So…here I am sitting here in Palma (Mallorca) airport, Gate A, at 7am, waiting for gates information to get back to the Uk after a pretty mazing week with Sa Calobra Cycling Club. This isn’t a flex in any way and those who might be triggered by this I apologise but urge you to actually just book that camp, book that flight as life is too short to dwell on disliking others’ and just get on with you own path and live life.
The reason for the first chapter above is really a personal reflection on how fast things change and what you think might be your path actually isn’t. I’ll explain…
Exactly one year ago, if you follow me and read my rather dull at times posts, I was post-operation – a corrective surgery on my long term injury after sustaining a life-changing disability in a road collision in May 2021. The initial emergency surgery was “ok” but for a high-functioning person as myself not ok. For 95% of the population the repair was sufficient to live a fairly good life but for highly active – “sports” people this knee wasn’t going to be up to task. I was fortunate enough to be referred to one of the good guys in Oxford Orthopaedic Hospital who is widely known as the “knee guy who the knee guys go to”. Jamie – took me on and surprisingly suggested that my prognosis looked good ONLY if I had corrective surgery to level up my current position. My standing stance saw my right knee drop inwards so that the majority of my bodyweight on that side would bear on the external side of the knee joint – which was where all the damage was. So a corrective operation would even the weight bearing and also if (and a big if) I was to require further surgery such as a full or partial knee replacement, the geometry was good for not wearing it out too soon and needing further revisions.
BUT…there was a risk in the surgery that too much or too little bone would be cut off leaving me in a worse position than where I was. The issue was that if I decided to delay the surgery then I would wear out the knee too fast and I would definitely need the replacement option in the near future. So I decided to take the plunge and go for the corrective route knowing that there was a risk. In real-life this meant my cycling career would end as I knew it and I may be in constant pain until I would be considered for knee replacement surgery which could mean 2 or 3 years down the road.
Of course, I’m writing this blog on the other side, knowing that the surgery went well, the recovery went well and I’m back on the bike. But you don’t know that when you’re in the middle of it all! My future was in the balance and I didn’t fare well even though I put on a brave face for the people around me. I’m writing this now as the Sa Calobra Training Camp was pivotal in my perception of a good recovery.
Initially, the camp was booked for March in Calpe, Northern Spain to put the finishing touches of my training build for the 2027 season but the operation put a stop to that. the Calpe camp was considered much harder than the Mallorca camp – more elevation and more distance, so much so that people who were top riders in Mallorca were just lower down the pecking order in Calpe. This deterred me completely, especially with the rehabilitation still ongoing, and I asked the camp owner – Aurelian to rebook for September/October later in the year which he was totally happy with. It also suited the possibility of us (Suzy & I) getting ready for the Aquabike World Championships in Abu Dhabi in November but world affairs and current unrest in the area meant that this wasn’t going to happen this time around. I mean – we could’ve still gone but the travel insurance simply didn’t cover repatriation if it all went south! So the camp was a book-end to the 2027 season with no pressure on myself to compete with others.
As always the blog is ridiculously late – the last one being back in July post European Championships in extreme heat in Northern Spain. I was also headed head first into a full distance Aquabike which determined the rest of the racing season which direction I would be headed…
Well…Nottingham full stance Aquabike turned into a glorified bike ride as the swim was cancelled due to blue/green algae. Now, before everyone jumps on the negative bandwagon, the organiser has a responsibility to keep the race safe and the cancellation was 100% the right call, I do understand that athletes train for months to get to this event and to be told the swim is off is a real kick in the teeth. What makes this even more difficult to swallow is that the organisation knew this might be a problem several months beforehand and did little to resolve this – their attempts to dilute and treat in the last week before the event was wholly insufficient and if (and its a big if!) they had attacked this when they knew about it the event might’ve gone ahead as planned. I don’t know the boardroom decisions, and I’m clearly speculating with zero knowledge of due diligence but I think it came down to cost. The difficulty I have is that Aquabikers rode the event as a solitary bike time trial and all have been offered re-entry to next years’ event. However, triathletes who had to do a short run instead of the swim ahead of the bike leg weren’t offered any re-entry moving forwards – again this must be based on cost.
