The year in review: 2018

So, it’s New Year’s Eve and as it’s become customary for me to write a ‘year in review’ type blog I will stick with tradition, even though this year has seen my sporting goals somewhat shafted by other major life events, so the stats don’t read too impressively. But here they are for continuity’s sake anyway and I will attempt to explain away the naffness after:

2018 mileage:

Running: 412 – naffer than naff, my lowest year yet by a long way!

Cycling: 1252 outdoor miles

    1000 (approx) indoor miles on turbo / wattbike / spin classes

Swimming: 99’000mtrs (should have made the effort to round that up!)

2018 races: 

1 x 10k road (4^th lady in 39:44)

1 x 10k multi terrain (1^st lady)

23 x parkrun (parkrun SB of 19:05; 1 x new course record Seaton parkrun 19:20)

1 x standard distance duathlon (2^nd lady, 1^st in age group with auto qualification for the 2018 World Duathlon Championships)

1 x sprint triathlon (7^th lady, on the back of 8 weeks of no exercise)

Qualifications:
BTF Level 1 Coach

It’s an unimpressive and rather diminished list compared to previous years, but where the sporting achievements are lacking, the life goals have been smashed! On 14th June of this year I found out I was pregnant! No-one could have been more shocked than Matt and me as it came the very next month after having undergone a failed round of IVF, after 3 years of trying ourselves and not a sniff, and subsequently being told IVF was our only hope of conceiving. I took the pregnancy test for the failed IVF round on May 12^th… also my Mum’s birthday. I was crushed at not being able to give her the birthday present she most wanted, particularly as my Dad had been ill since February and it was a boost our family desperately needed. Then 6 days later, on 18^th May, my Dad nearly died in rather traumatic circumstances. Me and my Mum found him just in time. That week was probably the lowest of my life.

Throughout the IVF I had been unable to exercise much beyond light walking and yoga and so after 8 weeks off, I returned to race the Exe Valley Triathlon on 13^th May. It seemed like a good idea, to throw myself straight back into it, but my plans to tempo race it went flying out the window once the gun went and competitive Ellie, high on emotions, went wild and pushed herself the whole way. No surprises then that I crossed that finish line injured, having flared up my achillies injury asking it to race hard after 8 weeks of nothing. The worst week of my life and my main coping mechanism – running – was now unavailable to me. Nothing to do but ride it out and hope for better times to come…. I just didn’t realise they would come so soon. By the time my birthday came around (also shared with Father’s Day), my Dad had had the operation he had been waiting for since February and was on the mend, and I was now expecting a baby after being told it wouldn't happen naturally: Ha! In your face, medical science! From miserable May to jubilant June – what a turnaround! 

Suddenly, the fact that I was injured and so wouldn’t be able to take up my place on the GB team at the World Duathlon Champs in Denmark in July was irrelevant. I said from the day I found out I was expecting, no cycling on any open roads, and I have stuck to that. Yes, I know loads of ladies who continue to cycle / horse ride / ski when pregnant, and good for them – each to their own, it’s their body – but for me, having gone through so much to get here, there was no way that any bike ride would be worth the potential risk of a fall, especially when there are safe, indoor alternatives. So, running mileage down due to being injured for most of the year (in fact, most of those 412 miles have been done while pregnant!) Cycling mileage down due to the reason outlined above. Swim mileage slightly down as it's never been my favourite sport and, without a competitive goal, I just can't be arsed with doing the big 2500m+ swim sets, so all swims have been 1500m (my boredom threshold!) or below. Mind you, I have to say that these past few weeks I have come to greatly appreciate the gravity-defying properties of water and the brief aquatic respite from feeling like a 30 stone barriatric surgery candidate when attempting to walk, run or climb stairs! 

The only regret I have is towards those who invested time and effort into helping me achieve my duathlon goals this year. I started the year committed to upgrading my silver medal from Soria to a gold at either the Worlds or the Europeans and so I enlisted the assistance of a coach (also my cousin-in-law, Chris, of Tri Coach Kernow) and I signed a much-valued sponsorship agreement with sports massage therapist, Patrick, of PDW Sports. Things were starting to get serious and the result I got at the world’s qualifier event at Anglian Water in February got me - and no doubt them - excited about the season ahead. So I do feel like I have in some way let Chris and Patrick down by being a ‘typical bloody woman and getting herself pregnant’, but in reality I know that this is just me being stupid and that they know what this baby means to me and that no sporting result can ever come close. So, maybe it was bad timing in some ways, but perfect timing in others as goodness knows both my family and I needed a change of fortune in that horrendous week in May. The weirdest thing is that my pregnancy has been officially dated to 12^th May…. so the day that initially caused such heartache when the test stick read ‘not pregnant’ following the failed round of IVF, has subsequently become a day of joy. Strange how these things work out.

