Challenge Kraichgau half...

Well, in my last blog I said I hoped it wasn’t a bad idea to decide to do two half IM distance races on consecutive weekends and all in all I’m happy I did! On the Saturday though I did have serious doubts as I was feeling like I was fighting something off and the last thing I wanted to do was to race and make myself really ill, that has happened before and I was out for a good month afterwards! I decided to be sensible on the day though and if I felt crap from the start I’d just have to call it a day. Thankfully though my body felt good and I was able to put together an all round solid race, finishing off with a stronger run compared to Barcelona last weekend so I’m happy that all the signs are pointing in the right direction for me! As I said in my last blog, I’m not expecting any surprises at this stage, I’m realistic about where I’m at, with work, general life and training factors all being considered but with some more settled times ahead (I hope) I’m happy I have this base to work from.

As far as the race itself... definately one I’d love to go back and do! A very well organised event, the type of swim, bike and run course I really enjoy and with great support for the best part of all of it and a lovely setting to be in pre and post race! Thank you Challenge Kraichgau team and a special thank you to my homestay family – you made my stay all the more enjoyable!

Next on the calender is a race in Madrid and then hopefully Challenge Aarhus (finances permitting!!!...)

and just a couple of photos from Marbella half in April...

A nice pre race shot!...



And a happy smiley run shot!...

Challenge Barcelona-Maresme half IM

Officially into my season now (since Marbella half IM in April was a last minute thing!) and I’m happy with a pretty solid performance in Barcelona just last weekend. I finished 9th overal but felt more competitive with the rest of the Elite field, especially compared to my last season or two of racing. I feel stronger on the bike in particular and am able to run well off it (I guess these monutains here in the South of Spain will only make you stronger or otherwise would send you into a hole! I’m being careful not to start heading into a hole!!!) I actually kind of wished that the run had been just 1 or 2km longer as I was making good progress on 7th and 8th place! Maybe I’ll just have to hold that thought for my first full IM of the year. Also it was an extra kick up the backside for having gone off course in the swim – reasonable amount of lost time there I think! I wasn’t helped by the fact that the pack was just 12 of us to begin with and as I found myself back from the first few girls and on my own quite early on added to it being a sea swim with currents, even the smallest of waves and the early morning sun, it was difficult to site the right buoys! As I said though I was pretty happy that my bike felt strong and solid throughout and I followed it up with a solid run, not too special but solid, so I feel a good place to start for the year ahead. Especially so as the last few months have been crazily busy work wise and though I have gained some solid mileage particularly on the bike, I really haven’t put together too much structured training. The next few months however, I should be able to focus my training much more (fingers crossed!) and hopefully it will show...

For now though and since I got home from Barcelona on Monday, this week has all been about recovery, as I will be racing again this weekend coming at Challenge Kraichgau half IM. Though I have previously raced a fair amount within a season I don’t think I’ve raced two half IM’s on consecutive weekends before. So we’ll see, hopefully it wasn’t a bad decision!!! And thats where I sign off for now as I have to go and pack my bike... (fingers crossed for no more delayed flights – last WE I finally arrived at my hotel at 4am on the Saturday due to a 6hr flight delay! Probably didn’t help for the best race ever on the Sunday!!!)
Adios para ahora...

Fast forward to April!...

Some trusted guidance and determination with sound conditioning work, some regular solid winter rides pushing me out of my comfort zone (a lot!) with my teammates at Performance Cycles, some more recent challenging long miles in the saddle back in the Spanish mountains again often being pushed out of my comfort zone by team riders of the ‘Annapolis Bike Racing Team’ and some athletes from Halifax, Canada (two of the groups that have stayed and trained at Idlebreaks and I managed to kick off my season with a great start in a race I found out about just a week before!

That was this weekend just gone, 3rd April at the ICAN Marbella Half Ironman, a great race which was one of a series of three, the next two, a half and full distance race taking place in Mallorca in mid September. I had what felt to be a strong, solid race for me, holding together pacing really well and finishing off with the fastest female run split of the day (especially happy with that as I really haven’t had the opportunity to run off the bike in training since last year! Not the prep I would have planned for!) That was a great confidence boost though and a good test of my nutrition strategy in particular. I’d trained well with my Infinit customised formulas but in the end last year I didn’t really have a good opportunity to test them in races due to my physical state. So, with no stomach issues and with my ‘strong’ feeling and finish with a great run, I’m pretty happy with my nutrition plan! Also I finally feel confident with my kit, thanks to support from Blue Seventy for my new Helix wetsuit along with my own purchases including my Felt AR4.

