At the start of this months’ blog I’m a little short of a title but I’m sure it’ll come to me as I write my thoughts and let anyone who reads this to catch up on the last few weeks’ happenings.
In fairness I was going to write this a few days ago but “life” gets in the way, I’m either caught up with appointments, training/rehabilitation or caught up with the Tour de France dramas currently and find myself watching each stage start-to-finish at the moment! I’m also conscious that the “highs’ from recent weeks can possibly come crashing down after my latest orthopaedic consultation on Tuesday, so I thought I’d leave it until now…
So…
After the Grafman event it was decided that I take an easier week to recover from the events pretty much every weekend. With my head screwed on properly this is the right decision but with my mind currently set on “do as much as possible before going under the knife” mode I was climbing the walls during this week. During this week I was tinkering with the bike, looking at pretty much anything on the internet to see how I could improve my chances in my participation in the Aquabike World Championships in August. As my coach keeps telling me, it’s all about solid training and plenty of rest – something which is a bit alien to me as I need to keep going every day doing at least something!
The next two events were just cycling – one was a local mid-week 25 mile TT on a local “drag strip” dual carriageway and then 4 days later a 50 mile TT on the same course (x2). As it turned out there were roadworks and the 25 TT was turned into a 10 mile TT. Having entered I still showed up and recorded a 22:34 – pretty much the fastest I’ve gone in about 5 years despite completely messing up the ride by going off from the start like a rocket and paying for that first 5 minutes over the next 20!
The 50 TT the following Sunday was really the one I needed to concentrate on as it fitted in with the 50 mile (80km) distance at the Aquabike Worlds in August. It was an early morning start (07:30) so the competitors had very little traffic to deal with on this dual carriageway. At the start it was quite clear that there was a crosswind in both directions on the road, after a few friendly chats with the riders starting in front & behind me at the start I was off into “80k mode”. I caught my minute man (lady actually) pretty quickly and tried not to get carried away with that. Soon enough though, I was caught for 6 minutes by my good friend at about 20miles – so that put me back in my place!
I did suffer the last 10 miles but tried to keep it controlled at the very least and finished just under the 2hr mark at 1:58. Job done.
After finishing I rode to the next slipway to get off this main road, looking across, I saw the lady I caught early riding in the other direction, my quick maths brain thought she had about 30minutes (10 miles) to go. I looked over again and saw a local couple who had been racing their tandem in this event also heading in the other direction. As it turned out, this couple was stopped by a fatal crash on the road ahead of them – the lady who I passed early had been hit from behind by a van and she subsequently died at the scene. This must’ve happened seconds after I saw her.
The events immediately after this incident are a bit scrambled up in my brain as my initial thoughts were that it could’ve been anyone of us at this event. My thoughts dropped back not only to my incident (on a quite country road) but to an incident several years ago where I witnessed a fellow club rider fatally killed on a local single carriageway where he hit a rut in the road, fell into the road at the exact time a car was passing him. My hyperactive thoughts overwhelmed me for a few days, I placed myself in the lady’s position, I placed myself in my club-mate’s position, I placed myself in the drivers’ position – you name it, any scenario given and I placed myself in it, not only the physical position but in the psychological position – a few very dark days in fairness. It didn’t help in the days following the incident on this busy road that social media went haywire with the public condemning a cyclist on a dual carriageway. The mental trauma that followed this event has made me realise that I’ve run the gauntlet far too many times on these busy roads in the quest for fast times, and as a result I won’t be riding dual carriageway events anymore. I’m also conscious that this is my decision and mine alone. People who want to ride these events should do so and should not be dissuaded by some idiot on social media sat behind the safety of their own keyboard. I’ll move on…
The following weekend saw us at the Outlaw Holkham Half in North Norfolk. My entry to this last year was only because Challenge Roth (Full Ironman Distance in Germany) had been moved to September because of Covid so I decided to enter this last-minute. Because of my injury this simply didn’t happen and a year ago I watched everyone else compete in my wheelchair with a painful, swollen leg. This year, because of my inability to run I farmed out the run to Suzy’s mum as she is training for the London Marathon in October and I also farmed my bike ride out to Michelle. So just the swim for me!
