Post 6 - A sore back...

Doing an Ironman, or any kind of sporting event, is about pushing your limits, physically and mentally. Going beyond what you thought you could do. As an introduction to this post, just after Christmas, I found one of my limits. Financially. The following is what I wanted to buy:
 

A 2013 Zipp Super 9 carbon clincher disc rear wheel

 

These retail for £2000. Yes, £2000. Yes, crazy. Just after Christmas, before the 2014 models were released, the last of these 2013 wheels in the UK was on sale online for £1400. A £600 discount. I really wanted it. Depending on who you talk to, these disc wheels provide an aerodynamic advantage that is worth anything from 5 to 15 minutes in an Ironman cycle, and at my level, an extra ten minutes could make a massive difference in terms of qualifying for Kona, or indeed reaching the podium in my age group. I was set to buy it... credit card primed... and I couldn't. £1400 for something I'd use once - I couldn't bring myself to buy it. Disc wheels are not permitted on some courses as they are difficult to control and can be dangerous in windy conditions. They are not permitted at Kona due to the strong winds that blow across the lava plains. Disc wheels are of most benefit on a flat, straight, non-technical course. Ironman UK, my target qualifying race, is very hilly, very technical, and very twisty-turny. So a disc wheel would be of less benefit on this course, and I can only hope that I don't miss out on qualification by a couple of minutes...

In training, I am constantly pushing my limits, and this inevitably means that sometimes I pick up injuries, like the sore back I mentioned last week. This has been a somewhat frustrating week, with my painful back refusing to get better in a hurry. Thankfully, this week was a scheduled "easier" week, and during these easier weeks, I generally don't do any intense training. I would maybe spin the bike for an hour, take an easy half-hour run, or an easy swim, and I would also continue with my stretching, core work and weights, and also include 2 or 3 days of complete rest in my easier weeks. These easy weeks facilitate both physical and mental rest and recovery, so that by the time the next tough 2-week period begins, I am fresh and raring to go. In theory anyway...!

In any case, I wouldn't have been able for a tough week this week, as my back has been giving me a lot of pain. It was touch and go as to whether I would actually make it to work on Monday morning, as I really struggled to physically get out of bed, to put on socks and shoes, and even to walk. I ploughed on and went to work, but any sudden movements, turning, standing or sitting were all really sore. My sleep was badly disrupted too. I tried an easy bike on Wednesday evening but this did me no good at all. After a few days, it became clear that I would have to get my back seen to.

So in frustration I went to the physio/osteopath. He put me through 30 minutes of even worse pain, and I left hoping that over the coming week, it would ease. Admittedly, it is not as bad as it was a week ago, but it is still restrictive and still sore. A short swim and run today confirmed that I'm still not ready to tolerate full training, and furthermore, the arch of my left foot is still giving me problems. It hasn't been the most auspicious of starts to my focused Ironman training.

I will hope that by Tuesday I will be in some sort of shape to get back into another fortnight of heavy training, but at the minute it is very much a case of seeing how things go. I'll probably see the osteopath again next week again for another session of physiotherapy. This is where a full-time athlete has an advantage, in that he or she would probably have unlimited, easy access to an excellent triathlon-specific physio on a daily basis. But my situation is what it is, and I'll try to make the best of it.

Training (or lack of it) this week was as follows:
 

Monday 20th January - Rest

Tuesday - Rest

Wednesday - 1 hour turbo

Thursday - Rest

Friday - Rest

Saturday - 1 hour turbo

Sunday - 3k swim, 30 minute run.

There's not much to say about this other than none of it was particularly good, all of it was particularly sore, and none of it was particularly enjoyable or beneficial. Here's hoping next week is better....

I read a good book over Christmas written by an Irish guy named Gerry Duffy who completed 10 Ironmans in 10 days - a Deca Ironman... It seems it's always possible to find people who push the limits further and further... It reminds me a bit of when I cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats, the length of Britain, in 2011. I got to John O'Groats and I decided to carry on to Orkney and Shetland. On Orkney, I met a German guy who had also cycled to Orkney from Land's End. Where we differed was that prior to arriving at Land's End, he had cycled the length of Spain and France as well.... I also know a couple of girls who cycled from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego - the entire length of North and South America.

Anyway, in the Deca Ironman book, there is a section on motivation and reasons. The author's reason, his philosophy, his motivation is that he GETS to do these sorts of things. He doesn't have to. He chooses to. He gets to. There are people who can't, or won't, or are physically unable to swim, cycle, run, or be active. I'm grateful I can do these things, as much as they frustrate me sometimes. I'm just having a bit of a blip at the minute and I hope in a week or two it will be all systems go again.

On a similar note, Rick and Dick Hoyt are two magnificent Ironmen who have competed at Kona, and who have overcome hurdles far worse than I endure. I watch the awesome and inspiring video below with admiration, a belief that challenges can be overcome, and I am reminded that I GET to do what I do....

