the call of ice-cold beers in the sun was far greater! (apart from of course the dedicated early morning swimmers!) Much banter and laughter was exchanged and if I’m not mistaken I think we even successfully managed to handle a few conversations that didn’t contain the words swim, bike, run! Rock on!

Great to see a lot of new faces come along and get to know the others that they hadn’t already met while being glad in lycra puffing up a hill or neoprene in a murky lake. Although it did take a while for some of us to actually recognise each other without swim hats or helmets. Name badges might be in order next social ? (kidding!!!!)

After much beer, banter & lazing in the sun the obligatory rugby ball was tossed around, an attempt at some kite flying was made (until some kid whipped out some big flash kite that when pulled on at the correct angle launched him a few feet off the ground!!) Being competitive triathletes and hating to be shown up or outdone by a nicer toy our 30x40 cm neon yellow kite was duly put to bed!

The cricket bat and ball made an appearance and a game of piggy in the middle one bounce one hand (I don’t know the name!!) broke out!! (I think you mean french cricket Cands... - Ed) Most astonishingly (or not for a fitness instructor) Miss Cath Walker totally owned the game!! Bowling out everyone and batting more times then we all choose to remember!! Girl power!! All in all a great day had with a great crowd of people in the park!

And so another awesome day in the life of SAUK came to a close! Long shall we live!! ;-)

PS: next stop……Eton Super sprints Saturday 19 May!!!! Details to follow!

More photos can be found here.