Disappointed

I didn't break 01:20:00.


The race entry list was FULL.  And I was in the second (fast) wave.  Having missed the deadline to update my estimated swim time ( I wanted to make it slower due to technique confusion at the moment), I ended up with a few faster people behind me, which meant that I had to stop once to let one person past in the pool, then again to let two past, and again once more to let one more past.  I probably lost 10-15s due to that.

T1 was quick - the guy after me in the start order who overtook me in the pool was probably a bit miffed that I came and went while he was still in transition before me and trotted out behind me.

The bike... well, it's not on closed roads, so there's always the luck of the traffic lights.  I was lucky and they were green and I sailed through.  However, I had to come to a complete stop at two of the roundabouts, the second of which was extremely frustrating as there was a car indicating left at the head of the traffic queue who was very hesitant so I had to wait around 10-15s for them to sort themselves out and then decide not to turn left in the end.  A little way after that roundabout, I was stuck behind two cars, a learner at the front who was not happy to go at more than 20kph, with traffic coming the other way on a relatively narrow road, me and another race participant had to hang way back (non-drafting race, of course) for 400-500m of faffing.  I probably lost another 20-30 seconds there overall and added a bunch of rage.

T2 was very nippy as my bike was near the bike in and run out.  Heavy legs weren't too much bother, but a double stitch (one upper right abdomen, the other lower left) made me slow to a walk for a few paces to try to sort it out.  I still put in a run+T2 time of a minute faster than ever before.

Overall, 01:20:57.  30s slower than last time.  The run was encouraging, the bike very frustrating and the swim just annoying.  I coulda done it.  I coulda.  But it didn't happen.

Why is it only Tuesday?

I'm impatient for my finger to get healing.  Now I have dressings that don't stick to the end and tear it off whenever they get changed, the pain is reduced and the healing has actually started.  I -need- it to have closed up properly before Monday.  Monday is the last sprint triathlon in the Thames Turbo race series and I need to get to the start line, never mind actually finish.  What with an open wound on one finger, one knee that works if I tape it up, the other being more than slightly unreliable regardless of what I do to it, it's going to be a tall order to finish a sprint triathlon.

It makes me sad to think I've come a long way with this new sport in a reasonably short period of time and I may end the season this year as it began, with a DNF and disappointment.  I've taken 15 minutes (which also happens to be 15%) off my race time over 4 races so far and am confident I could get another minute or two off that time still, to get under 01:20:00 which would put me just about in the top 20% for my age category.  I so want that this year, to end the season.  And if I'm stopped from even starting the race because I have an open wound still...

Thursday this week I have a session with my tri trainer and he's going to do fitness assessments and general base-lining and I'm going to have to tell him I've done nothing of the plan he left me two weeks ago, because my knee hasn't been up to it.  And that I can't swim at the moment either.  It's just a catalogue of mishaps and makes me feel like a disaster area of self-inflicted (in one way or another) physical damage.

I can't work out how/where to get into Pose running.  The support in the UK is quite limited and the web site is awful.  I just want to find someone who can assess whether it might help/it's suitable for me.  Every lead on making running less stressful and worrying for the longer distances next year has to be followed up.

I can't give up on long course.

I won't.

Not for the sqeamish

Sorry if you came here through a feed that gives you the images whether you want them or not.  But here's where my finger is at...

I'm not sure how this is supposed to heal, it's just raw flesh exposed.  I have the missing piece but it's too dead to be put back, plus the NHS won't bother with it being so small.

Not swimming

There will be no long, boring swim tomorrow as I've succeeded in hacking a chunk of the tip of my finger off. No matter how clean Dorney Lake is, it's really not a good idea for me to be swimming right now. 10 days to the last Thames Turbo race of the year and I -should- be OK for that. The only worry is around handlebar grip for that. I'm sure I can take 40 or so minutes of discomfort if I have to, though.

Long, boring Saturday morning

I've got a 5km swim tomorrow.  *yawn* It is going to be... SO. BORING. The main reason for doing it was to regain some pride after the Thames swim a while back, and to check out what Dorney lake is like for the HSBC triathlon in September.  Now Mr TOTKat isn't swimming tomorrow, I've got nothing there around the pride regain.  Conversely, I couldn't be humiliated again by him beating me again as he's not swimming.

I've been quiet on the race training front recetly.  Mostly because I've done no cycling and very little running.  Since the Virgin Triathlon, I've done two long runs to extend my distance in the lead up to Nike+ Run To The Beat in a few weeks' time.  The first was two weekends ago and we did a long, slow run around the Wimbledon Common Parkrun route of about 9.5km.  As usual, I strapped up my left knee and that felt lovely.  Confident and comfortable, all went well until about 6-7km in when my right knee started to niggle... and niggle.. and get worse and worse.  I pushed through as it didn't feel the same as my left knee does and I was keen not to give in to anything that really wasn't a proper problem.  Which was a mistake.  5 days of ow followed.

The following weekend we extended the distance to 13.9km.  Again my left knee strapped up and fine and I strapped the right to see what might happen.  Same as the previous week.  Not good.  So, a trip back to the physio on Wednesday this week and he was unimpressed.  He can't really work out why/what is going on and is a bit peeved by it all.  A supposition now is that perhaps, as I've not been doing a lot of running in the grand scheme of things and I've not been doing running for very long (around 2 years), I'm actually just really bad at running.  Not just slow and crap (he laughed at my 10km time in the last triathlon, bastard), but slow and damaging and crap.

The current idea is to foam roll my awfully tight quads a bit, try a quick (deliberately a bit faster than usual) run to see if speed makes it worse/brings it on earlier, and try not strapping the left one to see how that is getting on.  In parallel, he's suggested I look at Pose method running.  Which is interesting in that when I started to learn to run, I did run very much like falling fowards and nowadays I run very upright so there may be something in the method change.

Anyone got any thoughts/ideas/experience with Pose?  I've read a bit and it seems logical in some ways, but...