It’s been quite a few weeks since my last blog, in fairness there’s been a good reason as I’ve been nursing an injury since just after Almere and it was 50-50 whether Long Course Weekend would actually go ahead.
After Almere I had a week off, in fact the Almere race was on the Saturday and I did a very sedate 22k run including (of course) Park Run in Lowestoft to finish things off.
The reason for this was that I had entered Long Course Weekend off the cuff – no planning, no goals (as such) but merely to have it as a season-ender where I could enjoy the sport rather than chase a time or a position. In fairness we (Suzy & I) had planned on having a week away, probably in Majorca, in October anyway and LCW fell on the same dates so we thought “why not”.
LCW is an event where you can choose a 750,1500, 1900 or 3800m swim. A 90 or 180km bike and a 5, 10k, half or full marathon. You get a medal for any event covered but if you do the full distance then you get a fourth medal, and they all interlink to make one big medal.
Suzy was undecided which, if any, event she would do, I got over-excited on the laptop and signed up to the Full Distance event so the plan was to just finish and get that fourth medal. The reality was that I had 70.3 event fitness but possibly not enough to get me round the full distance so the training was “on”!
So, back to the 22k run on the Saturday after Almere – no issues really. A bit of fatigue but nothing to write home about. The following day I was straight back with the DAP CC guys and covered about 65miles with a few ciders back at The Bell in St.Olaves to finish me off – so much so that the ride home needed a little bit more concentration than usual as I was feeling a little worse for wear after those Aspalls!
Straight back into training for the following week, 3k swims as normal, Wattbike sessions as normal, Strength training sessions as normal etc. etc. It all seemed to be going quite well until the following Saturday – the plan was to increase the run but a couple of kilometres to get closer to that 42k mark before tapering for LCW. I planned a 8k route that would see me back home for a quick drink of isotonic and an energy gel before taking a bigger loop to get me to Park Run for 9am so that this would be my final 5k so I could enjoy a coffee and some cake with the Beccles Triathlon guys without having to run home. At around 6k into my 8k loop I felt my right heel (Achilles) feel a little sore, I carried on as you would (as a runner) and hope the niggle would disappear after a few k’s. I stretched it at home at 8k and decided to carry on because “I needed to get the mileage in”, in fairness the niggle didn’t get worse, nor did it get better. I ran the Park Run and had my coffee & cake but getting up out of my seat was quite painful. Getting into the car was painful and getting up the stairs at home was almost impossible.
The application of ICE and rest soon followed and it would seem cycling and swimming were unaffected by this injury so I decided to carry on training without the running bit for a few days. It did seem to get better and on the following Thursday I ran on the treadmill with a view to stopping at any point if my ankle got worse – it didn’t and I covered 12k without a problem.
A few days later it was Saturday again and I decided to run to Park Run, do it and run back – a mere 17ks. After the run it was ICE & rest again as the pain flared up again – I had a problem 🙁
A visit to my dear friend Kirstie for some TLC and a bit of manipulation confirmed a partial Achilles tear, about the size of a fingernail on the outside of my right heel. She advised no running and plenty of rest. With 4 weeks to go this was not exactly what I needed. A 42k run on the horizon and an injury that caused pain as soon as you started running made LCW look impossible. I asked a couple of my running friends if they had experienced this injury and if so what did they do and they all came back with “rest and recuperate – and don’t even think about running a marathon”! Kirstie was more subtle in her approach – she knows me more than I know myself in these circumstances and she knew if I had a chance to run I would so she just cracked on with fixing me up.
So there it was – no running….well, until my week in Majorca.
Swim & bike training continued, in fact I spent more training hours on the bike in place of the running to make sure I was fit enough for the event. Many bike sessions extended to 90minutes/2hrs in place of running and my swims of 3k extended to the 3.8k needed for LCW. I attempted the 3800m in Bannatynes and did it in 1:12hrs so was happy that I was able to at least complete it before the event – my preparation for Barcelona Ironman last year as around 2000m (and look what happened there)!
Long Course Weekend Mallorca
We travelled to Majorca on the Wednesday morning before the event, Suzy & I, Danny and Michelle (Beccles Tri) and Cheryl (Suzy’s mum) all headed out at 5am to Southend Airport for a 10am flight to the sunny isle.
Danny has picked the 3800m swim, the 90k bike and the half marathon. Michelle would bike and run with Danny. Cheryl would do just the half marathon. And Suzy was to do the 90k bike and 5k run and then cheer us on.
