It’s becoming a drag now. I’d upped my run training
intensity only a little leading up to the Llandudno sprint triathlon of two
weeks ago but during the run I started to feel a twinge in my left Achilles.
This was a worry as for the last 5 years my issue has been with my right leg and for the last 6 months I’ve
been doing daily strengthening exercises for the right; heel drops and
eccentric loading exercises, but stupidly completely ignoring my left leg. Aaaargh!
I was quite happy with my run at Llandudno and although I could feel the
Achilles tightening as the run progressed I decided to still push as hard as I
could. As a result I was happy with my 2nd place in the age group
and getting a lot closer to the winner than I had been in at the Deva tri the
month before. Some beer and wine after
the race meant I wasn’t too aware of any worse than normal soreness around the
Achilles but the morning after and though the long drive back to Cardiff it
became all too apparent. Here we are now over two weeks later and apart from a
few light jogs I’ve not really done any running. I have had some physio and
massage to the leg and I’ve been constantly doing eccentric heel drops and
stretching. I still have difficulty in dropping my heel on one leg and it’s
still a bit painful (although apparently that’s good, but I can’t see how).
The injury meant I had to pull out of the Welsh Aquathlon
championships at Poppitt Sands the week after and also then the British Olympic
distance championships in Liverpool last week. This was the final qualifier for
London but as I had already decided that I would probably do better in the
Sprint distance (5km less to run!) it didn’t matter. As it turns out looking at
the Liverpool results it appears my rubbish performance at the previous Deva
tri qualifier was just enough to get me the last qualifying roll down place for
the Standard. That’s inconsequential now as I have already accepted and paid
for my place in the Sprint in London. And with that came a little bit of
respite from the spiralling costs of being a GBR age group triathlete – a
wopping £70 discount on the sprint entry because I also accepted my place in
the Aquathlon. Whether my Achilles can stand two 5km run races in three days is
another matter.
Well that’s it. September in Hyde Park – Wednesday 11th,
the Aquathlon; Friday 13th the Sprint triathlon World Championships.
Less than two months away. As it is getting very close and my Achilles hasn’t
really responded to two weeks rest I’ve decided to follow a regime from
Runner’s World found on the internet. Basically it’s intensive eccentric
straight knee and bent knee heel drops to “retrain” the Achilles tendons. It
says it will probably be painful (which it is) but continue through. Also
continue with light jogging if it’s not too painful. We shall see!
Getting back to the Llandudno triathlon apart from the
resulting problem with the Achilles I really enjoyed it. I’ve lived in
Llandudno in two periods in the 80’s and then in the late 90’s so I knew the
course backwards. I’d walked, run & cycled around the Great Orme hundreds
of times. I can’t say I’ve swum much off the North Shore beach, preferring the
swimming pool near the front. So I don’t think it was any local knowledge that
allowed me to have such a good swim. I was in the first wave and the course was
set parallel to the beach with a deep water start about 300m out along a line
of buoys, turnaround and back the other side with a final turn to the beach. In
races I breath to me left so my plan was to start next to the nearest to the
beach start buoy so I could see the rest of the field and make sighting/swimming
straight easier. The two start buoys were quite a distance apart making it easy
for the whole wave to line up. When I got to the buoy I stopped to de-mist my
goggles. Seconds later I had drifted about 5 metres. There was a strong current
out. I swam back to the buoy and held on to it. You could feel the drag out. As
the swimmers lined up I could see them all drifting away. When the air horn
sounded for the start most had drifted out to near the end start buoy. So for
the first half of the swim they had to swim against a current that was pushing
them out. Even after the turnaround most didn’t realise about the current and
swam again parallel to the marker buoys. I aimed diagonal to the shore but
ended up in perfect position right by the final turn buoy. Even on a short 750m swim I must have got about a minute current advantage on most of wave. It’s not often that happens. 
The cycle was twice around the Great Orme, which, when I
used to run from my office in the centre of the town at lunchtime was 10.2km. Due
to my large frame I’m not the fastest going up but with the help of my local
knowledge I’m sure I was certainly one of the fastest descending. I’d have
given these guys in the Tour de France a run for their money!
A nice, but
painful run along the promenade and it was second place in age group. I was
1min 15secs behind the first, who had beaten me by over 8 minutes at the Deva
Olympic distance tri a month earlier. So that’s quite a big improvement.
If I could only nail this running lark.
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