I am withdrawing from SCR (w/ HIM Mallorca 2014 Race Report)

greg66_tri_v2.0

Epic race deserves epic report. To pinch from GregT, gather round and pull up a seat post...

IMC 2013 Race Report

Week ending 24 Aug 2013. We're in Whistler. It seems familiar and unfamiliar. Everything looks the same, but what it presents to me is all new. I take my opportunities to reconnoitre parts of the course. I try to swim on the lake at lunch time, too late in the day. The wind has picked up by then. Swimming into the whitecaps makes breathing and holding a straight line difficult. Swimming across them is no fun. Later in the week I make it out there for 7am. A few fellow competitors are there. The surface is smoother than a sheet of glass. After 30 minutes the sun comes up over the mountain, blinding me with each breath to my right. It's amazing. I have the lake virtually to myself, and the sun is staring directly at me. Swimming will never be better than this.

I take a mountain bike out to ride the run course. One lap - half - seems a very long way. When I mention this to a couple of locals, they retort with "that's because a marathon is a long way. It's 26.2 miles!". Well, yes, that's right. It's just that I've never really mapped out a marathon course on ground that I'm familiar with. It's a long way. A very long way. 26.2 miles, apparently.

Sunday 7 July 2013. The day after the epic 178 km French Alpine bike sportive known as La Marmotte I went for a run, first thing. My legs were tired from the previous day’s final ascent up Alpe d'Huez in the oven heat. But not so tired that I couldn't run. The roads in Bourg d'Oisans don't have a soft grass verge alongside them, so I ran for 90 minutes on the road. After having overcome a stress reaction in my right femoral neck earlier in the year, my Physio had told me to try to run on soft surfaces. I had heeded this advice when possible, but today the terrain wouldn't let me. My left hip - supposedly the good one - felt a bit sore the following week, but nothing unmanageable. Certainly nothing that impacted my running over the remainder of the week. Another week of volume training ticked off, another week closer to Ironman Canada.

Saturday 25 Aug 2013. 3.40 am. Race day. The alarm goes off. I get up, atypically awake immediately. Breakfast is an eclectic mix of sweet potato wedges (made by my wife the night before) and ketchup, a litre of fruit, banana and yoghurt smoothie, and a bar of dark chocolate. The idea is to force at least 1500 complex carbohydrate calories into me in time for it to be available to me by 7am. I feel like a goose being farmed for foie gras. After some light stretching I return to bed, drifting in and out of sleep until 5.00 am.

At 5 my second alarm goes off. I strap on my timing chip and heart rate monitor, and don my trisuit, an inelegant but functional garment. I look outside. It's still dark. I can't tell what weather awaits us. The trees are still though. That's good. No wind. Very good. The air feels cool. Cool is also good.

My wife is up too, looking anxious and excited. I grab some outer clothes and head out with my training partner, Johnnie. We’ve known each other since University, and have been training for this since the beginning of the year. He has a far better running base and background than me; I trump him in the water and can edge him on the bike. I’m expecting a tap on the shoulder then the sight of his heels during the run – it’s just a question of when. I’m certain he’s thinking the same thing.

My wife walks us out to the street to guide us to the chalk messages of encouragement that my daughters drew for us on the pavement at midnight the previous night. Of all the athletes heading to the second transition area, from the bike to the run (known as T2), no one else is standing over a piece of pavement having a photograph taken. I feel pretty lucky to have great support right now.

We walk in darkness to T2 where our race numbers are drawn onto our upper arms with chisel tip marker pen. Suddenly things seem more serious. This is the business end of things. There have been many points of no return, but so far none has seemed so acute as this one.

We step into a classic yellow North American school bus to be driven to the swim to bike transition area at T1 and the race start. The mood in the bus is quiet, subdued, tense. No one really knows how their day will play out. Everyone hopes for the best, but the worst nags at them. It's written on everyone's face, mine included.

