It’s taken me an age to work out my next post – should I put up a race report from the Peckham 10k (horror show), record some swimming sessions (yawn) or have a ponder on the HUGE number of people who all seem keen to respond to my answer of “why yes, I did enjoy the marathon, it was long and hot but I’m already signed up to do another one in October” with “ARE YOU CRAZY??!” (charming), which has resulted in me writing absolutely nothing.
Good shout.
I think it’s all about change at the moment – it seems to have taken me a while to get over it but marathon training has really ended *cry face/fist pumps of victory*. I never really got the soul-crushing WHAT AM I GOING TO DO post-race downer because I frantically entered so many races straight afterwards, but I think this left me in a bit of a half-way house; I wanted to keep training at the same rate but knew I didn’t have to, and I also had to work out what I needed to do to be able to survive swimming a mile in the Thames, doing a sprint triathlon, and then swimming 2.1k in the (Henley on) Thames. A quick look at that line up would suggest to any normal person that swimming would be the best thing to concentrate on. Yet I didn’t, I wanted to keep running. Well, my mind wanted to…my legs had other ideas. So I did a few short runs, entered the Peckham 10k*, and it hurt. Ooh it hurt a lot. Only a week after the mega-hills session and my calves felt it bad. So bad in fact that my next run three later was absolutely appalling and really very painful. My calves felt like they had been filled with cement and every step felt bad. So I took some time away from running and tried swimming. Mainly out of desire to do something active that didn’t make me want to cry, but also because of the sheer terror that the mile swim was fast approaching and despite continuing to tell myself that “ah you’ll be fine”, I hadn’t actually done any “proper training”. I tabled in some sessions around work and quickly discovered (after wailing wide-eyed terror-filled at my husband panicking about what would happen if I drowned/couldn’t finish/got lost/was still swimming a week later etc..) that I love swimming. I especially love swimming before work – so much so I’m planning to make it a habit this week by forcing myself through a week of 6am starts – and I love the all-encompassing tiredness that can’t be really pinpointed on any specific part of the body (being in pain). I also love that my calves appear to sorting themselves out (thanks in part to me stupidly missing the amazing RDC West #oysterMonday last night and allowing more recovery time) and that the sessions are giving my still-weary joints a bit of a break. I realise that the fact that I’m still weary almost two months later means I should have trained harder for Barcelona but you live and learn and I’m not going to beat myself up about it.
So running is on the backburner; sessions are down to two a week, and swimming is king of the training programme. Cycling is yet to really rear its ugly head and I’m not sure whether I’m being stupidly naïve but it’s the one part of the tri that I’m not really that worried about. I know I can keep going on the bike for at least 40k, and I trust in the power of fuel and gels to keep me going for the necessary distance. I’m also so happy that I chose a charity women’s only triathlon for my first attempt so I’m hoping it won’t be too savage….but I’m sure I’ll worry about that later. Brutal or not, my wetsuit arrived this afternoon and I have my first open-water training session this weekend so it’s time to get the game face on and keep on paddling.
*There won’t be a “proper” race report of the Peckham 10k, mainly because others have said it better, but also because it can essentially be summed up as follows:
AMAZING to run with RDC West, race was horrendous, should have done better, will get faster, need to get a Garmin.
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