Fit again, but very Un-fit!!

So for the good news............. I appear to be back in the game! No real back, hamstring issues for a couple of weeks and my lurgie bug seems to have cleared up. Now for the bad news........... I am SO out of shape it's really quite scary. I can't remember EVER being this bad before. This weekend was my Tri Club's "In-Club Invitational Sprint Triathlon", or as it's otherwise known - the first hard training session of the year. For the purposes of this post I'll call it a race, but there are no prizes, no numbers, just a couple of marshalls and no real entry fee (we pay enough to cover the pool hire and the pub food after). It is however timed and is an early season marker to see how people are getting on. It's also quite possibly the toughest Sprint Tri course that any of us will ever do, so it only gets easier. Even the swim takes it's toll. Just 600m in Ilfracombe's 33.3m pool, but it's very choppy and for some reason it's VERY slow!! I know that my swimming has been going well lately and although we've several good swimmers in our club it was no great suprise when I got out of the pool first, what was suprising was that I was 30seconds slower than I'd expect to swim in one of my normal pools. It was the same for everybody though and all the times were down. From the pool we ran uphill to the 'olde skool' transition area where I went for the comfort option of socks (it is March after all), this took me over a minute and I went from 1st to 5th (ooops!!). We then hit the bike course............13miles and 1,300ft of climbing saw us hit several good climbs and descents on the way to Combe Martin before we hit "3-mile climb" on our way to Lynton Cross before descending back to the pool. I always struggle a little on the way to Combe Martin, power hills are not my thing, but 3-mile climb is where I normally come into my own and ride away from my clubmates. Not this year!!!! By the time we'd finished the first climb I was up to 4th, but my clubmates ahead had all disappeared into the distance. I never saw them again!!! Near the top of 3-mile climb another two came past me, two that I would normally be taking minutes out of. Oh dear!!! On the descents I went mad trying to gain a little time back, this was heading towards embarrassment territory. The finish of the bike course took us zig zagging down some viciously steep side roads, the run course started coming up the opposite way so I could see the damage and it wasn't good. T2 was casual to say the least, I sat down and sorted my shoes while messing around for the camera. No real point rushing at this stage.Out onto the run and it's every bit as evil (maybe worse) than the bike course with 500ft of climing in less than 3 miles. You leave transition and go up, up, up and up some more, then you run down! Again the good news is that there were no injury issues on a course that would definatly have found me out if I'd got any, the bad news (again) is that I was sloooow, hurting and very happy to reach the Finish Line. So, the overall damage is revealed. In the race with it's 24 finishers I'm normally one of the favourites and was again amongst though that didn't know or believe my injury illness tales. There are always 5-6 of us at the sharp end of the swim so I was happy to lead out of the water. I would never be expected to have the fastest bike, but I'd aim for top 3 and hope to be within a minute of the fastest bike split. This year I was 8th fastest and 6 (yes SIX) minutes off the pace (ok, I messed around in T1, but it's still 5mins!!). On the run I should comfortably be top two, maybe not the fastest because the hills don't suit me, but again I was down in 5th place and almost 2mins off the pace of the fastest. So where do we go from here? Well, hopefully I can finally start training and get some fitness back. Sunday was tough, but the course is evil and you can't blag fitness with that much climbing. It was great for some of my clubmates who've not beaten me before to get one over on me, although I'd rather it happen because they've improved loads rather than I've gone downhill so much. The aim now is to put them back in their place though - behind me ;-D Ironman Florida Update - I've made a decision, but only a decision on 'when' I'm going to make a decision. Shelly's birthday is on the 18th April and I've promised her that I'll know one way or another what I'm doing by then. I've got 3 weeks to get some solid training in and convince myself that I can go there and give it a good go, or to fall apart again and give it all up.

Enough Already!!!

