New 1500m WR - 14:34min

Just watched Sun Yang's WR 1500m swim in 14:34min, beating Hacket's 10 year old record. Awesome, I swear he had a 2-beat kick , that he was breathing straight off the wall without a dolphin kick and had a front quadrant stroke. He's been watching me in the pool again!!! Fantastic to watch. I'm sure I counted only 25ish strokes per 50m. He was gliding along until the last 50 where he absolutely let rip.

Shingles

Burning, itching, painful spots appeared on my face, hands and soles of my feet over the last week equals Shingles. (Image - obviously not me - showing a very mild version for breakfast viewing). So that explains my inexplicable exhaustion over the last few weeks and up and down training stats even during the taper for Roth particularly on the bike. With a CP30 of 360W and I was unable to hold 280W last week for more than 20mins simply did not compute. Although my running has been awesome. Go figure. Well I have bloody Shingles. Well that's IM Wales bloody cancelled as well then!!! Fuck, shit, bollocks.

DNF

I had a personal disaster in Roth.

Bizarre injury getting out of a lake on the Wednesday before the race. It looked someone had taken a double Stanley knife to the bottom of my foot and it hurt like hell - freshwater barnacles WTF!!! Needless to say I was in pain and limping like a gimp all the way up to race day. Lets put it this way I would have pulled out of the race if I'd been back in England.

To the race,
I was feeling good in myself and in top form fitness wise. Personal Bests in training for the swim and bike in the lead in and 6 months of injury free running 5 days a week for 6 months.

I set off in the Elite AGers wave and was going pretty well when after 400m bang hamstring cramp in my right leg (suspicously the dodgy leg!). Lost the draft and feathered the swim from there on in trying to prevent the cramping. Got out of the swim thinking oh well at least 60mins at worst - 68mins on the watch WTF!!! Now I know something is seriously wrong. Put it to the back of my mind as its a long day and I can bring it back with a fast bike.

Wrong - on to the bike and the hamstring wasn't the problem now. I immediately had a painful back spasm down my right side (the dodgy leg side! Mmmmmmmm). This was so painful I swear a tear formed - a very small one obviously but a tear all the same. I would have pulled to side of the road and bailed after 10miles but this was a AAA race after all so I took a large dose of HTFU and kept going. After 30miles I knew this had been a bad move but the bike course is a difficult one to drop out from as it has split transitions and its not obvious how to drop out unless you just want to sit there for hours plus I wanted to go up the Solar Berg at least once. The pain was so great that my HR was in the 160s (IM pace is 120bpm for me), my RPE was through the roof but my actual power was deep in zone 1 ie no effort at all normally. Again WFT!!! Now the hamstring and the back had gone I couldn't put any power down or get in to aero position at all. In fact even sitting up hurt as well. Only getting out of the saddle gave any relief. To cut a long story short. I finished the bike (5:50hrs terrible but at least I know what no effort and agony means timewise now) and managed to prevent myself from blubbing for both physical and psychological reasons.

There was no way I could of run a step without causing a serious injury.

However, the race has caused quite a lot of reflection both good and bad and I really don't know if I want to do IM Wales now. Do I need/want a coach anymore etc.

One thing I do know is that I love training and I do love all 3 sports (well maybe not swimming that much at the moment). I saw a good quote the other day and I will leave with that...

“Commitment is doing what you said you were going to do, long after the mood you said it in has left you."

Neilly G

Roth

Well Roth is almost here. The bike is working well - anyone who has tried getting Di2, Q-Rings and an 11-28 cassette to work will know what I've been going through. Bags close to packed and the trip to Germany starts tonight.

Last week's trg:
Swim (x2) - 1.25hrs
Bike (x4) - 12hrs
Run (x6) - 7hrs

With a 4hr long bike; 2.75hr Run and 3k OWS in there. Taper time started on Sunday. Feeling human again at last.

Swimming and biking have been going very well and I have had 6 months of uninjured running and a few 50mile weeks in there. So this turbo diesel is running quite smoothly. However, I am around 87Kg (no excuses here from me) so anyone out there wanting to send out the good vibes for me please pray for sub 30 degree C temps as that's the only thing that could hold me back, mechanicals notwithstanding. Hopefully, I will back blogging next week with a decent time plastered all over the post.

Gettin' it done.

Neilly G