Post 5 - Consistency and injuries

Consistency is the absolute key to this. Work, train, eat, sleep, repeat. For the next 6 months. If I can do this, without interruption, I can achieve my goal. Consistency is the key to anything. No matter what you are trying to achieve, whether it’s learning a language, running a marathon, studying for an exam, or trying to qualify for Kona, consistency of training or practice for a prolonged period of time is fundamental. Dedication, perseverance and a willingness to put the work in can see great things being achieved. I have no doubt I can put the work in. However, illness and injury can hamper consistency, as can a lack of stability. Stability is the foundation to consistency. You wouldn’t study for an MBA exam while backpacking around the world, and similarly for high-level Ironman training, you need to be fairly stable in terms of location and hours you can commit.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that in the months to come, my work and personal situation will be stable enough to permit that consistency. To a certain extent, this is beyond my control, but all I can do is to control the controllables and hope for the best. I am keeping my fingers crossed that illness or injury won’t hamper my consistency either. To avoid illness I’m making sure to eat and drink well, and taking nutrition supplements. Ironman training stresses the immune system and can leave people more susceptible to picking up colds, coughs and flus, all of which detract from consistency. I’m sure I will blog about diet at a later date. The final issue to contend with is injury. Athletes are forever picking up niggles and injuries, and good management of these is essential to ensure that consistency is maintained. In this part of my blog, I am going to write a bit about injuries.

In my competitive running days, I seemed to be forever getting injured. On club runs, many people commented on how hard I seemed to strike the ground with my feet, and running 5:30/mile for over an hour, while hammering the ground as hard as I did, was always going to take its toll. Also, back in my early 20s, I didn’t appreciate the benefits of rest, recovery and easy days. I’ve since learned that not all training days need to be hard. I became more sensible in my training and came to realise the benefits of easy days. I also changed my running stride to stop hitting heel first, and began to run more on my toes. The following video is interesting:

His heels never actually hit the ground, and his foot strikes the ground right underneath his hip, meaning he is not subjecting his body and his knees to braking shocks associated with a footstrike out in front of the hip. For running an Ironman marathon, it’s important to run as “lightly” as possible, as the legs will be tired after the 112 mile cycle. 2 hours into the run, there will be big gains to be made in terms of fatigue levels if effort has been made to run “lightly”, keeping vertical movement to a minimum, and minimising the loadings going through the legs.

From my own point of view, I don’t need to train to be able to run a 10K in 32 minutes, as this will take too much of a toll on my body and carry with it too much of an injury risk. I just need to be able to cruise along at between 7 minutes and 7:30 per mile, for 3 hours. Training to do this is very different from any running training I have done in the past. Last year I wasn’t very good at accepting that I don’t need to be able to train for and run a 32 minute 10K in order to do an Ironman marathon.

What I do need to do is train to run “lightly” for a long time, and make sure that any running training I do takes a minimal toll on my legs, joints and muscles. I need to keep the bigger picture in mind, and in the lead-up to Ironman in the summer, I need to forget about any fast, high-intensity running. High-intensity work will be done in the pool and on the bike, and cycling fitness will transfer well to running.

I believe that my own running style is not ideally suited to covering marathon distances. Look at the following picture from Greencastle, and look in particular at the angle my right foot makes with the ground – far from flat.

Admittedly this is at the finish line, so the combination of a sprint finish, running downhill and veering to the left as I did, all exaggerate the effect. Nevertheless, I am obviously striking on the outside of my foot first of all, and then everything collapses in. This takes its toll on feet, ankles, knees and hips. Over a 10K race I seem get away with this, but my performances in longer runs seem to diminish, I believe at least in part due to having a less-than-ideal gait.

This is further illustrated by the following two photographs. I run in Brooks Adrenaline shoes. The shoe on the left is an old shoe that has done about 500 miles, and the shoe on the right is a new shoe. Notice that the greatest area of wear is not the heel area, but the outside of the forefoot. There is almost no wear on the inside of the shoe.

The picture below shows the blue cushioning completely worn away on the outside of the old shoe (bottom), when compared with the new shoe (top). Looking at these images, it’s no wonder I got such a bad blister when running at Greencastle, right where the wear on the shoe is worst.

So this is something I will need to be mindful of. I’ll need to make sure I am always running in shoes that aren’t worn out, and the more runs I can do on grass, the better. I’ll try to run lightly and not beat myself up if my outright speed decreases – the goal is to cruise at 7 minute miles for 3 hours, not to blast 5:30/mile for an hour or less. I’ve been looking at trying out a pair of “on” running shoes, which have lugs rather than soles, as shown below – the more cushioning I can have, the better.