Ok, I apologise. From the bottom of my heart I apologise!! To whoever the great God of Health and Fitness is, I take your point, I understand!! I promise to NEVER brag to people about never getting injured or sick!!! It happens, even to people like me, it happens!! If anybody hear me muttering such things again you have my full permission to give me a slap and tell me to shut the hell up! That bragging conversation was over 2 months ago and has since been followed by 1 week of sickness, a month with a back/hamstring injury, a week attempting to get a little fitness back and now this latest assault on my body, some sore throat & cough issue. The bug has just had Shelly off work and curled up in a ball so I can't say the arrival came as a total surprise. I'm now just hoping that my body shrugs it off a lot quicker than hers did because the last thing I need is another two weeks on the shelf.
Today I should be down on the South Coast of Devon racing The Grizzly 20 'country miles' of hills, mud, pebble beach and general fun stuff. That entry has gone to a good friend of mine though as even before this latest illness I was in no shape at all for the battering the race gives you. It's been a constant feature on my race calander since 2000 and will be a big miss, especially considering the fact that right now it's a beautiful day and there have been so few of them in the race history. I'm getting close to the point where I'm going to have to make a decision regarding Ironman Florida. I'm still not really any more certain, but every day I spend not training makes me think about the financially sensible option of not going, but then I get a few decent days in and I start thinking good thoughts again, it's 'only' money (that I haven't got) after all :-D
So that's about it I'm afraid. Still no significant training to report, just more lurgie news and indecision I'm afraid. Hopefully I can now make my peace with the Fitness Gods and get back to something meaningful soon.

I'm back (I think!!)

I started writting this a week ago.......... Jeez I'm useless............ Hope it makes a tiny bit of sense!!!

Well it appears that after my stumbling stuttering start to 2011 I 'might' finally be back on the road again. I hope!!

My swimming seems to be going well as my injury problems mean I've been putting in 2-3 sessions a week rather than my normal once a week attempts and in the last week I have managed 3 runs without any significant problems. I'm still not sure though how a bike ride on anything other than my hybrid might affect my back, especially after an hours spin on my TREK a couple of weekends ago put me back to square one for a week.

The years big plan of putting in more training month on month compared to last year has already come crashing to the ground of course, I'm already over 12hrs behind the 2010 total and with only 4hrs of running done in February I'm well off the pace as Sundays race proved.

Taunton Aquathlon

This was going to be a test and an important test as I'd won the race last year so had my title to defend. I'd got a target time of sub 50mins which would be marginally quicker than last years time, but last year I'd spent an absolute age in Transition. I knew I was swimming quicker, but after the injury ravaged month I'd probably lost a little run fitness so hopefully they'd just cancel each other out!

The swim started and I was in a lane with my old pal and foe Will, with me having a 10 second head start on him. Our wave set off an the lad in the lane next to me went off like a rocket. I knew Will would also start quickly so I decided to keep tabs on my neighbour. We went through 100m in a crazily fast 1:14 and he soon started dropping off. Will still seemed to be closing on me so I pushed on hard until half way when he started dropping off too. I finished the 1km swim, raced through transition and led the wave onto the run course in 13:52.

As soon as I got out on the run course it became obvious just how much the lay off had taken out of me (just 3.5hrs of running in February pre race). My legs felt heavy and although I was moving along ok and my HR was reasonable there was no zip, no extra edge, no overdrive 'race' speed. I knew I was in trouble and there was unlikely to be any repeat victory. I was half way through the run before anybody caught me, but there were two of them and they appeared to be tearing the road up. Then Will caught me and there was nothing I could do to go with him. Finally to rub salt into the wound I got passed again within 400m of the Finsih Line, I'd run almost 3mins slower than last year and it was all I'd got in me.

So, I got my butt kicked........... On the plus side I managed to pick up the first V40 prize and a small consolation was that the winner Martin finished in 49:54, so had I run as I know I can I'd have been up there in the mix. I still may not have won, but I'd have been a factor. Best that this one is just put down to experience and brushed under the carpet I think.

Quick injury update :- All seems well at the moment. My back is still stiff and occasionally I'll feel a slight hamstring twinge but it's nothing to worry me....... I've hopefully made the sensible decision and given my entry for Grizzly away. Much as I love the race I'm not really in the shape to run 20miles off road and the risk it posed to my back/hamstrings was just too much. Had I still got the entry I'd (stupidly) be racing, but luckily I've an old pal who took it off me. Hopefully he'll rip the course up for me on Sunday.

Ironman Florida update - I'm still no nearer to deciding what's happening. Shelly is getting twitchy about booking flights/accomodation etc as she likes to be organised and know what's happening. I guess that the fitter I get the more likely it is that we'll decide to worry about the finances later................. We'll see!!