The Vitruvian

It is not even 6am and I’ve been up for the last two hours with a cramping calf after yesterday’s Vitruvian efforts... do I care? Not remotely!


Yesterday concluded my season for 2010 and what a year it has been, it has possibly been one of my best seasons in 13 years in the sport and it has me reflecting on why that is?

I started the year with 2 season goals, two ‘A’ races and a full season (April – September) of racing. The goals were to get back under 2:20 for the Olympic Distance and to break 5hrs for the Vitruvian (the bike course is 5k short admittedly!). The first goal was missed by a whisker in Athlone (A race #1) when I took 7th in the European age group championships, but given the horrendous conditions (so windy they banned disc wheels!) I’ll take 2:20:52. So to goal #2 and 6am yesterday I was racking my bike for the Vitruvian Middle Distance Triathlon (A race #2)!

My week lead in had been far from ideal, I’d had a tight calf for about a week and on Tuesday I only got 20mtrs down the road before it had locked solid and I couldn’t even get it to the ground... panic starts to creep in (okay, so it didn’t ‘creep in’, full scale panic, tears and emotional breakdown was a better description), luckily for me I have my very own full-time, live in Knight in Shining Armour and ‘fixer of shit’, the ever-so wonderful Duncan Shea-Simonds! Dunc is something of a marvel, calm in the face of adversity, logical and philosophical at all times and, helpfully, a qualified sports therapist ...and yes, occasionally, he does wear his underpants over his trousers ;-).

Dunc set about carrying out daily massage (doing just enough of the right stuff as deep tissue work would have ruled me out of the race) and skilfully managing a combination of ice and compression alongside the treatments. Dunc refocused me by reminding me of the incredibly consistent year of training I’d had and to keep faith in the talent and skill of Jack Maitland in ensuring that I peak at exactly the right time, the hard work was done! There was no running I could have done last week that would alter yesterday’s outcome but plenty of benefit to not running and resting the calf completely so, other than a tentative 10min jog on Friday, it was a case of wait till Saturday and suck it and see.

Discussing this with Jack in the post-race debrief the calf injury ended up being more influential than I thought! I really didn’t know whether I’d be able to run a half marathon or not so took the brave step to ‘race’ the Vitruvian to the end of the bike and see what happened on the run...

Over the longer distances I’ve perhaps been guilty in the past of not committing enough to the bike and relying on my run strength to pull me back up the field. Yesterday’s race ‘plan b’ forced me to commit to an ambitious schedule and saw me turn in the 3rd fastest women’s bike split of the day and a 2:32 for 85k (probably equating to about a 2:40 something over the full 90k) and saw me lap quicker than I had for just one lap of the same course in the Dambuster Triathlon earlier in the season.

I am actually enjoying myself believe it or not!

So onto the run and straight away I was conscious of the calf tightness but took the decision to use a bit of sports psychology to ‘shelve’ my concern and focus on other things happening in my race, my watch, my nutrition and, weirdly, doing mental arithmetic (don’t ask!) ...anything to distract myself from the pain in my calf. I actually felt good and was clipping along strongly but found things unravelling with 5-6k to go, probably slowing a minute a mile for the last 3 or so miles (usually where I start to move up the field) and concluding with a 1:38 half marathon. I did manage to turn on a bit of a finish (being a former 800m runner I do pride myself in a decent finish) but wasn’t quite sure which of the 3 finishing banners I should be running towards... sure sign I’d ‘got it all out’! Luckily a medic scooped me up and found me a plastic chair ...never has a plastic chair felt so good. Okay, so I blew on the run a bit, but I couldn’t have been more chuffed 4:45:37 and, for the first time in my triathlon career, the bike was my best discipline.

Swim 30:57 (4th)

Bike 2:32:22 (3rd)

Run 1:38:31 (5th)

Bringing me home 5th Overall – delighted!

In the coming weeks I’ll be setting 2011 goals with Jack and obviously I’m starting to think about target time for IM in 2011, I’ve always worked on the basis that your IM goal = HIM x 2 + 1hr. So accounting for the short bike course ((Vit+10mins) x 2 + 1hr) I guess sub 11 is possible? I don’t know about this, it sounds very ambitious and 29+ minutes is a lot to take off an Ironman time ...no doubt Mr Maitland will have a view on this too!!!

Finally then, my thoughts on the key ingredients for a successful season and hitting form at the right time...

1. A properly periodised programme – I can’t take credit here so thanks Jack

2. Stay healthy – this leads to consistent training, eat right and rest properly. With the exception of the calf injury, I’ve managed to stay healthy and injury free – rest and recovery is all part of your training programme and is the thing I see many triathletes neglecting (except for you David Beale if you are reading ;-))

3. Race frequently to develop your speed endurance but remember you can’t ‘peak’ for every race and you have to accept you can’t bring your A race to every event and but for 2-3 races a year the rest are just tough training sessions.

Well I’m now off to enjoy some downtime but look forward to spectating at the Bala Oly next weekend and seeing my husband, friends and clubmates race, with absolutely no desire to be racing myself and comfortable in the knowledge that, for 2010 at least, my work here is done.

Stay healthy and thanks for reading.