"On running" shoes - I'm interested to try them

Training this week was as follows:

Monday 13^th January: 30 min hard run
Tuesday 14^th January: Rest
Wednesday 15^th January: 90 minute turbo: 2mins easy, 2 mins hard, x 20
Thursday 16^th January: Swim 3.3k with pull buoy and ankle band drills
Friday 17^th January: 30 minute fartlek run
Saturday 18^th January: 2 hour turbo with 90 minutes hard, 30 minute run
Sunday 19^th January: Swim 3.3k with hand paddles drills

Totals: Swim 6.6k, bike 77 miles, run 14 miles

This is the end of my first block of training. I’ve done two weeks and now I will take an easy recovery week. I’m fairly pleased with how it has gone, although the last 30-40 minutes of Saturday’s bike were really tough. It was an intense turbo session in the garage, and my energy levels dropped dramatically after about 70-75 minutes due to not having any nutrition while on the bike. However, I got through it and was still able to maintain decent intensity, but it took a lot out of me. The 30-minute run that followed was a pitiful effort. I was quite literally running on empty, and after I finished I wasn’t able to do much else with the day as I was so fatigued. A lesson to learn from this is that doing anything longer than 70 minutes requires proper nutrition and hydration while doing it – this means taking energy bars, gels, and electrolyte drinks from the start.

One thing that worries me slightly is that the pain in the arch of my left foot still hasn’t gone away. It hasn’t stopped me doing anything, but it is there and if anything, it is worse when I walk than when I run. I’m hoping that the easy week to come will fix this, and I am also going to stop running in my worn-out shoes and switch to the new pair, so hopefully this problem will be fine.

Another worry is that I woke up yesterday morning with a painful lower back, for no reason. I speculate that maybe I slept funny on it, or that my mattress is worn out. The bed in my room in my house-share has a stupid, stupid foot rail across the bottom, and I am over 6 feet tall, so the only way I fit in the bed is to sleep diagonally in the same position every night, and I think that sleeping in the same position over 6 months has worn out the mattress along its diagonal. This sore back hasn’t stopped me training but it has got worse over the weekend. It’s now very sore, and it’s not something that’s ever happened to me before. So I will take some painkillers tonight, and see if the easier week to come will help it to ease. Although in saying that, before the easy week starts, I would like to do one more tough run tomorrow to finish off my two tough weeks. But I may decide tomorrow to just leave it and not run, depending on how I feel.

So from a fitness point of view I am reasonably happy with how the past two weeks have gone, and I think I’m in a better position than I was this time last year. From a lower back point of view and a left foot arch point of view I am less happy. For now I will hope for the best, see how they go over the coming easier days, and if they don’t improve then I’ll have to see a physio...

Post 4 - The "first" week

From now on, I hope to write a blog entry once a week, probably on Sunday evenings. Christmas and New Year are well and truly over and I'm now back with my nose to the grindstone, from both a work point of view and a training point of view. The nose will be on the grindstone until at least 20^th July, and hopefully on into October… My plan had been to get through Christmas and not pick up any illnesses, colds, flus or bugs, to keep reasonably active, and to not eat too much. This would hopefully allow me to get 2014 off to a good start from a training perspective. I think I succeeded on all of these fronts over Christmas - I didn't get sick, I raced three times and did a bit of swimming and cycling in between, and my weight stayed put.

The two downsides were having my wisdom tooth out and destroying my legs on the road at Greencastle. However, my mouth is now on the mend and I have just finished my course of antibiotics. I no longer need painkillers, and all I have to do is swill a disgusting antiseptic mouthwash after every meal. This is supposed to kill off any germs and prevent infection in the hole where my tooth used to be, but what it actually seems to be doing is corroding my tongue and killing my taste buds, leaving me wondering if it’s mouthwash or acid I have been given. My legs have recovered, but I will need to start getting them conditioned to hard road running again. In time, and with training, this conditioning will come, but the absolute lack of conditioning was a bit of a shock to me in the days after Greencastle.

Inevitably, I will be comparing my progress in training this year with my progress in training last year, and striving to be "up", or "ahead" of where I was at the same time last year. After Christmas last year I caught the flu, which wiped me out for about two weeks at the start of 2013, so I'm already better off. Fingers crossed that I can stay healthy - the flu jab and all of the dietary supplements I am taking should help. In 2013, I didn’t get my triathlon bike until February, so in January 2013 I was fitting in some outdoor hybrid bike riding around the icy, frosty, bitterly cold winter. This time round I will have the whole of January as “extra” training time with the bike, and I won’t be limited by ice because I’m not reliant on riding on the roads as I have the bike set up on a turbo trainer. Hopefully by the time February comes around, I will be a month ahead of last year.

I intended to "hit the ground running" at the start of 2014, so to speak, and get straight back into my "full-time", serious training schedule, fitted in around my "even-fuller-time" job. "Serious" training for me is when I log everything I do and when I am working towards something specific. After the 2013 Ironman racing season, I stopped recording my training. I suppose this was some form of mental release where I was no longer accountable to my training diary. I'm now back recording everything, and I suppose also that this training diary provides me with some motivation in that I need to write something in it every day, and I take satisfaction from seeing all of the sessions I have done being logged and banked. It's a useful point of reference, a good planning tool, and it doesn't accept any bluffs or excuses.

 2014 and 2013 training logs... spot the difference...
The 2014 training log will run to 9 pages if I log everything until October.

