Spring is here!

Tired - very tired 

Eaton Dorney,
2012 Olympic rowing venue

March is apparently the first day of spring-hurrah, so here is the Jan/Feb update.

These past 2 months have been full of ups and downs. I very much felt like I was emerging from my winter cocoon all through Jan, and I was really wondering if I was going to train and compete at all this year. Injury, coupled with quite a vicious illness which meant I couldn't eat properly for nearly 2 months in 2014, along with being diagnosed with depression have all been a huge strain. I am going to write about these in more detail later.

Alsager 5 

I am very pleased to say I pulled my man up pants on, with the help of my closest friends and family, and I am now in a much happier place. A new non shift, non underground job is also helping me manage my depression a lot easier, and I finally have some continuity in my training. I have raced a couple of times too which has been really good, no pressure and just enjoying running again, relief! 

I have been incredibly fortunate this last month to spend 3 weeks at the regional rehab unit at RAF Halton, with the hope of getting my achilles back on track. I can honestly say it has probably been some of the best weeks I have spent in the RAF. I have learnt so much about my body. Both in the book learning sense, but also in terms of how much I can push myself, not the sweaty lung busting pushing, but in terms of stretching and intricate control work. Just because you are not working your ass off with your HR nearing 200, does not mean what you are doing isnt beneficial! I have been well and truly reunited with my glutes! Lots of clams, bridges, mud walking...pain!


I have learn the importance of stretching and foam rolling. Yep it hurts, but its a necessary evil people!

I have also been experimenting with other recovery stuff, magnesium and beetroot juice. More to follow on these soon so watch this space :) 

Learning is taking place - injury

Things I have learnt having an injury. 

There have been a few different phases of mood associated with the news that I couldn't run due to pain in my achillies.  

Stage 1 

Relief! This was probably an indicator of over-training too. I was honestly relieved to have the pressure of competing and relentless training removed from me.

Stage 2 

Jealousy. I love to race. So after I got over the initial feelings of exhaustion,  and had a bit of R&R I was then itching to get back out there.... But I couldn't :( I then had to stand on the side-lines and witness ever one else continuing with their amazing seasons!  Made worse my the constant information streams from Facebook and Twitter! 

Stage 3 

Boredom and loss of interest. After a couple of months of swimming and cycling only,  I definitely lost my mojo. I find the threat of a competition looming on the horizon a good motivator, and there was no option of doing this. So another week off was in order.  

Stage 4 

Realisation that sport isn't everything!  I began to remember that I have some other interests!!!  And I have a family and friends who have suffered between mild and significant neglect at the hands of my obsession with triathlon and running.  I started to draw and paint again,  saw friends and family I hadn't seen in ages and tried out a few new things too.  

I think that one of the best was to approach an injury is to think of it as an extended off season. Focus on your form and weaknesses in the things you can do. I am lucky I can still swim, cycle and do S&C. Do all the things you don't have time for when you Adele training, working, looking after the kids etc.  

Yes it sucks. And no one wants to have an I jury, be in pain,  and generally not do what they want, but you really do have to look for the silver lining, else you will go mad!

Racing again...all hope is not lost

Unfortunately I had to make the trip up to Leeds on my own, without mule support. However it gave me a chance to crack on with some Open University work and generally do girl things (a.k.a walk around Leeds shopping and trying a bazillion things on).

I stayed at the Radisson Blu, which is in a perfect location for the Leeds-Abbey dash. You are right by the finish area, and the service teams always congregate on the steps of the town hall. I would definitely recommend staying here. Plus you can use the Virgin Active for a small fee. Which I dutifully did on Saturday afternoon, having a little swim and a long sauna/steam room.

Refreshed I popped out to do some xmas shopping and get some pre-race dinner, another advantage of being on my own meant I could go for sushi! (I have a fish hating boyfriend)

Feeling very chilled out after my pleasant day by myself, chatting to strangers and eating nice things, I got my kit ready for the next day. This felt VERY strange and I had to remind myself what to do! I was sure I had some pre-race rituals, but I wasnt sure what!

Having NO pressure to perform well definitely helped me, and I sort of breezed through the next morning, before I knew it i was on the start line!

Of course the first few km's were waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to fast which I payed for at the end of the race. If it wasn't my lack of run fitness, it definitely was the suicidal starting pace!

Anyway, I finished, much quicker than I had expected. All is not lost! The runner is still lurking inside me somewhere!

Run - walk - shame

Well, it is an improvement at least. I am now doing a progressive run-walk programme but OHEMGEE am I slow?

I know that I can't rush the recovery though, and as a friend put it, I would waste all those hard months of resting, and then be back to square one again.

The injury and lack of racing had lead to a huge decrease in mojo and general willingness to train. Also exacerbated by people (trying to be nice and friendly) saying things like, oh it will be OK, don't worry, you will be back to normal in no time, etc.etc.etc. which seemed to make it worse somehow!? Illogical I know, but they would reel off all these little dits about how it was going to get better, and then jog off into the sunset themselves.