The bus unloads us at T1. It's gone 6am already. The start time is accelerating towards us. Athletes are wandering around T1, checking their bikes and pumping tyres. A loud "BANG", quickly followed by another signal that two athletes have overdone tyre inflation. Their days have started badly.

Eventually I realise that more people are in wetsuits than not, and it becomes time to put mine on. Another point of no return passes. We funnel into a dense queue of identikit competitors - everyone is in a black swimming wetsuit, males in green caps and females in pink. The funnel takes us through an arch by the edge of the water that activates our timing chips. As we shuffle forward, a cannon goes off. 6.50 am. The pro start. A trashing of water by the first buoy signifies that their race has started.

I pass through the arch, and say farewell to Johnnie. We cannot hope to keep track of each other in the melee of the swim; we may next see each other on the out and back portions of the bike course or the run. For now, it is farewell, and good luck.

I wade out and drop quickly into the water. This is now familiar. There's a line of start buoys, and I know exactly where to head. Triathletes are said to be fish or runners. I'm a fish. The water is easy, and I glide past the nervous and the diffident to find my place. In a matter of minutes my focus has sharpened - I now know exactly what to do.

I tread water three rows back from the very start line. The countdown from ten has started. Bodies start to drift from vertical to horizontal in the water in preparation for the off. My feet are rising, my chin is up. The cannon fires, more than two thousand faces hit the water, more than four thousand arms are thrown and more than four thousand legs propel forward in a frenzy of white water. It has begun.

Sunday 14 July 2013. I had planned a "brick" session. 100 miles riding around Berkshire and Surrey, followed immediately by a run. "Immediately" means as if in a race: no more than minutes from dismounting the bike to running. Brick sessions are hateful things, because you learn just how wobbly your legs are after a long ride. They swing underneath you as if not really part of you, and have no elasticity or fluidity.

I cut the run short - in reality 2 minutes doesn't really count as a run in the first place - as the heat of the afternoon was infernal. The cooling effect from riding a bike was completely absent at my pedestrian running speed. I could still feel a slight soreness in my left hip. Not bad, but it won't go away.

I ran for an hour to work one day the following week and the soreness was still there from time to time, but I seemed to run it off. I consigned the soreness to the general pile of niggles that I get from time to time, which pass, and which mean nothing. This was definitely just a niggle.

Race day. 7.00 am. The swim, 2.4 miles/3.8 km. The swim course is two laps of an offset rectangle. I find space to swim in, but at the same time I feel confined. The mass of swimmers is kicking up the surface as if the wind is blowing strongly. I try to settle into a rhythm, but it escapes me. I find myself breathing every stroke - panting almost. Swimmers on my left seem to be passing me as if I'm going backwards. I see a buoy marked 4, which means I am only 400 metres in. It seems longer. I can start to feel the beginnings of a stitch and realise that I need to get my breathing under control quickly, or else the swim is going to get very difficult, very fast.

I spot a pair of feet just ahead of me to my left and focus on them. Slowly but surely with a fixed point of reference my breathing comes down and my rhythm picks up. Now I am gliding with the shoal and not being passed by it.

The first corner arrives abruptly, and with it the compression of a concertina. Feet drop and heads come up as everyone slows to a near halt. What lasts for seconds seems to last for minutes, until the shoal makes the turn and spreads out as it races the short side of the rectangle to the second turn.

The recently acquired wisdom means that the shoal doesn't try to compress itself into a single racing line for the second turn, and we come round smoothly this time. Now, down the back straight, I have some space and some target feet again. I find a nice even rhythm to settle into.

Lap 2 comes around and it seems that the buoys are becoming harder to pass. I think this was just perception: the field is now spread out, and with less activity around me I had more time to focus on the buoys. The first turn of lap 2 is uneventful, but at the second I have a swimmer behind me use my left shoulder as something to pull forward on, just as I take a heel square on my right goggle. Ah well. I pull slightly to the left to foul the line of the shoulder puller, and try to forget the heel striker.