Gives an idea of the scale of the undertaking...

My usual training routine is a 3-week cycle, doing two tough weeks followed by an easier week. This has worked well in terms of allowing my body to rest and recover, and is a lesson I learned from my running days - I can't pound my body week in and week out for an indefinite period of time, otherwise injury and illness tend to strike. The easy week allows me to go into the tough weeks feeling fresh and helps with consistency of training. It is in resting that the body strengthens.

However, coming back to London/Essex after Christmas, I was feeling a bit depleted due to my wisdom tooth being taken out, being limited in what I could eat, being on antibiotics, being behind on sleep and having had a really tough race in Antrim. I decided to make the first two weeks easier than normal, to break me back into the training cycle. Training done this week was as follows:

Sat 4th January 2014: 10K cross-country race, 33:56
Sun 5th January 2014: Rest
Mon 6th January 2014: Rest
Tue 7th January 2014: 1:05 turbo (5mins easy, 5 mins hard, repeated)
Wed 8th January 2014: 30 min fartlek run
Thu 9th January 2014: Swim 3.3k continuous
Fri 10th January 2014: Rest
Sat 11th January 2014: 1:50 turbo (resistance increasing every 15 minutes), 20min run
Sun 12th January 2014: Swim 3k (12 x 250m)

Approximate totals: Swim 6.3km, Bike 65 miles, Run 14 miles.
Plus regular stretching, weights and core work.

I needed the couple of days of rest after the race. Tuesday's bike went OK, Wednesday's run went OK, both of my swims felt sluggish, Saturday's bike was very tough, I planned to do 8 x 15 minute blocks but didn't have the legs for the final 15 minutes at high resistance. The run afterwards felt OK though. The swims were both in my local pool as opposed to in a London pool after work. My local pool is really warm, like swimming in a bath. It gets quite uncomfortable quite quickly and you need to keep hydrated. This contributed to feeling sluggish, although I need to accept that I'm not as fit as I was going into my Ironman races. Similarly for Saturday's bike, I thought I would have the legs for the final 15 and I didn't. Looking back through last year’s training log, just before Ironman Wales I was able to do 3:15 on the turbo, getting progressively more difficult every 15 minutes, so this shows I have some way to go to get back to that level. That’s fine, I have over 6 months to do this as long as I can be consistent in my training, no interruptions, injuries or illnesses. It’s impossible to maintain race-fitness on a year-round basis. I did notice a bit of a niggle around the arch of my left foot, so I will have to keep tabs on this.

On Friday night and Saturday night I slept for 11 hours on both occasions, not because I'm lazy but because I needed to. Overall, I can't be too disappointed with this week as I know that I am not in optimal training condition (antibiotics, painkillers, wisdom tooth trauma, tough racing, lack of fitness and lack of sleep). I was disappointed to learn that the price of a swim in my local pool has increased from £5 to £6. A bit of a rip-off considering you can swim in London for less than a fiver, and in Northern Ireland for about £3. And in the sea for nothing, if you’re fond of hypothermia.

Next week will be more of the same, and if anything I will make it slightly easier than this week to allow my body to recover from the fatigue and antibiotics, and to allow me to break myself gently into the full-time training schedule again.

Post 3 - Christmas/New Year 2013/14

During 2013 I had been saving up my holidays, because I had been hoping to go to Hawaii in October for the Ironman. It would be pointless qualifying for Hawaii and going out there for a few days. Hawaii is the sort of trip that I would turn into a 3-week “holiday”, if it’s possible to allude to an Ironman as a holiday… This meant by the end of 2013, I had quite a few holidays left to use up. So I was able to take a longer-than-usual Christmas break, spending almost 3 weeks at home in Northern Ireland. It was a good break and a good length of time to be away from the pressures of London and Essex where I work and live respectively. With where my work is located in London, Essex is the best place in terms of offering the easiest commute to work. Although it is still an expensive and time-consuming pain in the ass.

Living in London isn't really an option for Ironman training because I find it is too busy, too crowded, too polluted and just too difficult to do any sort of outdoor cycle training. I'm sure I'll blog more about this in future, but anyway, during my time at home, I planned to do three running races with my club, City of Derry Spartans AC: the North-West cross-country championships in Gransha just before Christmas, the Greencastle 5 mile road race in the Sperrin mountains on Boxing Day, and the IAAF International/Northern Ireland/Ulster/ cross-country championships in Antrim on 4^th January, Ulster being the northernmost province in Ireland.

After my Ironman racing season finished in September, I took a bit of a break from intense training. I also came off all of the dietary supplements I had been taking, thinking that this would give my body a break. The abrupt drop in training, cessation of taking dietary supplements, and a lack of discipline with my eating in general after the racing season left me feeling really sluggish. I had the flu jab for free at work about 6 weeks before Christmas, having been assured that a supposedly young, fit and healthy person like myself would experience no side effects. My thinking was that it would help me to avoid picking up a dose of the flu later in winter, as happened to me this time last year. In my sluggish state, the flu jab completely knocked me for six and left me totally listless and lethargic for a few weeks. During this listless and lethargic period, I spent a week on Tenerife, where it rained most of the time and where I crashed off my bike on a wet, slippery road, leaving me a sore, bruised and with a good dose of road rash for my troubles.

