Rip it up and start again (for 2014)

My triathlon season for 2013 officially ended 11^th September. It ended as a damp squib with two DNF’s at the most important sporting event I have ever taken part in – a triathlon world championship. It ultimately ended due to a flat tyre in heavy rain. But that masked an Achilles injury I was carrying which would have, in any case, resulted in disappointment for me.

The season had all started so well.  5km Parkrun PB’s in Jan/Feb/Mar which saw me improve my PB at every run.  A half Marathon PB by over 5 minutes at the Llanelli Marathon in March and then a Marathon PB at the London Marathon in April by 25 minutes. OK – this last one was from a not very fast first marathon. In May for my first tri of the season an 8min PB at the Llanelli Sprint, even with a longer swim than normal. Then finally 1^st June British M55-59 Sprint champion at Nottingham and then 6^th at the ITU AG European championships Olympic distance event in Alanya, Turkey 14^th June.

I guess that’s really where I should have stopped as a week later my Achilles tendonitis started and progressively got worse through July and August to the extent that I wasn’t run training at all and just doing an easy jog around the tri races I’d entered. In the end I didn’t even do the runs and pulled out after the bike. All this despite twice weekly physio, massages and constant strengthening exercises for over three months to try and get me to the start line at the World Championships in London.

After London I had an overseas business trip planned and therefore decided on complete rest for my Achilles. No training whatsoever for a month at least. And after all that rest my left Achilles was still swollen!

 

So here we are at the end of 2013 and the current scenario. I’ve started to do some light running again. No more than a couple of easy 5-8km a week. I’m still not sure which way it’s going to go. After running my left Achilles is still tender to touch but I’m not getting any pain or inconvenience when I run or walk. I’m still doing all the strengthening and stretching exercises, icing after the run and I now sleep with a foot brace, as was recommended to me. That all seems to help but I can’t help wondering what’s going to happen when I up my run intensity. This I will have to start doing quite soon.

I managed to blog through most of 2013, which was my objective. The idea being that, with my goals set, it would motivate me to train and train better.  I think it just about worked. Without really knowing if my body is going to stand up to 2014 I’ve decided to keep the blog going through 2014. My “A Race” for this year being the ETU Age Group sprint race at the European championships in Kitzbuehel, Austria in June.  I qualified via being British champion, rather than through one of the qualifying events.  I’m pretty certain that the AG at Kitzbuehel will be fairly flat. Not like this year’s elite race, whose bike profile was something like this!

 

 

 2014 is not going to be as “focused” for me as 2013 was. Apart from the injury I’m going to have more family, work and travel commitments and I put myself up for couple of administrative rolls in the sport that will cut into my training time.  So we are just going to see how it goes. One positive that did come out of my injury and lack of running during the last part of 2013 was the improvement in my swimming.  I think my increased running, and probably cycling, reduced my flexibility for swimming. Also training for 750m or 1500m frontcrawl tri swims doesn’t exactly help for shorter swim races. As 2013 went on my swimming times got worse. But then with the rest and very little time in the water I managed in December to do three “all time Masters” PB’s in 100 backstroke, 100 butterfly and 100IM. By “all time Masters” I really mean any time after I was about 17 years old and faster than when I was at my Masters best about six years ago. If the running injuries are still there in the next few months I can always concentrate on swimming again.