Nonetheless, I set off on my slightly delayed time slot and proceeded to ride a 180km time trial in a respectable time of 4:53hrs. This gave me 2nd overall and a win in my age group. The guy who won beat me by a 10 minute margin but I’m happy to accept that as he had about 30 years on me and had about 20kgs on me too! lol Despite this positive result I was still quite critical on my performance – my power was down and the strong winds that day emptied the tank pretty early in the event and the last 20 miles were a matter of survival rather than still in race-mode. This bad day at the office didn’t help with my decision to go “middle” or “long” at Almere in September… but after a few weeks of indecision I decided to go long again to put right what went wrong AND to actually do it with a swim as the July event was intended to be…
August was simply an attempt to put right the mistakes, get some volume and intensity in (at the same time!) and also I wanted to go back to the gym a little more as I felt weak on the bike. There’s alot to take in there – and my body needed to take in alot of stimulus in this month to be in the right fitness for Almere. My coach was laying down some pretty spicy workouts lasting 2 to 3 hrs and also there were a few 5 to 6 hour rides in there too so I was definitely getting tested. In between these rides I had planned a few Time Trial goals. At complete opposite ends of the Great British Time Trial spectrum I targeted a 10 mile TT and a 50 mile TT in August. The 10 I was lucky enough to turn up on the day that the weather systems aligned and I pulled out of the bag a 20:28 – a 14 second all-time personal best at this distance – considering what training I was doing this wasn’t really what I had expected! A week later I hit the one and only local 50 mile TT of the year on a local stretch of road. The 4-lap route felt hard all the way but I had faith in my numbers and finished one solitary seconds behind my all-time PB. I was amazed and also upset by missing the PR as you could imagine. I mean c.mon! One second! But looking back it was a good ride as the previous time had been set on a dual carriageway and alot of traffic to drag me along whereas this was a single carriageway and the traffic wasn’t heavy.
Almere…
This race is definitely one of my favourites. I had taken part in the triathlon back in 2019 where I pulled off a pretty good performance. Then I had spectated when Suzy had raced here a few times. I was also here in 2024 when I won my age group in the middle distance aquabike and got 5th overall but here I was taking on the full distance event. One other Hashtag athlete – Claire was here also at the full distance event so I guess this partly helped my decision to do the same race as her. Suzy was here and also her mum so it was a proper road trip – an overnight ferry and a very short car journey to the other side of Amsterdam. No dismantling the bike for flight, no reducing baggage, no stress so what’s not to like?
Race day arrived and the Aquabikers started with the relay teams – about 100 of us, at the back of the long distance race. The triathletes had been sent off ahead of us in 5-minute segments by their age-groups so I had plenty of carrots to catch on the road ahead once I got out of the water… Claire and myself got in the water when we were called – treading water until the klaxon sounded and we were off!
The swim was just as I had expected it to be – the two lap swim course saw me just get on with my own pace, stay away from others and keep calm. The close proximity of other swimmers makes me tense up and my breathing gets shorter and my swim slows down so I needed to stay away from anyone. So I went left – as I always do! I felt quite bilious on the first lap – maybe too much breakfast, maybe nerves, who knows. But I persevered and tried to go “long & strong” and came out of the water in 74 minutes – a couple of minutes ahead of my expectations which put me in a good frame of mind ahead of the bike.
Once out of T1 and onto the bike I just got aero and started to put the target power down, it became apparent quite quickly that my anticipated power on the bike was hampered by a 74 minute swim beforehand. So, I had to recalibrate and drop the power down to make sure it didn’t feel super-tough from star to finish. Despite this shift of tactics I was still catching people on the long distance triathlon quite quickly. This was never a “thing” for me as I was looking out for the Green numbers – these were the Aquabikers. Each one passed meant one more position attained in the ranking on the day. The blue numbered triathletes passed weren’t in my race. In my preparation of the race I looked at the previous years’ results and to win my age group I would need a total time of 6:15hrs. My 74 minute swim meant I was looking at around 6-6:15 total time so I was looking for that. The green numbers were rare and I felt I only passed 3 or 4 in the first 90k lap.