As we ease down the back of the second lap, the sun comes up over the mountain, blinding my right side. It is gorgeous. More importantly, I am nearing the end of the swim. I turn the final corner wide, putting the sun behind me. 280 metres to go. As I near the shore, the bottom of the lake resolves itself - keep swimming until your hand touches the bottom, I told myself. When it does, I rear up and run clear of the water into T1 into the arms of two volunteers, who strip my wetsuit from me. A lack of blood to the head means I have to sit down to fumble my bike shoes and helmet on. I try to load the pocket at the back of my tri suit with energy bars, but aching triceps and lats mean my arms won't cooperate. Deep breath, concentrate, focus, don't panic, find the lip of the pocket, push down. This is the food that will keep me going for the next six hours. It merits an extra minute to get it right.

I canter to my bike, pull it off the rack, and run out of T1 towards the bike mount line. I clip in one shoe and push off. Now comes the easy six hours of the race. Off I go.

Swim: 1 hour 8 minutes, 71st of 309 in the male 45-49 age group, 467th overall of 2170 competitors.
T1: 7 minutes 14 seconds

Tuesday 23 July 2013. After Saturday's brick session - another 100 miles on the bike followed this time by 45 minutes of mind numbingly slow running - I skipped my long Sunday run. My left hip felt a bit too sore when I got up, so rest was in order. By Tuesday the lolly lagging was over though: I ran an hour to work. This did not help. My left hip definitely felt worse. The soreness wouldn't allow itself to be run off. I thought i needed little more than more rest. The following day during my routine visit to the Physio I was asked to hop on my left leg. Ouch. That hurt, a lot. A bit of muscle loosening and hopping became easier though. Not easy, just easier. Probably muscle impingement. But for now, it still counted as a manageable issue.

Race day. 8.15 am. The bike ride - 112 miles/180 km, 6400' of climbing. I am out of the water at 1 hour 8 minutes, and spend another 7 in transition. Slightly slower - by a couple of minutes - than I had hoped for on both, but it was to be a long day, so I am not overly concerned.

The bike course undulates, then descends and climbs up the Callaghan Valley, the location of the ski jumping and cross country skiing at the 2010 Winter Olympics, then descends and climbs and undulates back to Whistler, then drops progressively to Pemberton, the next town up the valley, runs flat through the farmlands north of Pemberton, then finally returns to Pemberton and climbs back up to T2 in Whistler.=. There is ample scope to blow up on the flat farmlands section from 90 to 145 km, and the last 35 km back to Whistler is uphill, potentially into a headwind.

I had learned a hard lesson on the Marmotte - don't ride too hard too soon. I watch riders bolt past me in the first 15 km and resist the temptation to bolt after them. This distance with a run to follow is new to me, perhaps it isn't for them. For this ride I have to watch my heart rate, my wattage and ride to the numbers. There is nothing to be gained by pushing too early.

When we hit the first climb, I start to reel in some of the bolters. Yet more riders are still storming past me - some, no doubt, riding within themselves, but plenty evidently riding too hard too early. I stay focussed, and continue to tap out a good high cadence and even power output. One hour 15 in and we pass the top of the first climb, turn around and rocket back down the hill. I hit my time benchmarks and feel fine. I cross Johnnie near the top of the climb, perhaps 4 minutes behind me. He is having a strong ride. I worry for a moment that he is pushing too hard too soon, then remember that he rides to his heart rate with iron discipline.

At just under 2 hours into the ride I come back through Whistler heading north through a narrow corridor lined with cones and cheering spectators. This gives me - and no doubt every other rider - a huge lift. The first section of climbing is behind me. Now I have a 35km descent followed by 50km of flat riding tucked into an aerodynamic time trial position. The wind hasn't picked up, and that means that it is unlikely to do so later. A rare day indeed in Whistler.

The 35km from Whistler north to Pemberton flashes by. Whilst racing through a feed station on a fast piece of downhill, a rider in front of me has to swing into my path suddenly to avoid another rider who brakes very late for the station. I am not covering my brakes, and have a rider outside me boxing me in. The rider outside mercifully reads the move and moves out to give me room to avoid what would have been a 65 km/h collision. I don't have time to see what my heart race jumped to, but I'm certain it is well outside my target zone.

