There are some opportunities you just cannot afford to miss. On Monday afternoon I saw the following message on twitter from Jarrod Shoemaker…

So, who’s is this Jarrod chap? He was in the US team at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, was the 2009 ITU World Duathlon Champion and is currently 7th in the overall ITU World Championship Rankings for 2010. Not a bad pedigree. As for me, I’m a 10 hour 10 Ironman fresh from a sub 4h30m half-Ironman (or there abouts) race at the weekend (which I will blog about soon!) and sub 18 minute 5k runner. Not quite the same, but there you go.

Well, I would be around on Tuesday and after reading about a chap (smernicki on twitter) who had a once in a lifetime experience on Monday running with Ironman Chris McCormack in London I had to go along.

I did however need to clarify something…

The response I got was as hoped, 5 miles easy running. Of course one mans easy is not necessarily anothers…

Monday night it rained, and it rained some more, however by 6am on Tuesday when I woke up it was looking good. Shortly after 7am I jumped on my bike and rode to Bushy Park. At about 7:30am the gates were opened and I was expecting to meet up with a few other people but turned out it was just me.

Jarrod arrived, introductions were made and a few minutes later we set off for a little run.

Well, what a lovely chap. Can I just say that. Yes, I can, and I have. Moving on…

We chatted about all sorts of things on the run, the weekly 5k parkrun running events that are held in the park - which Jarrod stumbled across at the weekend when nearly 800 runners were heading towards him during a training run!

We talked power meters on the bike (a subject I have a growing interest in), local pools and lakes, open water swimming, cycling and running round Richmond Park, people who go long instead of fast, and how I’d love to do a 1:45 olympic distance triathlon (er, in my dreams!). We saw his wife Jenna out training as well.

All in all a great little morning, which he was happy to tell the world about.