All of this meant that when I got home I didn't go into the first race too full of confidence. The NW cross-country was a short 6k blast, with 3 fairly flat laps. I had no idea what to expect, but I was surprised to run most of the race at the sharp end in the top 3 or 4, not far off the lead. On the final 300m home stretch my lack of fitness and my lack of training really showed, and it began to feel like running in quicksand as I was unable to raise any sort of kick for the line. I lost a few positions in the final minute to end up finishing 6th. However, I was still only 11 seconds off first place and was fairly pleased with this. I think that although I was lacking in sharpness, my legs still had good strength in them, and cross-country requires good strength, so I got away with it. This race gave me a good confidence boost going into the next one on Boxing Day.

I tried to be as sensible as possible on Christmas Day and not eat massive quantities of food. No easy task when there is, literally, an endless supply of amazing food. I managed to get out on the bike for about 2 hours after my Christmas dinner, which helped to burn a few calories. The empty roads were great. Boxing Day dawned cold and icy, and the drive through the mountains was somewhat hair-raising and slow. I made it in one piece and got myself registered. By now, the sun was out, and although cold, it was a good day for running, with no wind. The Greencastle 5 is a great event, methodically organised, very friendly, and attracted almost 800 runners, an amazing turnout for Boxing Day.

I ran last year at Greencastle, on a terrible wet and windy day, and ran 27:00. The course is renowned for its hill, with the event slogan being: "It's just a hill, get over it!" This is easier said than done as it is a brutal and long hill. This hill makes the 4th mile split about 1:20 slower than the other miles on the course. I had high expectations for this race after the Gransha cross-country, thinking that something like 26:30 to 26:40 was possible. I got my pacing completely wrong, ran the first two miles far too fast and lost a lot of time in the final three miles. The first two miles felt great, but a tough skill to learn in racing is to run well, well within yourself in the first half of the race. There’s a fine line – go too hard in the first half and you will suffer and lose bags of time in the second half. Go too slow and you won’t achieve your overall potential. Get it right and you will relish the second half, feel strong, and despite it being tough the legs will respond to the mind’s demands to keep the pace.

Greencastle start

With my fast opening two miles, I struggled through the final three. On the hill I was hit by the awful feeling of running through quicksand, with legs and lungs burning, knowing that your pace is pitiful but unable to force the legs to go any faster. I ended up coming in 4^th position in 27:43. I was pleased with 4^th but there was no hiding the fact that the time was disappointing, 43 seconds slower than last year. Because of my lack of conditioning for running on the roads, I ended up with a very painful blister, and even more painful leg muscles. My legs and feet were not used to such pounding and they painfully protested.

As I said, I had good leg strength but poor muscle tone, having done very little hard running on roads for a long time. These sore legs were in spite of wearing my calf compression tubes and perversely it was my calves that were the sorest of the lot… An ice bath followed the next day in an attempt to provide some relief. This was obscenely, painfully cold, and for a while, through gritted, chattering teeth, laboured breathing and grunting, the air spontaneously turned a bit blue. If I hadn’t announced I was having an ice bath then people would have been wondering what on earth was going on in the bathroom… I spent the rest of the day limping around the house wearing a hat, gloves, coat and about 5 layers underneath.

The legs took a lot longer than I expected to recover, so all I could manage was a bit of easy swimming and cycling. Just before New Year, I saw my dentist. I had a bit of bother with a wisdom tooth in 2013. The tooth in question was partially through and was impacting on the tooth in front, meaning it would never fully come through. Bits of gum were flapping about and my dentist recommended that it was taken out, to avoid what he anticipated would be imminent problems with infection and decay.

Because the appointment to remove it was at such short notice, general anaesthetic or sedation weren’t offered, only local anaesthetic. I’ve never had much dental work done, and had heard plenty of wisdom tooth horror stories, so with trepidation I found myself in a dentist’s chair being read the last rites about potential worst-case scenarios, nerve damage and whether or not I was happy to go ahead with the extraction. Talk about a silly question. Happy?! I was crapping myself! Three injections and ten minutes later the tooth was out. “Great”, I thought, “that wasn’t so bad.” It was only after the job was done that I asked them how they had done it. They had sliced my gum, and gone digging with a vibrating chisel-type thing until a big enough hole had been made to pull the tooth out. I’m not sure that hearing this beforehand would have helped…

After the extraction work was finished, I thought the worst was over. I was warned that it would be sore, but I thought, “No problem, I can deal with a bit of pain.” I was given a prescription for all sorts of painkillers, antibiotics and antiseptic mouthwash, but I intended not to take any of them, given that the biggest race of the cross-country year was only a few days away, and given that taking antibiotics and painkillers is not conducive to good athletic performance.