I am now nearly 34 weeks in with approx. 5 – 6 weeks to go… 5 would be better! Starting to get rather large and uncomfortable now. For a ‘year in review’ stats bonus, I currently weigh 1.5 stones heavier than I did at the start of the year! Hopefully most of that is baby and not just excess Xmas pud! Having to really scale back the exercise these past few weeks as if I try to do too much, I just end up exhausted and sofa bound later on in the day, so it’s all about measuring my efforts. This is really strange for someone who is, by nature, always on the go and gets easily bored and fidgety when sat doing nothing. My day usually runs in 30 minute segments, with me trying to rest with my feet up, but getting bored after half an hour, feeling unproductive and lazy, and so getting up and doing something such as laundry, baking, cleaning etc. This results in me wearing myself out again and needing another 30 minute sit down, etc etc, until it’s finally 9pm and I can take myself off to bed! Rock and roll! It’s so weird to not have energy and I really feel for anyone with conditions such as ME or thyroid problems who experience this lethargy on a regular basis. I guess it’s all good prep for being sleep-deprived when little one arrives!

And so to my sporting plans for 2019. In my head, I have lots; on paper, I have none, as I am very mindful that planning things before I have experienced life with a newborn is just asking for trouble! Through my rose-tinted glasses I can visualise a cosy scene of us all rocking up at a local race, with our parents in tow to look after baby, I’ll bust out a post-partum PB fuelled by my oxygenated breast-feeding blood cells and Matt will float around equally effortlessly on the pure euphoria of fatherhood…. There is, of course, every chance that I could be living in cloud cuckoo land here and we may well be too knackered to even contemplate leaving the house when the time comes! I would love to take Baby D. to North Wales to visit my Welsh family in May and maybe race the Slateman whilst there…. but again, the logistics of this may prove too much. We’ll just have to see. I may be blessed with an angelic being that sleeps all day apart from feeds at regular intervals. Equally, Karma may dish up its revenge and serve me a dose of what I put my poor mother through by giving me a screamer who refuses to be put down and is awake 24/7 with no pattern to feeding or sleeping… there is apparently one very good reason why I remained an only child!

February: en route to setting a new female course record at Seaton parkrun, 19:20: the record still stands

February: Finishing the Anglian Water Standard Duathlon in 2nd place overall and qualifying to represent GB at the world champs later in the year

May: After 8 full weeks of no exercise, I thought I could just rock up and race the Exe Valley Triathlon and get away with it... I didn't. Injury ensued.

December: A slightly different physique to usual, or, as my husband quips, 'My wife's let herself go a bit this past year'. 33 weeks pregnant on Christmas Day.

2019? Let's see what you've got in store. Hopefully lots more love, laughter and living life to the full.

Thanks to my supporters in 2018:
Patrick at PDW Sports - best sports massage both sides of the Tamar!
Chris at Tri Coach Kernow
Nigel at Honiton Physio.
N1 Tri Club, Honiton Spinners and Axe Valley Runners - training alone is ok, but training with other like-minded folk is better
My friends, both local and afar, for their much needed and valued support this year
My family, for always being there... family first, fitness second, always!

Being a coach potato

Yes, you read that right, a coach potato. Not a couch potato… although I am rapidly becoming one of those too, so the pun serves two purposes.

Last weekend I became a fully qualified British Triathlon Level 1 coach. I signed up for the coaching course back in the summer as I thought it could be something to get my teeth into whilst I am on my pregnancy reduced training volume. (There is only so much baking a girl can do to fill the 10+ hours that were previously spent swimming, biking and running, and I would hate for my husband to get fat as a result!!)