Overall I finished a respectable 4th place, just 12mins behind the winner and 6mins behind 2nd and 3rd. A great race to show up and do as well as I did, especially so with the fact that I’d entered with the view to ‘turning up and seeing what I could do/where I’m at for this time of year’ added to the last five very busy weeks of work with little time to myself for recovery.

The next few weeks may well be much the same with training being dictated by the training camps out here, a little more than structured by my choice, but so far I have seemed to manage well and I couldn’t be happier for being paid to ride my bike in the beautiful southern Spanish countryside! So races wise for now I’ll likely do some local ones as and when before I hit the main season of races I’d like to focus on (which I’m planning right now and will update about as soon as they are confirmed!)

If I get any photos from the race and or the last few weeks in Spain, I’ll add them too...

So that’s where I’m up to for now!
Adios por ahora! :-)

INFINIT Nutrition news...

INFINIT Announces Nutrition Deal with Slipstream Sports
Custom Fuel Technology Meets Road Cycling

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 16, 2010 – Cincinnati, Ohio – INFINIT Nutrition today announced that it will partner with Slipstream Sports and the 2011 Garmin-Cervelo team to create a line of custom-blended nutrition drinks made exclusively to team specifications and to match the nutritional demands of professional racing and the team’s upcoming 2011 grand tour schedule. Slipstream Sports is committed to ethical innovation and along those lines, its sport science group has already begun working directly with the boutique manufacturer – widely known and respected in the triathlon industry – to develop premium customized nutrition designed specifically for real-world training and race conditions.

“It has already been an exciting collaboration for us,” said INFINIT Nutrition President and Founder, Michael Folan, “our core sport, triathlon, has long been a hot-bed for the type of innovation and invention that inevitably works its way into road cycling. We had always anticipated that custom nutrition, designed and produced specifically for the sport or individual athlete, would make the same leap. Since we've had the chance to work with Slipstream on an informal basis over the last couple of years and the riders already love the product, we are very excited that the relationship has evolved.” Folan continued: “The advantage, of course, is that with our custom Osmo-Fit technology the athlete can fuel for hours and hours on liquid nutrition.”

The partnership – through which INFINIT will become the Official Drink Manufacturer of 2011 Team Garmin-Cervelo – will include a combined effort to design, formulate, and manufacture products as well as ensure strict compliance with the team’s clean racing ethic.

“We are constantly seeking like-minded partners that share our commitment to innovation and ethics,” said Jonathan Vaughters, CEO of Slipstream Sports, Inc. “When we looked at the quality of the product, the flexibility to adjust nutritional qualities, and the history of success INFINIT has seen in triathlon, endurance running, and mountain biking, we knew this would be a great fit. We have some of the best athletes in the world and we need to provide them with customized nutrition drink options. Our sport science group will work directly with INFINIT to develop the best possible product for our riders and to us, that is the beauty of this partnership.”

Background: INFINIT Nutrition Holdings, LLC – Founded in 2004, INFINIT Nutrition produces premium private-label and custom-blended sports nutrition and has active production facilities in Australia, Canada, Great Britian, Germany, and the United States. INFINIT's website (InfinitNutrition.com) and patent-pending Osmo-Fit Osmolality technology allow athletes to fully adjust calories per serving, electrolytes, flavor, and 5 other distinct nutritional properties to match nutritional and race-day environment requirements.

For further information and press inquiries about INFINIT, please visit InfinitNutrition.com or contact:

Laurie Walter
Press & Media Relations
INFINITNutrition USA
laurie@infinitnutrition.us
+1 513 791-3500

Positive steps forward...

I started my last blog with 'its been a long time since I last blogged!' and now I'm doing the same! About time for an update!...

Thankfully I'm now able to say I've come a long way in the last couple of months. I managed to get my head around having to put a line through this past season by focussing on the here and now and completely going back to basics with everything. Since returning home to the UK late September I hooked up with a remedial therapist who I've been working with ever since. He quickly reassured me that I didn't have a degenerative problem with my back and that my issues had all been related to having a leg length discrepancy. Its fairly common but when you are running/biking the kind of miles long distance athletes put in over a number of years, things can start adding up and causing problems! So the focus has been to loosen a lot of muscle tightness particularly on my longer leg side, strengthen the weaker muscles and finetune core work and (possibly temporarily) add a lift to the side that is shorter! So... no wonder I felt wonkey!!!