Anyway, the local anaesthetic soon wore off and the pain was bad. So bad that I couldn’t sleep or eat or do anything other than resort to the painkillers, which allowed me to sleep fitfully for a couple of hours at a time before wearing off. On top of this, my legs were still very sore from Greencastle. So it’s fair to say that I was in bad condition going into the Ulster championships – in pain, with sore legs, a sore mouth, very tired, lacking in sleep and being unable to eat properly.

I still wanted to run though. The Ulster championships is an important race and I wanted to represent my club. I also wanted to toe the line with a reigning world champion, something I’ve never done before. This race in Antrim is an annual event, and is effectively three races in one. It is an international IAAF event with a handful of top class African runners, including Kenyan Japhet Korir, the current world cross-country champion. It also doubles as a British and Irish series with top-class runners from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland competing in a national competition. Finally, it’s also the Ulster cross-country championship, and winning this is a prestigious addition to any club’s CV. Teams can enter up to twelve runners, with the top six to score. The finishing positions of the top six runners on each team are added up, and the team with the lowest total are crowned champions. Good squad strength in depth is needed.

I’ve competed three times before, in 2006, 2007 and 2008. We won the event in 2006, came 2^nd in 2007 and 3^rd in 2008. From 2009 to 2013, I didn’t compete, being either overseas or injured. It’s an epic event, attracting quality athletes, it’s always really well supported by the various clubs shouting on their athletes, and it’s one of the few events in which you run for your team rather than for yourself. It’s also a tough, tough event, a relentless and demanding 10K in the mud with no place to hide. The encouragement from people on the sidelines spurring you on carries you to the finish, and the fact that every position counts for your team means that your tank is well and truly empty at the finish line.

Anyway, despite wanting to run, I had reservations about whether I would be able to finish, and even if I did finish, I didn’t think I would be able to finish as one of the six scorers on the squad. This was purely circumstantial – if the mind is willing but the body is not able, then no matter how mentally strong you are, there is nothing you can do.

It was a five-lap course, so my plan was very much to see how it would go. I would take it easy on the first lap, not get carried away by the fast starting elite athletes, and take it from there. I paced the first lap well and by the second lap I had started moving through the field and picking people off. Four or five of us from City of Derry were running within a few seconds of each other and feeding off each other, which helped. Lap two passed, and I had begun to learn the course and I found that I was going well. The course was fairly firm grass for half of it, and ankle-deep mud for the other half. I was surprised to be actually running well despite my legs feeling tight and my gum throbbing. I told myself “20 minutes to go”, and hoped I wouldn’t fade. It’s one thing to be going well when you are not even halfway through a race, it’s another thing altogether to hold it together for the final half.

 

On the go in Antrim

 

However as the laps passed I didn’t fade, I picked off a couple of people per lap, and by the final lap, supporters on the sidelines who had been doing the maths while also yelling us on were telling us the gold medals were ours for the taking. I crossed the line as 3^rd club scorer and the club took the team title for the first time in 8 years. Brilliant. It was a great day for the club and I was happy and surprised I had managed to contribute. I finished in 33:56, and the world cross-country champion didn’t disappoint, winning the race in 28:40.

 

Finishing straight in Antrim - 3 "red vests" in close proximity

 

In the aftermath, it quickly became apparent that I was really depleted and tired. Cross-country is tough at the best of times, and in the run-up to the race, I certainly hadn’t had the best of times. I drank a litre of banana milkshake on the way home and it nearly made me vomit. A gold medal and a 12-hour sleep were good medicine, and after waking up disgracefully but deservedly late the next day it was straight to the airport to fly back to London…

 

Ulster Champions 2014

Post 2 - Background and situation

I think for people to understand a lot of this blog, I will need to write a bit about my sporting background, my situation, and how I came to be training to try to qualify for the Ironman World Championships.

I've always been pretty sporty and reasonably fit. In my teens, I started to run the beach at home in Northern Ireland a few times a week. I can remember my first run on that beach took me 23:55, and in time my PB got down to 17:47. I ran the Belfast Marathon at 18 years old in 3:40, having done very little training. I joined Metro Aberdeen Running Club while in Aberdeen on a working gap year before university, and it was here that the running bug bit. The following 4 years were spent between Aberdeen, the University of Warwick, and Northern Ireland, with two summers working in France, where I cycled in the Alps and Pyrenees.

Where I started to run: Portstewart Strand.

Fast at low tide, and tough going at high tide in soft sand.

 

As I trained and raced, my PBs started improving, and I enjoyed the banter and camaraderie of the club in Aberdeen, ticking off races all over Scotland. I also trained hard while at university and my running continued to progress. My first half marathon was in Inverness in 2004, where I ran 1:25. I ran Inverness again in 2005, knocking 10 minutes off my time from the previous year, and in 2006, as a 21 year old, I came 3rd overall in 1:11.

 

Inverness half marathon 2006 - 1:11:39.

This remains my "finest hour (and 11 minutes)", arguably my best athletic performance.