Why did I decide to do the coaching qualification? Well, several reasons, but chiefly because I was massively inspired by having my cousin-in-law, Chris Dominey of Tri Coach Cornwall, coach me at the back end of last year and into the start of this. I was previously sceptical that I needed a coach, after all, I’m not a pro and so it seemed a little self-indulgent, and hell, I managed to get myself a silver medal in my first international outing in a GB suit on the back of my own simplistic approach, so it can’t have been too off target. But once I took the plunge and committed to his programme, it highlighted so many things that I was previously doing wrong in my training, and my performance improved massively as a result… too bad I then got pregnant and so wasn’t able to see if I could convert that silver to a gold at the World or European duathlon championships, but I had a better reason this time for the DNS than my usual “injured”.

I used to think that all I needed to do was keep my fitness levels up all year round, make sure I swam, biked and ran each week, did a modicum of the dreaded S + C work, and mixed the sessions up with some easy paced stuff and harder interval efforts. I did not know that it is impossible to be “fit” all year round and that, in trying to be, you risk over-training, fatiguing your body and, worse still, succumbing to a plethora of injuries and illnesses, which is basically how I spent most of my time in 2015 (injured), 2016 (ill) and 2017 (both!). A good coach will work with an individual athlete to periodize their training, manage their fatigue levels and make sure there is the right balance between the harder efforts (that get you fit and improve performance) and the easy work (which allows your body to recover and adapt). This was all new to me. At first I resented the rigidity of the regime; being told that this is the specific workout I must do today, when previously I would have taken the weather, my mood, my time availability and others (e.g. availability of riding buddies and sessions offered by my tri and cycling clubs) into account and decided on the day what activity I would do. It was a very different routine to my previous ad hoc ‘wing it and see’ approach, but I can totally see now why having such a structure brings results. I can now see others – tri club mates, training buddies – making the same mistakes I used to make and seeing their same bewilderment at being constantly tired or picking up niggles in the process: hardly surprising when they haven’t had a rest day for 5 weeks! I used to fear rest days; I thought they were a sign of weakness and my secret inner-lazy-self winning out over my more disciplined-self. I now see that they are essential if you want to stay fresh, keep enjoying the sport and see continued long-term improvements.

By taking the coaching qualification, I hope to be able to impart some of this newfound wisdom(!) to others and help them improve their performances. With the level 1 I am limited in what I can do, but I view it as a step on the ladder towards progressing to my level 2 and level 2+, with which I will be able to coach on a one-to-one basis and write bespoke programmes… and do this in a professional capacity, for financial gain. Online coaching is definitely something I could make work around being a stay-at-home-Mum, and so it is a potential career path I am considering for my future, post-partum.

Talking of baby, I am now at 30 weeks and expanding by the day! I am still doing 3 spin classes a week, 2 swims and the occasional parkrun, but running is getting pretty uncomfortable these days as I need to pee every 5 minutes! I have found the last few weeks I have been really tired and had a few unpleasant dizzy / feeling faint episodes (luckily I have managed to sit down before any keeling over actually happened), but then I discovered last week that I am anaemic and I found out yesterday that I have a UTI (both common in pregnancy and both are things I have suffered with before, which makes me more susceptible to them). It would explain the feeling tired, faint and slightly elevated heart rate in spinning! Hopefully now I am on meds for these issues, I will soon start to perk up. No wonder I never experienced that second trimester surge of energy of which others speak – I feel like I’ve been deprived of what my Mum described as “the most energized few months of her life”!

People still continue to pass comment on my activity levels and expanding waist line, as if I am public property. The “oh my goodness, I can’t look you, what are you even doing here in your condition? I think you are going to go into labour at any moment” at spin class, to the “Gosh, you’re only that far on, I thought you must only have a couple of weeks to go, your bump is so big”. It gets a bit tedious and, for someone who has body image issues at the best of times, being told you look massive and are “much bigger than they were at that stage” sends my irrational brain into a spin. But then rational Ellie kicks in and remembers that at my latest growth scan, both me and baby are bang in the mid-range of where we should be at this stage. I just think that everyone has their own opinion and, if you are someone who struggles with exercise you are more likely to think I am bonkers, and if you are someone who is super-fit yourself, you are more likely to appreciate that it’s good for you to keep fit throughout pregnancy and I’m not some weird alien-type being for wanting to do so. Yes, there has been more sofa surfing in the last month or so, but Matt keeps telling me that that is ok and I do not have to be productive for every moment of my waking hours! For now, when my 4-5pm witching hour strikes, I give myself permission to be a newly qualified coach potato!

