Writing about the good days is easy – check out my ode to this year’s London Marathon as an example.
Expressing the emotions and thoughts associated with the days that don’t go to plan is far trickier – especially if you’re keen to avoid descending into self-indulgent naval gazing and deep-diving into what might have been, what you should have done and what you definitely will do better next time.
I’ve already indulged in a degree on introspection in regards to my supposed debut at long distance triathlon, which resulted in my first DNF after 36km of the bike leg at Ironman Hamburg – with apologies to Sarah, who was essentially a human journal during our 10+ hour drive home from Germany via Antwerp.
In short, I was really pleased with my swim and was just settling into the bike when I failed to negotiate one of the 18 train lines crossing the cross (all of which were protected with rubber matting), lost control and landed in a heap on my left hand side, closely followed by a fellow athlete who may have been following too closely (AKA drafting), and had no choice but to plough straight into me. He flew over the handlebars and broke his collarbone, so I came off lightly, in all fairness.
Initially, I seemed only to have a couple of minor grazes so my first thought was to check my bike and get going again. Unfortunately, the impromptu meeting with the asphalt left my handlebars at a slightly odd angle to my front wheel, which was definitely not safe to ride and unfixable at the road side, so my race was done – no medal for me this time around.
By the time I’d been collected by the broom (Volks)wagon and returned to transition, the graze on my arm – which was exactly located where elbow would meet arm pad – had developed to a burn-like road rash, and a pain had developed in my left rib/chest/moob area. A trip to the medical tent was somewhat inconclusive, although sudden death and/or a punctured lung were deemed unlikely. Subsequently, the significant pain of trying to sleep, laugh or cough suggests that I might have cracked or broken a rib, so I look forward to six weeks (maybe more) of living in fear of basic bodily functions.
The double jeopardy of this is the natural instinct after failure to seek instant redemption – jumping straight back on the horse to wipe out the bad memories and replace them with good ones. As it happens, the next opportunity for me comes in roughly ten weeks in the shape of an already-booked middle distance triathlon in Mallorca. The only down side is that I have no real idea when I might be able to do some training for that race, so whereabouts my fitness might be when that day rolls around is a mystery.
Given that I was sketchy at best about even attempting IM Hamburg due to a recurrence of a knee injury which ‘cost’ me the last 5 weeks of training before heading to German anyway, the fact that the Mallorca race is owned by the Challenge company could prove to be extremely apt.
What comes after that, I’m not sure. The reappearance of the knee injury destroyed my confidence and made me question whether or not I actually wanted to do any form of race or organised event again – is there much point in allotting the time and money required if I’m only going to keep getting injured or allowing myself to become so chronically negative about my fitness and condition in the run-up that I simply don’t want to try, something that I experience before pretty much every race.
So here we are – I have nothing to show for what was planned to be my biggest race to date and for which friends and family committed time and money to support me, for which I am eternally grateful and apologetic. In terms of my fitness, I feel like I’ve lost a shed load and replaced it with a fair lining of chub, which does nothing for my already-fragile self-perception, something I can’t do anything about for an unspecified period of time until my possibly fractured rib heals (it might not be broken, but as there’s no treatment for broken ribs, there’s also no assessment if you drop into A&E).
Instead, the coming weeks will instead be spent catching up on reading and podcasts, in between presumably testing my injuries with hope and expectation, only to see that positivity punctured by non-decreasing pain. Eventually though, that will pass and I’ll be able to make some kind of fresh start, mainly with next year already in mind and a hope that I might be able to preserve some fitness for Mallorca.
On the positive side, I’m not great at taking time off, either on a macro or micro scale. I don’t usually take a day off in any week and my supposed recovery weeks still feature 10+ hours of activity (which might explain the cycle of mental fatigue and subsequent injury). This inability to rest and recover undoubtedly stems from my dieter mindset – more exercise equals more calories, equals more scope for unnecessary snacking, rinse and repeat.
Looking back at the knee injury in this cycle, it emerged during a 3 hour ride at the end of a recovery week (where I still clocked up 12 hours – and I say this only to highlight the errors of my ways, not for any form of boasting). I decided off the cuff to throw in an hour ‘at or around tempo pace’ during an easy ride so it felt a bit more worthwhile. By the time I got home, I could feel irritation around my kneecap, which developed during the following week into a pain that stopped me sleeping and ultimately kept me off the bike all together for around a month.
When injury strikes, there’s no choice but to stop and stand still, which creates a chance to take stock and look at what could be done better (or less, which is more likely). Whether or not I then learn from those lessons is entirely up to me, but I guess commitment and discipline is about doing or eating just enough, not excessively in either direction.
All in all, I made a bit of a dog’s dinner of my first Ironman – I over-trained, under-rested, ate too much of the wrong things at the wrong times, denied myself the chance to toe the start line in a well-prepared and confident state and, ultimately, paid the price for limited bike handling skills.
But it wasn’t all bad – at least I did a good swim.