The temperature was in the 20’s and the sun was out, a far cry from last year where the weather was biblical rain for the whole 3 days of the event. The all-inclusive hotel was brilliant as it was 3 course meals 3 times a day. Great if you are an athlete needed to be fed & watered throughout the day but not so good if you are me and want to get your money’s worth!!! It’s a good job I was going “long” as this would burn off a few of the calories I would consume in the “all you can eat buffet” 🙂
On the Thursday we went for a swim course recce and the water was beautiful. Nice and calm in Alcudia bay and just the right temperature. The wetsuits in the salty water made for great buoyancy and my 100m splits (even at a low intensity) made for good viewing. I only did 1k but was happy that I was swimming well.
That afternoon the whole group went out for a run that was just over an hour. With my injury I decided to head out alone – I strapped up my ankle with some KT Tape as well as my knee (this was hurting as I was compensating using my knee to avoid impact on my ankle) and made those first few steps away from the hotel. I’m not going to lie – it did hurt, but once warmed up after 5 minutes or so it hurt less. My knee was more sore than my ankle in fairness but I carried on and did 6k before retreating to the hotel and standing up to my thighs in the cold swimming pool for recovery.
My mind was still 50-50 – could I do a marathon with that pain? I decided that evening to at least start and then decide each of the 4 laps whether I would continue.
On the Friday we had our hire bikes delivered to our hotel and with that we went out for a ride to Pollenca some 10k away for a coffee & cake at a bike café. Upon our return Suzy was complaining of her bike being a lot harder to ride than usual. Initially I put it down to her riding a different bike completely but after a closer look her freehub was badly worn and the brakes were rubbing. I called the hire company and the guy on the end of the phone was of little help – he just suggested we ride to the workshop (back in Pollenca) and get it looked at – and so we did adding another 20k to our bike rides. The guy in the workshop was awesome – he replaced the wheel entirely and sorted out the brakes – job done.
That evening Suzy fell ill and her throat was swelling up – later to be a throat/chest infection that would put her out of any of the events she had entered this weekend. She could barely talk and I felt very selfish to be taking part in the event knowing she couldn’t – I didn’t know what to do.
Swim
The time had arrived, after a quick breakfast we headed down to the beach for the 3.8k swim. A two-lap affair using an “Australian Exit” where you run between laps and to the finish. In the 30 minutes leading up to this event the reality hit home – why on earth was I doing this? After Barcelona’s disaster why was I doing it again? I had only ever swam 3.8k before last year and 3 weeks ago in a pool – this was going to be hard. Suzy was doing her best not to be ill and support me but I was heading into “my own little world” from here on in. Some see my behaviour as quite rude but unfortunately it’s my only way of dealing with race nerves, once the event is done I’m sociable but that moment before a race start – forget it.
So me & Danny on the startline…..BANG and into the water….
The sheer volume of people in the first 100m of swimming overwhelmed me, I was being hit, punched, climbed over and this made me stop completely until I had some kind of clear water in front of me. At this precise moment I was looking at all the swimming buoys and the race disappearing into the distance ahead of me and all I could think was it was Barcelona all over again. I was frozen – it could do anything but tread water. What seemed like an eternity probably was only 1-2 minutes. I had a word with myself “come on Nick” out loud and just tried to get into some kind of rhythm in my swimming strokes.
Soon enough I was into what I had trained for and I was soon catching up a few people and overtaking them. My sighting wasn’t great so I relied on looking for bubbles of people swimming ahead of me to chase in the hope they were sighting properly!
One lap down, out of the water, run under the finishing inflatable and over to the start inflatable and back out for another lap – weirdly enough I was starting to enjoy this.
The 2nd lap was over with pretty quick – looking back at my splits it was some 4 minutes faster. Most of that in fairness was my panic attack so I’ll take that. I chased swimmers, stayed with them and then pressed on to get ahead of them.
Out of the water and running through the finishing chute I remembered my dodgy ankle and knee and slowed up a little – 1:08:24! Where did that come from?
Looking at the results this gained me 63rd place out of 150 people and 32nd in the Long Course Competition. Also, as Suzy reminded me – a 37minute PB 🙂
Bike
Onto Day 2 and the bike leg. This was my strongest discipline so I decided to sit in the main bunch and save as much energy as possible until I had to use it – standard road race tactics that has seen me gain some great results over the years. The only difference was (In my mind) was that I was racing with Triathletes – how wrong was I!
The race set off at 8:30am so breakfast was a little more rushed. I was on my bike and as near as I could get to the front of the startline to make sure that no-one got away without me seeing it.