Coming into the 2nd 90k lap I had to deal with the middle distance athletes who were now on the bike course as they began their race over an hour after us long distance athletes were racing. These red numbers were although not in my race either, they were good targets in the distance. I considered them fresher as they were doing a smaller distance so every rider became a target – mental games with yourself are a thing I guess in endurance events. On that final lap Ionly caught one green and thought I was approximately 5th or 6th overall, just as I was 2 years previously but in reality I had no idea where I was in the standings. Then with 30km to go I saw a green number! I caught him, held my position within about 20 metres behind him and stocked up on energy and drinks at the next feed zone a few miles down the road and put in a pretty big dig to get away from him.. “yes” I thought “that must be 4th or 5th”. I settled down and carried on at my chosen pace and went to the finish to record a time of 4:40hrs giving me a total time of 6:01hrs – well ahead of my anticipated time. Little did I know but the guy I passed at 30k to go was in fact the leader of the whole Aquabike event! He had come out of the water 11-minutes ahead of my and it took me 150km to chase hime down. I passed him there and proceeded to take another 6 minutes out of him to the finish line. The official at the finish line told me that I was one of the first aquabikers home and I didn’t give it a single thought that I had won. It was only Suzy that showed me when I came out of the athletes finishing area when I saw I had won it – the 2nd biggest race in the world other than the actual world championships and id won it!
The prize presentation was surreal – to be called out and taking the win was something I will never forget. Of course, I was up on stage two years previously with my age group win. And the organisers inly awarded age groups this time too but I knew I took the win and that was all that I was thinking whilst up there.
So here it is – the uncertain future post-op. The work…probably (definitely) too much work in the spring which gave me a chest infection forcing me to DNS at Nottingham. More uncertainty if I could turn it around for the rest of the year. The ups the downs. The poor performances throughout the summer then coming good right at the end of the year – literally on the last racing day of the season – hard work pays off I guess. I would also say that there’s an element of blind ignorance or a refusal to quit – depending on how you see it that got me to this position. Healthy or unhealthy obsession? Who knows? I think it was Alistair Brownlee that said that single olympic podium moment wasn’t worth the risk for all those years of sacrifice and I totally understand that comment. I think in endurance sports you have to love and embrace the process rather than always want the outcome – the win. It has to be intrinsic first and foremost. Those who enjoy the journey will be far better than the outcome-driven athletes.
Back to the Sa Calobra Cycling Camp – last day yesterday. travelling home today. This was my fourth camp with this organiser – I like it because every little detail has been taken into account. From the kit, the bikes, the airport transfers, the briefing before the ride and the debriefing after, the numbers that are individual to each rider in the camp, the food, the routes and the fact its in Mallorca means it definitely one I’ll be attending again in the future. At the ripe old age of 54 even holding performance is a leap forwards in fitness, as we age we get slower and to hold power, or to be anywhere near my best times up some of the climbs here is a plus – what makes this visit to this island special is that I got a fe more lifetime PR’s here – so I’m still progressing as I age – AND lets not forget the right leg giving me a distinct disadvantage. I do occasionally ponder on “what if” I had two good legs and Ive said it before there are many ignorant commentators out there who’d suggest I have and had 100% recovered from the crash – but I know in my heart of hearts I’m never fully recovered – I’m just making good of a pretty crap situation.
To finish just as I have started – this is definitely not a flex. This serves as A: putting my thoughts into a computer and getting them out of my head, a therapeutical approach and B: Serving an inspiration to others who might read this who after a big setback might think they are past their best – you’re not – your best days are ahead of you if you keep on working forwards!
Onwards!