Just before Pemberton I come to the only real uphill test on that part of the ride - a half km ramp that kicks to 9% over the first 50 metres before creeping to 13% near the top. I drop to a low gear early and spin away from a group of quick descenders. My legs feel very happy still - another big confidence boost.

I drive hard for the cheering crowds in Pemberton itself out to the pancake flat farmland meadows on its far side. Here there is a breeze rather than a wind, which seems to snake from left to right, yet never is fully in my face or fully behind me. The road surface on this section is the worst we have all day, leaving my eyeballs feeling like they are loose in their sockets by the time I return to Pemberton.

Now for the climb home. I do a quick sum and realise that a sub-6 hour bike split is on the cards, provided my legs don't blow up. Managing my effort over the climb is going to be key. The first ramp goes up what's known as Suicide Hill. It's the steepest section of the ride back to Whistler, but not that long. Near the top I heard a sudden yelling from my left: my massage therapist, Lori, who has been largely responsible for how supple my legs felt, is a volunteer working at the top of the hill. She breaks ranks to run along the road side roaring cheers for me. I break into a huge grin and push myself harder to clear the top of the hill.

The second and third ramps come and go; my heart rate stays where it is supposed to and my wattage doesn't skyrocket. The worst of the climbing is now behind me and a sub six hour split is still on. For the last 10km into Whistler I begin to feel that maybe my legs are fatiguing leaving me a gear below where I want to be, but the hard work has been done. I let myself back off slightly to spin my legs a bit in preparation for the run.

It wasn't until after the race that I realised that I had been riding against an amazingly scenic backdrop, yet had seen none of it. Throughout the ride it was a case of watch the next 50 metres of road, watch for the rumble strips, watch for the catseyes, watch for the solid white line, watch for the cones, watch for the spectators' arms and feet on the narrow sections, watch my heart rate, watch my power output, watch my cadence, watch for 15 minute intervals which were my cue to eat and drink, watch the line of the rider ahead, watch for the cracks in the road, watch for stones, watch for shards of glass, watch for dropped water bottles; and so it went on.

At just after 2.10 I pull up right on the line of pink tape on the road marked "Dismount" just before T2. Bang on schedule. I hand off my bike to a volunteer, grab my transition kit and clack-clack-clacked my way in my bike shoes into the change tent. I grab a chair and start rooting around for my running shoes. Ah. The run. The small matter of a marathon - a distance I have never previously run - now stands between me and the finish line.

Bike: 5 hours 47 minutes, 81st of 309 in the male 45-49 age group, 475th overall of 2170 competitors.
T2: 7 minutes 30 seconds

Sunday 28 July 2013. No run on Saturday, again due to hip soreness. After 6 hours of riding on Sunday I grabbed my running shoes and bolted out the front door. 20 metres later I had stopped. I could feel a sharp pain in my groin on the left with every foot fall. This was not a good sign. Sharp groin pain on impact had been the tell-tale sign of the stress reaction I had had on my right side femoral neck at the end of last year. I knew that they took two to three weeks to come out, and my mind went back to my post-Marmotte run. My legs had been toasted at the end of the Marmotte - could the following day's run have been the final straw, I wondered?

One month before the race was not a good time to have a stress reaction in a major leg bone. The following day I got myself before the consultant, into an MRI machine and back before the consultant. The verdict was a stress reaction again. This time on the shaft of the left femur, rather than the femoral neck as I had had on the right side. However, the advice was to keep weight off it for 4 weeks and to forget any Ironman ambitions this year. If the stress reaction became a fracture, the fracture could propagate in one of two ways. Either would require screws, nails, plates, a hammer and a surgeon to fix. "Could my femur snap during the run portion of the Ironman?" "Yes." "Would I get much warning?" "No."