So, what to do?

Well I came up with the ultimate tri to-do list for 2015. But I also used the time to look back on the season past, and it has been pretty incredible. Whatever your situation im sure there have been good and bad bits which have lead you to where you are now. Worrying, or being miserable wont change anything, so reminisce in the good bits, and build on the bad. Acknowledge their presence, and move on! Yes...GET OVER IT!

That's where I am now, slow on 2 feet but getting over it.

Bring on
winter training and feeling smug when you have got out there and trained, while your friends have stayed inside in the warm.

Great hot showers only come after long cold runs! 

Ticking off the to-do list - Bike fitting

Being injured and unable to run has made me re-assess my bike, swim and S&C training, as well as ticking off some long overdue jobs on my ‘Triathlon to-do list’

One of those jobs was a bike fit. I made the journey up to Newark to see Judith Brand of Dr J coaching and bike fitting.

 

Aero wheels clearly giving me the advantage on the turbo

After some biomechanical testing and functional movement checks we tackled my beloved TT bike. It had been fit with all the best intentions by friends with ‘good eyes’ and some bits of string. Before all the adjustments the power output from my left and right leg was quite un-even, mainly due to the seat being too high and too far back. After the tweaking and adjustments made from looking at the data produced from the black sensors stuck on various bits of my body, my pedal efficiency was much better and power output from right and left leg was much more even. Not to mention being in the aero TT position was much more comfortable - happy customer!

 

The Muve



After the TT came the fitting on the muve for my first ever road bike! I’m currently riding a bike which is borrowed from RAF Triathlon, I am really grateful for it since it has enabled me to get in lots of miles over the summer and more importantly enabled me to attend our overseas training camp in Mallorca early in the season, but it is really heavy and not quite the right size. The fitting happened on the ‘muve’ a bike-like machine where all the components can be moved via little handles, so the rider doesn’t need to get off, and the fitter isn’t drowning in a sea of different sized Allen keys! This means lots of changes can be made and data captured quickly and more frequently. After less than half the time on the TT the muve was in the perfect position, and all the angles between hips, legs, ankles etc. were perfect! Now the measurements have just got to be made into a bike! J Moda here I come! :D

Thanks Judith :)

Check out her website here.

Time for a little sprint

 After the Kitzbuhel blues, and quite a while without a race, I thought I would ease myself back into the fold with a sprint.

However...I had not anticipated the trauma sustained to my achilies at the Inter-Service Track and Field Championships the previous Wednesday. I intended to do the swim and bike only, and I should have listened to my own advice (who ever does!) and not taken my trainers with me...

Into the deep

Another very early start, arrival and registration all went very smoothly. Set up in transition was stress free, and due to it being quite a small event I was confident I would be able to find my bike. It was really great to see so many hands go up at the race brief when "who's first triathlon is this?" was asked. I really hope they all caught the bug! And not the bug in the water (more on that later)...

Swim
Terrible as always. At least this was only 750m, and with so many novices I thought it would be fairly friendly - WRONG! I got my head fully dunked after about 50m, then my ankles grabbed (definitely not by accident) and then a swift punch to the face! A little extra trepidation was added to the swim after being told that there was a parasite in the water which causes 'swimmers itch'. Basically this parasite lives in water, and will try and lay its eggs in your skin. From what I have researched you don't then become some sort of walking parasite house, and they die quite quickly, but it can just make you itchy! Out of the water and a loooong old run to transition. Really glad I brought an extra pair of trainers as it was pretty gravelly and I managed to run past a few people exuding a lot of "ooch, aah, owww, ouch" sounds.

End in sight - getting pretty warm too!

Bike
I was really looking forward to racing the bike as I was determined I wasn't going to run so I could really go for it. However the course was pretty flat and I tend to switch off when there is no hill. I was catching people though which is always fun and definitely a motivator. Managed to stay in the TT position most of the course except some corners (still need to work on bike handling!) 

Run
Yes...I ran (bad athlete) but only at a plod really. The course was off-road which helped, and I wasn't feeling any pain so I just kept it steady and plodded on. I finished as the 1st Lady which is always a welcome confidence boost, and even got a prize donated by Wokingham Lexus which was pretty cool.

Love this photo
My poor other half supporting and photo-ing

Goody Bag
The medal was absolutely gigantic! And the post race goody bag had some good items, a flapjack and some face cream and the obligatory flyers. One of which was for Miles Stronger who make these really cool bar-code t-shirts for Park Run! 

There is this really cool video from the event. Someone had a remote control UAV type camera which got some really unique footage of the race. Very impressed with how high it got too! 

Thanks for all the great marshaling and officials who made the event possible :) 
'Grey Snapper' photos
'Sports Alive' photos

Results