Below: Me and bump @ 28 weeks, enjoying our last little holiday with baby on the inside to Snowdonia

Thoughts on exercising during pregnancy

I have deliberately entitled this post ‘exercising during pregnancy’ rather than ‘training during pregnancy’ as, for me, the two are very different. Training, as far as I see it, has an end goal; you are training towards something specific: a target race, to improve your swim technique, to raise your FTP on the bike. This means there is a focus and a structure to what you do as you are chipping away towards achieving a set target. Exercise is far more casual. Anyone can engage in exercise without any specific goals in mind. Sure, they may be using it to lose weight, keep in shape, get fit, feel good, relieve stress etc, but there is a fluidity around the use of the word. This suits where I am at the moment. For the first time in years, I am not training for anything… well, aside from impending motherhood, but there ain’t no Wattbike session, intervals set or pilates class in the world that can prepare me for that! Rather I am exercising, on an ad hoc basis, to feel good in body and mind, hopefully to keep me and my baby bean healthy, and to just enjoy it.

And enjoy it I am! What a treat to be able to just go out the door and run where I want without looking at the pace on my Garmin. I am running purely on feel, whilst trying to keep my heart rate down so as not to distress baby in any way. Matt and I have been keeping up our Saturday morning parkrun routine, but for me, there hasn’t been the added stress of feeling like I have to hammer it and finish as first lady. I get there feeling relaxed, maybe warm up, maybe not, saunter to the start line, position myself a few folk back from the front line, and enjoy the run and admire the views. Then the café and catch up with friends part still features afterwards, of course!

Some days running feels harder than others. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I work and I am on my feet for 7 ½ hours a day. I feel pretty knackered by the end of these days and if I run on a Thursday, the effort feels much harder. I still record my runs to log the mileage in my training diary, but that is purely because I like to keep totals of how many miles I run in a year to add to my collective totals and see how my virtual progress around the world is going! I don’t look at pace whilst running, only after, and it does fluctuate. Parkruns tend to be the fastest – obviously, despite feeling chilled, competitive Ellie is still lurking in there somewhere and having others around me to work off brings out that bit of extra speed – and some runs when I am on tired, work-weary legs, are over 9m/m. I really don’t care. I am out the door, doing them and enjoying them. That’s what counts.

I also try to do a spin class once a week and a swim. Swimming is interesting as this is the only sport in which my times haven’t slowed. To be honest, they were so slow to start with, if I slowed any more I would likely lose all forward momentum and sink anyway! I wonder if the added buoyancy aid that is rapidly expanding around my middle isn’t giving me some form of assistance in this regard?! The maximum I swim in one go now is 60 lengths, but often fewer, maybe 50 or just 40, depending on how I’m feeling. Swimming usually finishes with a visit to the Cornish Bakery in Sidmouth for a coffee and cherry and almond croissant… it’s kinda become a new ritual!

As far as peoples’ attitudes towards me continuing to exercise during pregnancy go, I have noticed they are split into two distinct camps. The first, occupied by those who aren’t avid exercisers, tend to think you are bonkers, irresponsible and selfish for continuing to run whilst pregnant. “What if you fall over?” (I could do that walking, or moving around the house anyway) “That poor baby, being shaken about inside” (The baby is insulated by a massive sack of amniotic fluid and not likely to feel much). “If you are struggling with tiredness anyway, why put yourself through this as well?” (Exercise actually energises you and I feel so much better on the days I do a 30 minute run or swim than on the days where I do nothing). Besides, current medical advice is that pregnant women SHOULD exercise throughout their pregnancy (30 mins 5 – 6 times a week is in fact recommended, and I am not exceeding that), but obviously making the relevant modifications as you progress towards full term. If you exercised regularly before conceiving, it is safe for you to do more than 30 minutes at a time as your body is used to it. Studies show that women who exercise throughout have healthier pregnancies with less complications than those who do not.