Race day. 2.11 pm. The run - 26.2 miles/42 km. A lot passes through my mind in the few minutes I am in T2. I hadn't responded well to the no doubt sound medical advice a month earlier. The fact that I am in T2 shows as much. Over that month I'd not run a single step. When I ought to have been running, I cycled. On top of the time I was supposed to be cycling. My plan had been to try to get to T2 with my leg in the best shape I could manage, then decide what to do. I'd had intensive Physio work both in London and in Whistler, doing what I could to build the underdeveloped stabilising muscles that were supposed to protect the femur against the forces that can cause the reaction. But I knew that this was patchwork - it had been all about getting me in the best shape possible in the time available to have a stab. And despite whatever I did, I would not have enough mileage in my legs for a marathon.

I'd promised myself (and a few others) that if I felt that sharp impact pain in my groin, I'd stop. Surgery wasn't part of my plan for this race. I slip on my running shoes, grab gels and a water bottle, and start the run. Immediately I spot Bobby, another University mate who has travelled to Whistler specifically to watch and cheer us on, then see my wife and family with some dear friends from Vancouver. All of them are yelling for me with more energy than I am using to run. I feel a massive surge of pride and adrenaline as I start the run course.

I'm not quite sure what is going on though, because not only do I have no hip pain, I also don't have the customary numbed jelly legs that characterise the beginning of a triathlon run. I feel relaxed and fluid. This certainly isn't in the plan.

I had read that a sensible approach for a runner not looking to run under 4 hours is to walk 30 seconds every kilometre. My legs feel so good that I don't want to stop after a km though - eventually I persuade myself to stick to a modified plan, and stop every mile for the first four miles. That gets me to the third feed station (roughly every two km), and I decide from there to walk each feed station for 45 seconds. It's not usually a good idea to modify on the fly a plan that's been well tested and proven.

I keep my legs turning over, km after km. I notice that I am more passed than passing, and that my pace is slowly coming down. After the dead turn on the first of the two laps of the course, I start to look for Johnnie. I had expected him to have come past me already. I spot him maybe 5 minutes after the dead turn. We slow to exchange a couple of words; the one I remember is "bad" in response to being asked how I felt.

By the end of the first lap, "bad" is an unavoidable reality. At 20km I have to walk a full km. My quads feel as if they are starting to solidify from the bottom up. My calves are getting tighter and tighter. I have three or four spots in my legs all of which feel as if they are on the verge of cramping. I don't think salt intake is an issue - it is more that they want to protest violently at the load they are under.

The army of spectators lining the course shower me with flattery and lies: "looking good" (I certainly can't have been); "you've got this" (only in the loose sense that I was certain I could walk another 13 miles); and "not far now" (a well-intentioned, but utterly blatant lie). I lap up every last one of them. I know that the moment I start to doubt, and to look at the side of the path, my day is as good as over.

I restart running at 21km. The intensity of the painful soreness in my quads at the restart is incredible. I know I have to keep walking at the aid stations for electrolyte drinks, food and iced water, but I know that every time I do so the pain of restarting running will become worse.

The only ray of light is that I still have no impact pain in my hip. Either it is behaving, or the adrenalin and endorphins in my system are masking whatever I am doing to it. During one sleepless pre-race night I had scoured the Internet for tales of broken femurs. I'd found an article about a runner in the Marathon de Sables who'd broken his whilst running, from a stress fracture. He said he'd been in a lot of pain before he forced himself to stop. Of course, the damage had been done my then, but I hoped I'd get some pain feedback if I was indeed fracturing mine. I have no idea really though.

I pass the 25km mark. Just over 15 miles. 25km is as long as my longest training run. That had been over two months ago, in June. And it hadn't been preceded by a bike ride of any duration. I am now in truly unknown territory. The pain in my congealed quads is now so bad when restarting running that I resolve that the only option is not to stop at all for the rest of the race. This is a predictably misguided idea. I have a welcome purple patch from around mile 17 out to the dead turn and back. A black bear that has smelled out the feed station, but that is kept at bay, is a welcome distraction. I start to do some sums - if, and it is a massive if - I can just keep going at my current pace, I might be able to sneak under 12 hours. But I know my pace is dropping. I don't have what is needed to hold it. Maybe.