I was running about 28 miles per week in training, all pretty intense mileage.

Around this time I joined City of Derry Spartans AC in Northern Ireland, who have become my home club, and a group with whom I have enjoyed great races and team successes. As I’ve said, I’ve always been reasonably sporty and I’m fortunate to enjoy being active, so while at university, I cycled everywhere and I forced myself to swim once a week to complement my running training. I say forced, because to this day possibly the worst 5 minutes of my whole training week are the minutes when I force myself into a swimming pool. Usually I am freezing and usually the water is freezing, and these two combine to make it an effort to get in and get going.

On finishing university I took time out to travel, and went off the athletics radar. This decision was prompted by a really bad ankle injury a few months before I finished university. I rolled it while running on grass, and it swelled up to about twice its normal size. Then it turned black. Then my toenails turned black. It was really painful and I couldn’t walk for about a month. It was a bad time. One of the frustrating things about running was that I always seemed to pick up injuries for no apparent reason. At least with this one, there was an obvious reason. So, with running no longer an option, I spent time travelling and working, with running on the back burner. In time, the ankle did get better, but it took about a year before it felt normal again.

 

Before the ankle injury:

Metro Aberdeen Running Club annual series winner award and overall club champion award.

Triathlon had always been in the back of my mind, but I had never been able to afford it as a student. I ended up becoming fairly unfit while working in Sydney, and so I decided to force myself to get back in shape by training for an Ironman. I went to South Korea for 9 months, taught English from 1pm to 8pm, and so had 7am to 12pm free for training. I swam, I cycled, I ran, and I got quite fit again. Notably, I picked up no injuries while training for the Ironman. This was perhaps because out of the three disciplines, running takes the heaviest toll on the body, but the running training involved in doing Ironman is less intense than the running training I had been doing when running half marathons in 1:11. The swimming and the cycling are non-impact and non-load-bearing, and seem to have less propensity for injury.

I completed Ironman UK 2011 in 10 hours 23 minutes on a basic entry level bike, finished 11th in my age group, then went and cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats and on to Orkney and Shetland. Then I thought, "That’s enough of triathlon and cycling, I need a full-time job and I won’t have time for it, I'll go back to running." I ended up working in London, and started to train seriously again as a runner.

Not long after, I injured my left knee pretty badly. My left knee has always been my proverbial Achilles Heel. I think this left knee injury came on from trying to do too much too soon and not being patient with my running. Also, possibly I have some sort of imbalance from my left ankle injury. Anyway, I tried to train at a similar intensity to how I had been training when I was at 1:11 half marathon level, and my left knee decided not to accept this and gave out on me. With hindsight, it took me two or three years to get to 1:11 half marathon level, so patience would have been a virtue this time around.

MRI scans, X-rays and some fairly intense rehabilitation and frustration followed this injury, and to keep my fitness levels up, I went back to the pool. I enjoyed the swimming again, and as my knee progressed and got stronger, the physios recommended doing a bit of cycling, so I got back on the bike and enjoyed it again. Thoughts of triathlon started to cloud my head again in the summer of 2012.

I tentatively decided to compete in Ironman UK 2013, but on a “see how it goes basis” between summer 2012 and Christmas 2012. I had a hybrid bike and trained on this, got myself back into a structured training routine, and found that by Christmas 2012, things were going well and no injuries or show-stoppers had thrown their spanners into the works. By New Year 2013, I had decided to go all-out for Ironman UK, and try to qualify for Kona. I accepted that this meant buying a decent time-trial bike and having it professionally fitted. In January 2013, the purchase was made, clearing the way for a work-train-eat-sleep routine for 6 months, until the race.

I knew the Ironman UK course from 2 years previously, I knew where to place myself in the swim to avoid trouble, I knew what the bike climbs were like, and I knew the marathon course. None of it held any fear. It was all known and familiar, and in an Ironman, this is worth a lot. I was in good shape, and the race was going great. Up until mile 16 of the marathon. At this point I was leading my age group and looking set for Kona until, without warning, I exploded in a mess of vomit and diarrhoea. After this, my energy levels were zero and I fell to the ground. I couldn’t stand, let alone run or contemplate finishing, so the Kona dream ended in the back of an ambulance on the way to the medical centre.

This was totally out of the blue, particularly as I had been so comfortable in the race and nowhere near my physical limit and nowhere near the “red zone”. I had done much tougher training sessions, and felt really good in the race. I suspect that having eaten such a rigorous diet for the previous 6 months, the hotel food during race weekend was totally alien to my body, and probably greasier than anything I had been eating. I think it lubricated my guts up and disagreed with me, spectacularly and disgustingly showing just how badly it disagreed with me at mile 16 of the marathon. So near and yet so far…

 

On the bike at Ironman UK 2013, before the eruption

Obviously this was very disappointing, but within a couple of days I was trying to formulate a Plan B. I was clearly very fit, suffering no after-effects, physically I was fine, I just wanted another chance. Soon. This came in the form of a late entry to arguably the toughest Ironman in the world, Ironman Wales, to be held a few weeks later. Ironman Wales was new to me, and I executed the race badly. I got caught in the scrum at the start of the swim and came out of the water like a beaten-up drowned rag doll. My swim time was 61 minutes, compared with 55 minutes a few weeks back at Ironman UK. The Wales bike course was savage, with no flat, steep climbs, dangerous descents, rough roads, wind and rain. I paced it badly and struggled with the final 30 miles, then didn’t have a lot left for the marathon. Needless to say, the marathon was hilly and tough too. I didn’t get any updates on my position during the race, but I ended up finishing 5^th in my age group.