Then we come to camp two: people who are, by and large, exercise fanatics themselves, including those who personally know of other athletes who have successfully continued to not only exercise but also to compete to a decent level throughout pregnancy. This camp is wont to imply you are being overly cautious by only running 24 minutes at parkrun, as they know someone who was still doing 20 minute 5ks at 25 weeks pregnant. They are the people who tell you about so-and-so who competed in fell races at 38 weeks preggers, or who continued to mountain bike throughout, so Ellie, aren’t you being a little bit over-cautious by refusing to even get on your bike? To these people I invariably say, maybe I am, but did these people take over 3 years to conceive? If we had hit the target at the first time of asking, so to speak, I might be a bit more blasé about cycling on the roads or pushing my body a bit harder on a run. But we have been through hell and high water to get to this point and so there is no way on earth I would do anything to jeopardise it… wrong place wrong time at a blind junction on the bike and that’s all it takes. No, it might not happen, but if there are safer alternatives, such as sticking to the spin bike, then what’s the point?

I have read blogs by athletes who have done amazing things whilst pregnant (scaled the Eiger, won international medals in eventing) and who then went on to bounce back in no time afterwards and fit their breast-feeding schedule around their training. Good for them. I do not judge these people, but nor do I hold them up as some kind of totemic superhero either. Every woman should be free to do what they feel is right for them, without pressure or judgement from others. The current balance I have found of exercising on average 5 days a week for a weekly total of 3 hours, at a far less intensive level than pre-pregnancy, works for me right now. If I start to struggle, I am not going to beat myself up if I have to scale that back. There has never been a better time to throw the stats, numbers and averages out of the window and just do everything on innate feel. Besides, I am really enjoying having some free time to do things other than training, resting and recovering! I do miss Friday morning long rides with the gang, but I am enjoying other things in their place. Biking Fridays have become baking Fridays and I still of course have the option of driving out to the coffee stop so I don’t have to miss out on what is, let's face it, the best part of biking anyway! Mostly, I am just trying to enjoy my pregnancy as it is something I have been desperately seeking for a very long time. Furthermore, when will I next get the freedom to be a bit lazy and sit on the sofa watching crappy Louis Theroux documentaries on I-Player with a cuppa and cake in the future? Maybe not for several years from February onwards, so I am enjoying it while it lasts!!

@ 17 weeks.

"Even the stormiest tides turn...."

May 2018. Unequivocally the worst month of my life. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. 

After 3 years of trying and getting nowhere, we were eventually referred to Exeter Fertility Clinic for a first round of IVF back in May 2017. I am reliably informed that it usually takes about 2-3 months from your initial IVF consultation to the commencement of a first cycle of treatment. For various reasons it took us just shy of 12 months. A whole year. A tortuous, emotional wreck of a year of appointments, discussions, blood tests, ultrasound scans, trial procedures, more discussions, getting lost “between admin systems”, and generally having to lie back and think of England whilst the world and his wife – or so it often felt like – became intimately acquainted with my intimate area… believe me, for someone so body conscious that it took me 31 years of my life to work up to showering and changing in the communal changing area at the local pool, that is one hell of an ordeal.

What I have noticed since I have revealed that we have gone through IVF is just how many others have responded with their own personal stories of fertility struggles and difficulties conceiving. It is almost a taboo subject that people just don’t speak about, and whilst I can understand why – it is intensely private and personal and, often, quite upsetting to discuss – I also believe that it is healthy to have these conversations, when you feel ready to do so. Going through IVF is so all consuming and because you do not read about the struggles of others but only see the constant baby-joy announcements of success stories, it is easy to feel that you are the only unlucky ones in this position whilst everyone else parades their fertile family unit across social media.

We started the whole process somewhat naively; again, no doubt, because I was not aware of anyone I knew who had gone through the treatment, I had no personal accounts to draw upon. I thought those three loaded letters – I-V-F – were just a case of tapping into a bit of scientific knowledge to help you out a bit: wait until I’m ovulating, have someone who knows what they’re doing extract the egg, mix it with sperm, put egg back in, baby is made, or, often, two babies in a buy-one-get-one-free deal. I had not appreciated the 8 week long preamble that leads up to this part, in which you must self-inject with a truly astonishing (or so it seemed to me, when it arrived by the truck load in a giant box on the back of a transit van one evening) volume of drugs. You inject nightly, always at the precise same time, 8:45pm for me. As some of the drugs have to be kept refrigerated, this means always being at home in time to take them. If you get the timing wrong just once, it can muck up the whole cycle. I remember once racing back up the A38 from a massage with Patrick, my sponsor, at St. Mellion clinic, to get home in time. It's pretty stressful. 