But around mile 19 I skip a feed station completely (a big error) and then pause for a moment as I pass Johnnie, much later than I had expected to. I wonder why he hasn't been tapping me on the shoulder. "Tore a muscle in my hip at 13 miles. I've been in the med tent for ten minutes. Trying to ice it as I run". I wince in sympathy. "I'm never doing this again", I gasp. "Agreed". We go our separate ways.

As I try to move back into a run my quads and calves scream in protest. This is the darkest part of the day. The scenery is amazing at almost every point on the run, yet all I can see is the run path snaking away from me. It takes a full km to get back to running off enough of the soreness such that I am not grimacing. But my speed has now dropped yet further. And I am parched and hungry. The next aid station is, I think, just around the next bend. Or is it the one after that? Where on earth has it gone?

After what seems ages, but is probably no more than minutes, it comes into view. I run to within 30 metres of it, then drop to a walk. I grab drinks, water, ice, slices of orange and pieces of banana. I am at roughly 21.5 miles. I am pretty certain that my legs have now played themselves out. I cannot escape the lack of distance running mileage in my preparations. I have a long walk to the finish line.

Even walking isn't that comfortable, but it spares me the intense pain of restarting running. But the more I walk, the more I focus on the other racers drifting past me at something passably like a running speed. I start to forget how painful a restart would be. At 22 miles I pass the golf clubhouse. The crowd there is particularly rowdy, cheering on any and everything. Even I am given a huge surge of support as I walk past.

I do some sums. Going under 12 hours is off the table. But walking home would add a lot to 12 hours. And I cannot face walking past the cheering crowds in the village, not after walking past the golf clubhouse. At 23 miles I will have 3.2 miles - 5 km - to go. That's a manageable distance. Right. I decide that at the 23 mile mark I'll start running, and run it home.

23 miles comes. I stop and try to stretch out my calves and quads. The pain is exquisite. And I am not very successful in stretching them either. I take a couple of steps, then ease into a jog - ouch - then into what I can pass off as a run. Still no impact pain in my hip, so perhaps I should be happier.

I keep moving forwards, one pace at a time. Two more feed stations - I grind through each, grabbing sports drink and ice, drinking on the move and chewing the ice. Now the spectators on the route are growing in number and noise. "You can do it", and "You've got this" have become truths. I start to smile as I run. The path pops me out from behind some houses, and now I can see the finish line. Just over a mile to go. Waves of relief have me grinning like a loon, which seems to spur the spectators onto yet greater exhortation. Once again I am enjoying this race.

I branch off the two lap circuit onto the diversion to the finish line. That feels very sweet. A volunteer yells "500 metres to go!". I am sceptical at that, but I don't care. A final twist and turn though the centre of the village, and I round the final corner. The finish chute narrows to a timer arch. I high five everyone I can on the left side of the chute, so focussed on the finish line that I don't spot or hear my friends yelling at me from the right side of the chute.

I cross the line 12 hours and 4 minutes after having started, roaring triumphantly at no one in particular, punching the air. I remember to say "Hi" again to my Dad, then look back down to see my wife and girls standing in front of me in their volunteer shirts. Having my winner's medal presented to me by my younger daughter along with a Union flag by my elder daughter is pretty special.

It takes a few goes to convince the chief wrangler that I am fine, and don't need to go to the medical tent, and then I am released from the finish area. By now even walking is a challenge, so stiff are my legs, and walking up or down any sort of slope is nigh on impossible. As if by magic, Lori appears from nowhere and helps me reclaim my kit. Then we find out that Johnnie is in the massage tent having his hip looked at, so I trudge home, crab up the stairs, shower and slide alternately into a cold pool and a hot tub. If that helps my legs, I hate to think what state they would otherwise have been in.

Run: 4 hour 53 minutes, 110th of 309 in the male 45-49 age group, 721st overall of 2170 competitors.
Total time: 12 hours, 4 minutes, 24 seconds.

