Information meeting
In October 2011, I followed Morten Fenger’s recommendation and turned up at an information meeting at Roskilde TRI. The club has existed since the late 1980s and was quite small, although, like sport in general, it was growing. At that time, it had around 35 members.
Not enough swimming pools
The club didn’t have a permanent base, and the information meeting was held at the public swimming pool in Fløng a few kilometres from Roskilde. This was rather strange, considering the level of activity in the area, but Roskilde simply didn’t have enough space for one of its own sports clubs. The problem was swimming pool capacity. As a relatively large provincial town, it was unable to offer time to all of the municipality’s swimming clubs, and in this case, a triathlon club. Several municipal schools and a high school had their own pools at one stage, but these had closed eventually, and at the same time, the heavy demand for swimming pools increased. The politicians had been engaged in negotiations on a new swimming pool, but this had been more likely to be an aqua park with play facilities and entertainment rather than actual swimming lanes for teaching and training purposes.
Away from home
Therefore, in order to find the proper facilities, Roskilde TRI had made an agreement with the swimming club of a neighbouring town. The members of the TRI club then had to join that club in order to swim there. Things were entirely different in the summer. At the very feet of the club’s steps lay Roskilde Fjord with all the water the heart could desire, weather permitting.
Unlike swimming, there were plenty of opportunities for the club’s members when it came to running and cycling. There was unlimited access to public roads and woodland. During the winter months, it was possible to go spinning at one of the town’s fitness centres.
An introduction to the sport
At the information meeting, the club’s chairman and Morten Fenger presented an introduction to the sport and what the club had to offer. Quite a few people had turned up, and this was great for the club, which was not accustomed to so much interest being shown in its activities. After the meeting, we were invited to take part in swimming training that evening.
Competent swimming coaches
I was positively surprised by the swimming coaching I received on that introductory evening. I had tried to learn to swim before, but never really got anywhere. Here I experienced extremely competent coaches, who could teach me a better technique, so I finally had good reason to believe that I would learn the crawl. Therefore, I decided to join the club.
Everybody trained together
For many years, I had been a lone wolf, who always trained on his own. And for a while, I had really enjoyed running with Run for Your Life. Now I was a member of a club and took part in joint training on most days of the week. They swam twice a week, as well as running together once and cycling once. In addition, members organised all sorts of training events which they announced on Facebook. I hadn’t used Facebook very much before then, but in this club, the popular social media was used for most communication. I have to admit that it worked very well.
New equipment
In addition to training together with the others, I also did some on my own. I followed Morten’s training programme, which presented challenges almost daily although it did include one day of rest more or less once a week. I bought a turbo trainer, which allowed me to use my own bike indoors. I mounted my bike on the turbo trainer and used the garden shed as my training room. Here I was able to train come hail, rain or shine, and I could watch TV or listen to the radio at the same time. Cycling on a turbo trainer is very tough going and really makes you sweat. I followed Morten’s instructions and uploaded my results over the Internet. It became an obligation I had to meet.
I also went cycling along main roads, even during the winter sometimes. It was a question of finding out what equipment was most important. I soon found out that rainwear and cycling shoes were indispensable, and not long after that, I had to acknowledge that my old racing bike wasn’t good enough for road racing, although it was perfect in the turbo trainer. So I had to buy a new bike.
Sponsor
I only joined the club as an ordinary member to learn to swim, but one thing led to another. First, my company signed up as a sponsor, so my logo is now on the club’s suits and website, and there was more to come.
Executive committee member
After I had been a member for a few months, there was an annual general meeting. This was “harmless” enough, because there was no prospect of changes being made to the executive committee. But that was not how it was to be, because Morten decided, at the last moment, to stand down from his post. Nobody else stood for election, however, and I was actually urged to do so. I hesitatingly agreed, convinced that being an ordinary member of the executive committee would not be too time-consuming.
As expected, being a member of the executive committee of Roskilde TRI didn’t involve very much work, although quite a lot happened during my first year as a member. The membership almost doubled in size, and far more activities were realised. Some of the members were passionate people, who came up with all sorts of great ideas, and the once sleepy club gradually became rather active.
The chair
At the 2013 annual general meeting, the chairman stood down, and a replacement had to be found. New club rules allowed the committee to be extended by two extra members. Unlike the year before, finding new members for the executive committee was no problem, but now people were suddenly suggesting that I should take over the chair, which seemed rather surrealistic. I had only been a member for a year. In terms of the sport, I was one of the weakest in the club, and my knowledge of the triathlon was pretty limited. On the other hand, I did have other resources and could see that I could be a candidate if I had the necessary backing of the rest of the executive committee. On Tuesday 12th March, I was elected chairman of Roskilde TRI, a club in a state of rapid development in terms of both activities and challenges.
I’m still dreaming, but…
My swimming is nowhere near as good as I would like it to be. This is due neither to Roskilde TRI’s coaches nor any lack of effort on my part. I have faithfully trained both indoors and out in my wet suit, and for a period, I paid private lessons. But I still have problems with my breathing. I’m convinced that this is not all down to technique and that the answer lies deeper within my psyche. I have been working on it but have not yet found a solution.
I have participated in a few triathlon meets over shorter distances, and I still mostly swim breaststroke, which I would like to do something about. My iron man is still a long way off and may be a goal I never achieve. So be it. The dream is still there, but deep blockages are obstructing the route.
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