This goes on for weeks. One drug shuts your whole reproductive system down (this phase is called “down-regging”) and puts you into a menopausal state and you get to experience the delights of every symptom that goes along with that… hot flushes, sweating, headaches, and mood swings like you would not believe. The next phase (referred to as “stimming”) sees you start to inject another drug that stimulates the ovaries, causing them to go beserk, get huge and produce multiple eggs ready for retrieval. Cue mega bloating, constant cramping, back ache and a 7lb weight gain in as many days. Oh, plus the continued mood swings, emotional outbursts, generally feeling like shit etc etc and the risk of contracting a potentially fatal side-effect called OHSS if the ovaries become too stimulated. Finally, after 4 delightful internal ultrasound scans, you arrive at the egg retrieval phase. Cue another injection timed to the minute to trigger the egg release at precisely the right time. Egg retrieval – usually done under sedation unless, like me, you don’t handle sedation very well, so in my case purely on gas and air, is followed by 5 long days of waiting to see if any of the eggs fertilise in the lab. You await the daily phone call from the embryologist to update you with the current state of play. From 10 extracted eggs, we had 3 valid embryos by day 5; one of which was put back into me, the other two frozen in storage for potential future use. For me, the embryo transferal did not go well; she struggled to navigate my apparently complex canal, resulting in me bleeding a lot. The night I got home I had bad cramping and more bleeding and, basically, I think I lost the embryo that very same night. But I don’t know this; I still had to assume I was now pregnant and act accordingly, avoiding alcohol, processed meats, pates, soft cheeses etc. You have to ride out the hellish period that they call ‘the two week wait’ before you can take a pregnancy test 14 long days later. That day happened to be my Mum’s birthday, 12^th May. It was negative. 12 months riding the emotional IVF rollercoaster and it had all been for nothing. The realisation that we would have to go through all of this again, only next time pay thousands of pounds to do so, was crushing.

All throughout this procedure, you are advised to exercise minimally in the 6 weeks of injections leading up to the egg retrieval, then from that day, for the next three weeks, you cannot exercise at all beyond a 30 minute daily walk. For someone who uses exercise as an emotional coping mechanism and stress reliever, I cannot tell you how hard it was to have to abstain. It was like going cold-turkey off an addictive drug! That 3 week period was the longest I had ever gone without exercise since I was 14 years old…. A fact I think I must have pointed out to poor Matt at least 10 times!! After training through all that miserable, cold winter weather, the sun and heat had finally arrived and all I could do was watch the strava uploads as all my mates went out cycling without me and stole my QOMs! Hard, but there was no way on earth I was going to “cheat” and disregard clinical advice, as, if it didn’t work, I wanted to be sure, for peace of mind, that there was nothing I did that could have impacted it.

We took the negative test on May 12^th at 7am. By 9am I was lining up on the start line of Exmouth parkrun. Might as well get back to it and focus on getting fit for the world championships in Denmark, now I’m not pregnant. The next day, the 13^th, despite 8 weeks of little or no training, I took up my place at the Exe Valley Triathlon. I should have just coasted it for a training run out, but competitive Ellie had to push and ended up buggering up her left leg again in the process. No baby, no running, and likely now no world championships. Not in the best place I’ve ever been, physically or emotionally….. and then, 5 days later, after being unwell since a botched hernia operation in January, my Dad very nearly died. Long long story there, which I won’t go into here because it’s too upsetting to recall it, but thank God he didn’t. My Mum and I found him in time, and he is now fully fixed up and back to full health. But it certainly put a few things into perspective. The world duathlon champs suddenly seemed unimportant in the scheme of things. What matters most is health and family: I was lucky that I still had both and so I had every reason not to wallow in negativity, but to pick myself up, be thankful to still have my Dad and the unfailing love and support of my husband, family and friends. Time to kick back, go easy on myself, just do exercise for enjoyment for a bit and not worry about any competitive goals for the moment. And the IVF? Well, we certainly aren't keen to go back to Fertility Exeter, and we needed a few months to take stock, allow my body to reset itself, and then consider our options.