My intention was to go as hard as I could for this distance (1900m) and see what was possible. So that’s exactly what I did, so much so that my lats and my hands were cramping after I got out of the water! I don’t think I could’ve done that swim that hard and then got onto the bike and had a good performance but you never know. I went round the course in 33:35 which was an eight minute improvement on my swim-leg at this event back in 2018 so happy with that. The rest of the day was just sitting in the sun, drinking coffee and cheering on the competitors, especially the Beccles Triathlon Club members taking part. Some were in their first 70.3 middle distance event so we did our best to make their experience the best. our/my team went round in 5:23hrs with a 2:46hr bike and a 2:08hr run alongside my swim. Job done – although saying that I do wonder what I could’ve gone round in as a solo.
The following week amongst riding to and from Holkham (90 & 60miles) I took possession of a new pair of race wheels (the result of my easy week looking at the internet too much!). I tried these out at a local country road 10 mile TT on the Thursday night. Keen to do a good performance, I (as always) went too hard in the first 5 minutes but held on enough to record my fastest time on this course – 23:29, which also turns out to be the fastest ride on that course in 2022 so far. Looking back it wasn’t the best preparation for my Aquabike event 3 days later but at least it gave me a moral boost.
3 days later it was the Maldon “Big East” Triathlon down in Essex. I’d chosen to do the Aquabike Middle Distance event which was a 1500 saltwater swim in the Blackwater Estuary and then a 87km 3-loop of roads I used to road race on many years ago. With a little help on swim entry & exit I was out of the water pretty quickly (4th fastest in the middle distance event I’m told) and onto the bike…
That’s really where the fun stopped as I was struggling pretty early on until I managed to get myself into a race pace line (my first time). 4 of us were hurtling around the Essex lanes until I got popped off the back with 20km to go. I lost about 3 minutes after this as the heat go the best of me. Still, I came in at 2:19 which was still around the 25mph(40kph) mark. As it turned out this pace line was the lead group for the middle distance triathlon and not the Aquabike so I had another win under my belt! Not by 18 minutes like Grafman, but by 8minutes. I was pretty chuffed about this one as my swim was 4th on the day and my bike was 3rd on the day making me quite competitive. Suzy very quickly reminded me that a full taper into this event would not have included a short/sharp 10 mile TT 3 days beforehand! My mind wanders and l do try and think how I would’ve ran if I could’ve. Looking at the results in my age-group I would’ve been 18 minutes ahead coming off the bike and the winner eventually got a 1:45hr half marathon so I’m hoping I would’ve run better than a 2:03 half! Job done.
Next the consultation on Tuesday….
Suzy came with me to keep me company, we also planned out on going for something to eat afterwards as it was out 5th anniversary since meeting each other the day before. I was keeping outwardly upbeat about the whole thing but deep down it was really trying to keep it together for the both of us. After an initial “glitch” with someone losing my x-ray booking I was x-rayed and in the consultation room with the doctor who was treating me from December last year.
The original plan was to let me grow my own bone from last year so it give the surgeon something to work with when he corrects my knee. In reality he was hoping I’d fix myself over these 7 months and was quite surprised I was still limping and using a crutch to walk. I demonstrated that I could walk very slowly without aid but as soon as I walked at a normal speed I would limp and be in pain (and eventually swelling would ensue). He suggested an MRI to show what damage there was with articular cartilage and my menisci around my knee joint but he was unsure whether they could do this imagery due to the amount of metalwork in my knee. If that was the case that they couldn’t take the MRI he suggested a “Plan B” of going under the knife, getting the hardware out and, whilst I was there, putting a camera in and trying to fix/diagnose me there & then.
So here we are again…waiting for the Radiographer to say “yes” or “no”. Waiting…
There is a caveat to my story…behind the scenes…
My attempt at trying to be “normal” does come with quite a few issues. The bike & swim training is going well. And it seems I’m faster than ever in both disciplines but the after-effects are getting worse. Swelling is the main issue and the subsequent pain. Walking is still an issue and the paracetamol and morphine (occasionally) have been reached for following training and rehabilitation sessions. It’s a simplistic view that I’m better and should now just get on with my life as it is – my training has been my therapy, it’s also been my escape as sitting here (in pain) in the four walls of our home isn’t all what it’s cracked up to be. I try not to dwell on the negatives – I hate the term “self indulgence” as it sounds as it’s a good thing to do…but it isn’t.
My psychologist has taught be to be aware of the problems, but that’s it – to just be aware of them and let them exist beside my everyday life without dwelling on them too much. The aim is to focus on how far I’ve come and enjoy & celebrate on the successes. It’s called “Self Ethicacy”. It hasn’t been easy and I do fall off the wagon occasionally as mentioned above after the fatality a few weeks back but I’m quite surprised that my psychologist has assisted me into becoming this person. The test will be the uncertainty in the next few months I think…the jury is still out on that one 🙁