Brick this!

I think I might get 'round next weekend.  If I can work out how to get the k-tape to stay on through the swim, it's going to work.

T2 brick test today; 31km bike followed immediately by a 7.8km run.  The secondary tests were, some race fuel (High5 EnergySource) to see if my stomach is OK with it, and drinking on the bike.

Apart from being yelled at by a twat in a Chelsea Tractor at Wimbledon Common (dude, if you had a less stupid car and a bit less of a vein sticking out on your forehead, you'll probably live longer), the bike was good.  I'm still completely useless at using a bottle on the bike - seriously, if you've never tried it, it's a lot harder than it looks.  I can get the bottle out of the rack relatively OK as long as I'm free-wheeling, but drinking is really difficult and getting it back in the rack again is pretty stressful.  I ended up with sticky drink on my hands, handlebars and down my leg a bit and some of it in my mouth.  My heart rate monitor hadn't worked for the cycle, so fuelling was really going to be a bit off as I'd got no idea of the amount I'd burned through.

31.16km in 01:11:04 including slowing down for traffic lights, being a total useless goit with the drinks bottle several times etc., so I'm hoping that will translate to 01:32 - 01:35 next weekend over the 40km race route.

I chugged the remainder of the fuel drink and the run started off pretty nicely.  As usual between bike and run, my legs felt a bit heavy at the start but I went off at a reasonable pace and the route was a loop of around 2.5km which allowed for stuff going wrong and being not too far from home if it did. 

Pace-wise, that's around my usual fastest 10km pace -without- having cycled 31km first.  So I'm quite encouraged by that.  That sort of pace should give me a 10km run time of around 55:00 - 56:00, hopefully.   My knee stayed quiet throughout and the only indication of anything not being perfectly fine was a tight hamstring into the back of the knee and that was it.

So, I'm pretty sure I'll get 'round next weekend.  No idea what transition times will look like, but with a 30:00 swim, a 01:35 bike and a 56:00 run I'm looking at an overall race time of 03:01:00 plus transition, so a target of 03:10:00 seems reasonable.

Kinda sorta rather promising

We pootled up to the common for a run on the Parkrun course; a 2.25 km loop, so if my knee went pop it was never far to hobble back to the car.  I was all strapped up with the K-tape and ready for a slow trot.

Given that at the British 10K 2 weekends ago my knee got angry around the 7km mark I had to go at least that far to see what happened.  We set off at a very gentle pace, really very very gentle and kept it steady for the first few km.  At 4km, everything was feeling fine so we agreed to turn up the gas at 7km to try to force something to happen if it hadn't already.

7km we took it up a notch and again at 8.5km and my knee was not only feeling OK, but it actually felt -better- than the other one.  It felt like a smooth, well-oiled joint; noticeably more comfortable and 'right' feeling than usual.  I tried to keep up with Mr TOTKat when he kicked off at 8.5km and almost sort of did then decided I was too under-fuelled to go on past 9km so we stopped there and had a gentle jog to cool down a bit before a stretch, drink and back home again.

So.  Without wanting to get too excited, I think the K-taping may have made some sort of difference.  How much of a difference will only become apparent with a brick session.  So I'm planning to do one tomorrow (and combine it with testing some race fuel for next weekend - OMG LONDON IS NEXT WEEKEND! *cough*  With all the injury mess, I've done no training and it's my first Olympic distance triathlon!  Halp!)

K-tape

Physio visit involved a recap of the MRI results (mild ITB irritation, fat pad inflammation and mild fraying of the cartilege - perhaps related to the syringing many years ago) and a bit of a trot with physio in tow, assessing my gait.  Apparently my back is very rigid, my hips do something weird and one foot does a floppy thing every 5-6 steps at slow speed but at fast speed my gait becomes much better.  He prodded my hips and glutes and did some deep-tissue work on those (OW!) to loosen things up a bit.

Current thinking is to tape my patella to encourage it to move a bit differently, to see what effect that has on the pain:-

Will go for a decent run at the weekend to see how that works out.  And in the mean time physio is drawing some pictures and having a think about what's going on with my hip movement to see what's going on there.  With 1 week left to London thereafter there may be some other interim management required to get me through that before the more long-term management strategy.