Tuesday 27 August 2013. I'm pleased to say that Johnnie is fine and suffered no permanent damage. Both of us remain resolute that we are not doing another Ironman. But we have started talking about perhaps doing a couple of half Ironman races next year and/or a standalone marathon with specific time targets. Just to keep things interesting.

That would mean training a bit smarter though, which would be fairer to my family. Training for an Ironman can be an incredibly selfish endeavour. I've been unbelievably lucky to have had the unfaltering support of my wife and children, who haven't seen me for large parts of what would otherwise have been family time over the last seven months. Even through the depths of my stress reaction injuries, their support never wavered an inch. It's no exaggeration to say that without them, none of this could have happened. I owe them a very great deal.

I have many other friends who've kept the faith, who've offered their support, and who've help to drive me forward through the setbacks. It's invidious to single out anyone in particular, yet I have to mention Johnnie. Without having had his company going though the hours of aerobic preparations, I don't think I would be writing this.

A newly forged Ironman.

itboffin

Yeh yeh whatever ...so this Lori is she fit?

oh and pics or it didnt happen, you knows the rulez

hegyestomi

Absolutely amazing, well done and thanks for sharing it with us!

veronese68

Once again well done. It must have taken a hell of a lot of stamina to get through that, and the iron man. None of what you've written has changed my mind about the insanity of it all. But I've enjoyed your journey at a safe distance.
Oh, and what Boff said. POIDH.

UndercoverElephant

You know, I actually read all that.

Well done and well told.

greg66_tri_v2.0

itboffin wrote:

oh and pics or it didnt happen, you knows the rulez

itboffin

loving the headgear you MASSHOOF mo

msmancunia

I read it all too, and I think I held my breath all the way through! Well done again anyway.

Now stop doing stupid amounts of exercise and start eating cakes - your arms look like twigs on that third photo and ITboffin will start getting jealous. He's the only one that posts in that weight loss thread......

itboffin

trust me G66 is far from twig like he's more bingo wing MAMIL in denial, i on the other hand local like i've recently escaped from a prison camp.

Passed the lard covered peanut M&Ms

Greg T

A purple bandana and sleeveless top.. Hypoglyceamia can't take the blame for that.. you planned that..

I'm now convinced that an ironman sounds like a good idea and I'm going to do one. Apart from the swim and the run. swimming and running are not on bikes - rubbish.

I'm amazed you had the endurance and metal application to complete and push through the obvious cramps and fatigue that writing such a long race report must cause. Chapeau your fingers must be in bits.

Of course - a quick " Did an Ironman, swim went OK, was a bit of a drown, bike was a churn, run hurt like a bastrd, finished slower than I wanted" would have saved my 15 minutes of my life.

In closing - Lori... I'm with ITB. Was she fit?

rubertoe

It was too long, and you didnt win.

I'll read it later.

Greg T

rubertoe wrote:

It was too long, and you didnt win.

I'll read it later.

This forum needs a "like" button..

pitchshifter

Great effort and a good read. I hoped it would put me off considering one but weirdly its had the opposite effect..

davis

UndercoverElephant wrote:

You know, I actually read all that.

Well done and well told.

+1.

Well done. Well done indeed.

Coriander

Two epics in one week - the deed itself and its recounting. Very well done, young man!

spasypaddy

fair play to you. that report must have taken at least 13 hours to write!

Kieran_Burns

You look like you're playing with a skipping rope in the 3rd picture, without the rope.

coopster_the_1st

Awesome effort and a great write-up. You've definitely had an interesting journey to your ironman...

greg66_tri_v2.0

Two months after the event. My 25 week plan to take me to Mallorca 70.3 started this week. Short (7 & 14 min) runs this week.

The grass on the common is muddy and waterlogged, especially this morning. as I'm dodging around trying to find a good line, I turn my ankle and jam the outside of my foot onto a tree root. Ouch!