Training wise, I can happily say I have been careful and it seems to have been paying off. I've hit the pool hard and have been getting in way more swimming than normal, biking regularly although still going fairly easy on the mileage and I'm back running regularly too :-) I was a bit worried I'd have lost a lot from not running for atleast 8weeks in the end but I've surprised myself and haven't suffered too badly getting back into it. Maybe when I start more specific tempo type work I'll think again! but maybe the consistency over the last few years really is paying off.

Aside from training, its nice being back at home around family and friends. I've definately been kept busy and proved to have come in very handy with painting, decorating, tiling and even learning to plaster! I think the Ironman athlete's determination or maybe just my stubborness has helped with that. Plastering is not an easy one! Still plenty to keep me going until I head back out to the south of Spain in February to work with Andy and Tracy at Idlebreaks (www.idlebreaks.com). I know I'll be kept busy there too working with Andy to support the biking and working as the guests on site Sports Massage Therapist. Great job for me though and hopefully will set me up nicely for a succesful season of racing next year... Fancy some warm weather training in the south of Spain and living the life of luxury - not having to think about anything other than training, resting and enjoying the Spanish countryside and culture?... Check out Idlebreaks and see what you think...I can definately recommend it! Maybe see you there in a few months...

frustrations of injury...

Well, its been a long time since I last blogged, so just to quickly get back up to speed... the last few months have been bumpy to say the least! I managed to get myself into what I thought was reasonable shape leading into IM Lake Placid late July. The problems I'd been having with nervey pains in my right leg had seemed to settle a bit and the feeling of being 'wonkey' was a little less after a lot more stretching and I'd started using supported insoles in my cycling shoes. The last thing I wold normally do is introduce something new just a few weeks out from a race, but it seemed to have helped my 'wonkeyness' and got me through the ride. Only problem was, I couldn't put any weight on my foot when I got into T2! The insoles had raised the arch in my foot too much and caused another problem there! Thanks to some great ART treatment in T2 I managed to get out and run. It wasn't pretty though and certainly wasn't fast! Maybe I really shouldn't have run at all, I certainly thought that in the few weeks after, with so much swelling in my foot!
So post IM Lake Placid, I spent 2-3 hours a day focussed on stretching and yoga practice, with a little swimming and biking and later once my foot had calmed down, some running.
Timberman 70.3 was next on my plan and although it looked doubtful I'd race it, I did seem to come back well and started to feel pretty strong again. So I decided to race... Fitness wise, I felt good and my swim and bike were strong, I was really happy with my ride especially as I felt like I was able to fire the right muscles again, something that my wonkeyness hadn't allowed! But then, everything went very quickly downhill! It wasn't pretty trying to run. The nerve pain I had been getting was just too severe for me to be able to even jog. 3 miles in and that was it, I tried stretching, jogging a bit but it was just getting worse. Big alarm bells ringing and with some doubt in my mind that maybe there was a little more going on than just tight hips, I knew I had to get an MRI and see how my back was doing.
A couple of weeks later and I've managed to get a scan. News of compression and protrusion of a disc was not the best but at least I'm getting somewhere in finding out whats wrong.
So this is where I am now, sitting tight and doing very little asside persuing the best treatment - high doses of anti inflammatory's and lots of back bending!
Its never easy being forced to rest due to injury, I know I'm not the first athlete to be injured but sometimes its hard not to focus in on just yourself! I am realising there are some important lessons for me to learn though, about myself, how I cope with things (normally running is my stress release so not being able to run is HARD!), about the body in general and in an anatomy sense. I had an interesting chat with my coach too who pointed out how easily an athlete can get used to what may start as a niggle, let it develop into pains and just accept that thats the way their body feels normally! The fact that for so long I wasn't able to sit for longer than about 10mins without having some pain somewhere in my gluts or legs, should really have made me work out what was going on then!!! It just became normal to feel those niggles. One thing yoga has been teaching me, is being able to focus in on how things feel in every part of the body and noticing differences from one side to the other. Pain is not normal!
I'm positive I am strong enough to get through this and will be stronger for it, I just know, knowing myself that I will have to be careful to not start 'running before I can walk' again. I know when my physical therapist said I could be OK swimming, she meant very very easy, probably the equivalent of a short warm up of a normal session - not a 4km swim session!!! Maybe a few weeks time that will be on the cards, a good chance to focus on swimming anyway.
I'm certainly not defeated but at the same time, I only have one back! I'm not gonna push it!