 

Finishing Ironman Wales 2013

 

At Ironman UK, my age group had 5 qualifying slots for Kona, so a top-5 finish was enough to qualify. At the awards ceremony for Ironman Wales the following day, I was gutted to learn that there were only 4 qualifying slots for my age group. However, I stayed right through the prizegiving until the bitter end, because sometimes people who are entitled to a slot will decline it. This awards ceremony was nothing less than excruciating, and it turned out that no slots “rolled down” in my age group, so once again Kona didn’t happen and I was disappointed once again. So near and yet so far…

Having taken a couple of easy months and allowed myself to rest and recover, and having got though Christmas, I  intend to try again at Ironman UK 2014. This time around, I am under no illusions that it will be much more challenging, for a variety of reasons. I will be in a different, and much more competitive age group in 2014. In 2013 I was in the 25-29 age group. I will turn 30 at the end of 2014, but the rules dictate that I must race in the age group of the age I will be at the end of the year. So it’s the 30-34 age group for me. I would guess, for Ironman UK, someone in the 25-29 age group would be reasonably confident of qualifying with 9:45 – 9:50, whereas someone in the 30-34 age group would be looking at 9:30 – 9:35.

Furthermore, to compete at this level in Ironman, it is necessary to be fairly stable for a 6-month period, with work, housing, location and so on. I am stable in none of these, as my work location is likely to change this year, possibly several times. If my work location changes, it will either mean a longer commute (and I already waste 2 hours a day in transit: fitting Ironman training around a busy job with long hours and a long commute is tough), or it will mean going overseas. Also, currently, I live in a house-share which has no security of tenancy, I’m on one month’s notice. None of this is ideal and clearly it is going to be a challenging year.

That’s the current situation. I still believe qualifying for Kona is possible and that the challenges can be overcome. Nothing worth achieving is ever achieved easily…

Post 1 - Introduction

Welcome to my blog. Tri4Kona2014. But what exactly does this mean? Well, I spent about 30 seconds thinking about what sort of witty title I would give this blog, and Tri4Kona2014 was the best I could come up with...

"Tri" is short for Triathlon. I do triathlons. Specifically, I do Ironman triathlons. Swimming 3.8km, cycling 180km, and running a marathon, all in one go. As fast as possible. "Tri" is also a play on words, and is pronounced the same way as "try".

 

The Ironman logo

"4" is a number. Obviously. But why the number four, when "Tri" implies three, and when a triathlon features the 3 disciplines of swimming, cycling and running? First of all, to digress a little bit, I would consider that there are more than three disciplines in Ironman triathlon. Yes, you've got swimming, you've got cycling, and you've got running. You also have resting/recovering, nutrition, hydration, stretching, massage, core work, weights, equipment maintenance. And so on. But all these disciplines add up to a lot more than 4, so why the number 4? Well, I am preparing for my 4th Ironman triathlon on Sunday 20th July 2014, and in the coming weeks and months I will be blogging about my training, my experiences, trials, tribulations, highs and lows. And whatever else comes to mind that is triathlon-related. "4" is also a play on words, and is pronounced the same way as "for".

The "Kona" bit...? What is Kona? Kona is on Hawaii. On the Big Island. Kona is where Ironman triathlon was born, back in the 1970s. Now, every October, the Ironman triathlon World Championships are held in Kona. Arguably, the word "Kona" is the pinnacle of triathlon. The word "Kona" is what Ironman triathletes dream of. To go to Kona, you have to qualify. There are maybe 20 to 30 or so Ironman races around the world at which you can race and attempt to gain a Kona qualifying "slot". Achieving Kona qualification isn't easy, and explaining the slot allocation process is too complex for this introduction. Suffice to say, for me to achieve a Kona slot will require me to be competing and finishing at the sharp end of Ironman UK 2014. I believe I can achieve this, but I know it will not be easy and I know there are no guarantees. I will try my absolute best. No stone unturned. And hopefully no regrets.

The "2014" bit of the blog title wasn't really my choice - "Tri4Kona" wasn't available as a blog name, so I had to throw in the "2014" as well. All I'll say on this is that it's hard to believe it is 2014....

So, there you go. "Tri4Kona2014". Tri. Triathlon. Ironman. Try. Try. Try. 4. My 4th Ironman. For. Try for Kona. 2014. That is what 30 seconds of thinking can produce!