Very ouch, as it turns out. Suspicious nature leads me to get an X ray. fracture of the base of the fifth metatarsal. Crutches for now, possibly a boot (TBD) and 6 weeks of sitting around.

Merry fucking Christmas.

FFS. :roll:

itboffin

ditch the Tri bike and get one of these

MonkeyMonster

Ow, whoopsie el Grego but absolute bummer. Guess more time for mulled wine n mince pies though. WAIT ITS FECKING NOVEMBER YOUR CHRISTMASING BARSTEWARDS!

msmancunia

Bummer. Hope it doesn't hurt too much. I can recommend co-drydamol and Dairy Milk chocolate if it does.

EKE_38BPM

Ouch.
We all keep trying to tell you that running is dangerous and that you should stop doing it, but do you listen?...

Wrath Rob

There's a reason that you're not supposed to proceed a ride with a swim or follow it with a run, and you're doing a great job of showing us why. Just be careful with the other truism, that triathletes are the worst bike handlers. Ever.

veronese68

Apart from the very occasional running for a bus I don't think I have run since school, now I know it wasn't laziness but common sense.
Heal fast Mr 66, and when you have knock this running lark on the head.

rjsterry

Ouch. GWS.

BTW, does remind me of a comment from an interview with Viccy Pendleton: something to the effect that cyclists are very likely to injure themselves running. Can't remember exactly, but something like cycling develops leg strength, but not stability and impact resistance - that would certainly fit with your experience.

greg66_tri_v2.0

rjsterry wrote:

Ouch. GWS.

BTW, does remind me of a comment from an interview with Viccy Pendleton: something to the effect that cyclists are very likely to injure themselves running. Can't remember exactly, but something like cycling develops leg strength, but not stability and impact resistance - that would certainly fit with your experience.

My physio has said that she see more stress fractures in cyclists and rowers who run than any other group. The high level of aerobic fitness that cycling and rowing give means that they can run for a long time. But their skeletal system isn't attenuated to the load that long periods of running creates, and the stabilising muscles aren't trained sufficiently to protect it.

That was certainly me earlier in the year.

Lardy unfit people who take up running are self-limiting, in that their poor CV fitness means that they can't run long enough to overload their bones. My plan this time was little and often - this week's runs had been 7 mins, 14 mins, 7 mins, 14 mins [crack], then would have been 7 mins and 21 mins. Then increase by 10% a week, with 3+1 weeks periodisation and some plateauing a bit later. Ought to have been fine.

This screw up was just bad luck, really. The common was muddy and slippery, and I was trying to find a better line to run in when I rolled my foot. The bad luck was the bloody tree root under the outside of my foot, instead of some nice soft mud. TBH I've rolled my ankles plenty of time just walking; I've always got away with it though. Not this time.

Bollocks.

ETA: one thing that completely pisses me off about bones is that the "S" in "GWS" means 6-8 weeks with pretty much no exceptions. There seems to be no way to speed up bone repairs to any appreciable degree (although I may be quizzing the doc about an Exogen machine later today).

rjsterry

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

ETA: one thing that completely pisses me off about bones is that the "S" in "GWS" means 6-8 weeks with pretty much no exceptions. There seems to be no way to speed up bone repairs to any appreciable degree (although I may be quizzing the doc about an Exogen machine later today).

True, but ligaments and tendons take even longer.

veronese68

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

ETA: one thing that completely pisses me off about bones is that the "S" in "GWS" means 6-8 weeks with pretty much no exceptions. There seems to be no way to speed up bone repairs to any appreciable degree (although I may be quizzing the doc about an Exogen machine later today).

What about magical laser treatment? When watching motorcycle racing they often talk about someone coming back from a broken bone quickly and some sort of laser quackery is involved in speeding up the healing process. Presumably not a James Bond cut you in two type of laser.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Veronese68 wrote:

What about magical laser treatment? When watching motorcycle racing they often talk about someone coming back from a broken bone quickly and some sort of laser quackery is involved in speeding up the healing process. Presumably not a James Bond cut you in two type of laser.

D'y'think?