In the first 10-minutes I thought to myself “this is fairly steady – I can cope with 112 miles of this” then pretty quickly that soon changed – there were guys who weren’t doing the full weekend and had just entered this as a single race. They were on their own bikes and looked the part and soon enough they were attacking and a small group clipped off the front. I decided not to bridge and stay in the main group. The 4-lap race took on a few climbs – some of which I hadn’t raced up in Majorca. I was puffing & panting on a few of them but managed to stay in the main group. On lap 3 my drinks were used, my gels were taken and I was in need of a new bottle. Suzy had managed to work out where the start of the laps were and walked the 2-miles to get there. There was a bit of confusion where I would take my bottle and I lost about 200m after stopping to get that vital drink. I tried to chase back on but after about 5 miles I realised I had to pace myself round and not lose too much time on the bunch. As it turned out stopping for that drink was the best thing I could do as I would’ve lost a lot more time if I had lost all my energy. I only lost a handful of minutes compared to god knows how much if I had bonked.
Day two done 4:54:23, in the mid 40’s place wise on the race but now up to 11th place on the weekend. Suzy reminded me of another 35+minute PB compared to Barcelona.
Run
Race nerves had set in the night before, the restless night didn’t help with my recovery from Day 2. I was constantly playing out what I would do if my ankle/knee hurts straight away, what if it hurt with 5k to go, what if I damaged it more, what pace should I run at? All those things I was trying to eliminate from my brain prior to this run but couldn’t quite shake it. A 9am start and a good breakfast saw me at the startline with all the guys. I was heavily strapped at the knee and ankle – I didn’t want to take any chances.
I could hear my running friends saying “you shouldn’t start” and Kirstie saying “I know what you’re like” and it had all come down to this – was I going to give in?
Bang and we were off – I started slowly, 6min k pace which I knew would see me at 4:12ish if I finished. The majority of the race passed me in the first kilometre, I was tempted to up the pace but I knew this was about finishing and not blazing a marathon PB. Within 10 minutes all the half marathon runners hooked left down a street (a slightly different course) and I was left looking ahead at only a few runners to either chase down or watch run off into the distance – who knew?!
After a lap (9k) I was into my 6min k’s pace regularly, I saw the others running the other way and we fist-pumped each other. Suzy was cheering me on at about the 4k marker, then the 4.5k marker and the 5k marker mainly because the course darted backwards and forwards through some streets in Alcudia before heading up to the port. She was upbeat despite being very ill and I felt very guilty for doing this.
The 2nd lap went with almost the same place where the guys passed me in the opposite direction. The sun was up now and the heat was rising, I could feel my shoulders start to burn so the sponges at the feed stations were very much welcomed. I ran between feed stations, taking water at one and then isotonic and a gel at the next and so on.
The 3rd lap went and I was at 27k, new territory for me as 26k was the furthest I had run, and that was the one which blew my Achilles! It was all in the mind from here on in. It felt nothing like Barcelona or previous Marathons I have taken part in. It was as if I was just waiting for my body to give out or I would finish – as simple as that. What kept me occupied was a guy who had been chasing me down since about 10k. He was gaining on me and he passed me at 30k and I was determined to keep close to him and get him in the end.
The 4th lap passed and I was 4k from finishing. The water wasn’t working any more, the sponges weren’t either. The guys had finished their half marathon and had joined Suzy in cheering me on. Cheryl’s Fruit Pastilles was all I needed to get me through the next 2k and then with the finish in sight I had passed the guy I was chasing and had my sight on another guy some 200m ahead. I pushed a little harder and then I got cramp in my right hamstring! So I was on the stretches at the side of the road and “limp-mode” to the finish.
4:21:21 – another 30minute PB from Barcelona. 95th on the day which was expected but I only dropped a few places on the weekend GC to 35th place overall (out of 150+ starters).
To say I’m chuffed is understatement – I did it despite everything.
I always look to improve and it does come across that I’m unhappy about any decent performance I do but this weekend has taught me that Long Course Triathlon is a mind game beyond 2/3hrs. Pushing to the line is hard, doing it for 10+ hours is very hard. But giving in would’ve been harder to take.
Some critics would argue it all wasn’t on the same day but I still completed the distance.
I still crossed that line – with PB’s in all disciplines. Taking some two and a quarter hours off my Barcelona time – putting that ghost to rest….finally. A bit narrow-minded from those “critics” who could’ve gone faster but they didn’t do it as part of MY JOURNEY. Question I would ask is “would they have bothered at all if in my shoes”? Just goes to show some people wish you the best but only if it doesn’t go better than them. These attitudes only serve as my determination not to give up when things get difficult.
Onto 2020, Challenge Roth, Outlaw Half at Nottingham, Challenge Championships again in Samorin. Maybe Almere representing GB or maybe Challenge Peguera as the season ender?
The journey continues…..after a couple of weeks’ rest!
https://sportmaniacs.com/es/races/long-course-weekend-mallorca-2019/5daed26f-5510-4fc4-8aa2-07e2ac1f00b3/results#rankings:page-1