One month later, following a relaxing weekend away in London in a lovely spa hotel, I was pregnant, naturally! I found out in the doctor’s surgery when I went for a check-up following the failure of the IVF and all the emotional upset I had been through with that and my Dad’s situation. She made me do a urine test and it revealed I was pregnant! I was absolutely flabbergasted. My doctor was too! We danced around her surgery, hugging each other. She was so thrilled as she has been on this whole journey with us and been such an advocate of our cause, constantly chasing results and making enquiries on our behalf. She was thrilled that she was able to share the special moment with me. That was the 14^th June, just 3 days before my 35^th birthday and 3 days before father’s day…. What an amazing birthday and father’s day gift!

My wise old Gran, who passed away in December 2013, aged 97, and is my own personal hero, had a plethora of axioms that she would periodically impart when occasion demanded. One was “good things come to those who wait” and another, “even the stormiest tides turn”. You were right Grandma, they do. They really do. From worst month ever to best month ever, life’s great storms sometimes engulf you and all you can do is ride them out, because, eventually, even the stormiest of tides turn and spit you out onto a sunbathed tropical beach. 

First time in my life I've ever had a belly! It's taking some getting used to, but proving useful for added buoyancy in the swimming pool! ;-) 

Annus horribilis

For those who don't speak Latin, no, that's not horrible backside, it's what the Queen endured in 1992 and in modern day parlance would be best described as a year from absolute hell. I am having one right now. 

Boy, oh boy. Where to begin with this one? Soooooo much has happened since my last post, and none of it in any way good. If I listed it all it would read like an Eastenders script. My whole world as I knew it has been flipped on its head over the last two months and it has certainly highlighted to me what is important in life and how trivial the insignificant things that I previously stressed over, such as doing well at parkrun or in my local sprint tri, are in comparison. I’m not going to give all the details because it’s personal, involves other people whose privacy I must respect, and the whys and wherefores are all irrelevant anyway. The point is, a lot of difficult things have all occurred within a short space of time, a veritable annus horribilis, and made me realise two things: 1) I am stronger than I realised, 2) I need to give a few less fucks about what other people think of me, by which I mean people who are not important to me: those whom I’ve never met, vague acquaintances, racing rivals, social media followers etc. In the past I would be scared about showing up out of shape to a race through fear of who would see the results and judge me on that poor performance without knowing the circumstances that led up to it. Now I realise that the people who matter already know what’s going on and why I ran slowly / took it easy / ran out of steam, and if they don’t know, then it’s because their opinion doesn’t matter.

With that in mind, the day after being given the medical all clear to recommence exercise, I decided to take up my place at the Exe Valley Triathlon. I had already spent £40 on the entry and couldn’t sell it on, so I thought what do I have to lose? I know I’ll be rubbish, I know it won’t feel anything like where I left off 2 months ago, but what the hell, just go and enjoy it. It was a warm sunny day, 5 of my fellow N1 club mates were racing, I had nothing else planned, so why not? It’s truly terrifying how much fitness you can lose in 8 short weeks. I posted my slowest ever 400m time (8:08, the only time I’ve ever raced a 400m in over 8 minutes). I had zero rhythm, my arms ached after just 16 poxy lengths and I was gasping for air. My usual bilateral breathing was cast aside after just two lengths in desperation to get more oxygen into my lungs. The bike felt the least bad of the three disciplines; I still had power in the legs but I had no puff, so the second I hit an incline, I’d be wheezing like a billygoat, when that is where I normally make my gains. The run was atrocious. Aside from the no exercise thing, I hadn’t run for some time before that with a calf niggle, so this was the first time I’d run in well over 2 months. No rhythm, no puff, no leg speed. I usually post the fastest female run split at tris and make up for the crappy swim on this discipline, but today I was outside the top 10 fastest times, taking nearly 23 mins for the 5k. Disastrous. I finished 7^th female and 3^rd in my age group; the only time I’ve finished as low as this was at my very first ‘trial’ triathlon in 2014 when I swam breaststroke, got changed into dry clothes in T1 and did the bike leg on a rickety £150 hybrid! But who cares? I enjoyed it as I had no expectation on myself to “perform”. And who cares what people think (if indeed they even care!) when they see the results? I know the score and I can now come in stealth and sock it to them next time when they are expecting me to be crap again! It’s good to keep people guessing!

Hmm, now, can I still remember how to swim after 8 weeks? ... In fact, I could n't really swim before, so whatever. Que sera sera.

Let's get this show on the road. 3, 2, 1...

It's all about the tongue!

I get by with a little help from my friends. With one of my besties, Jane. She and my other cycling buddies have been amazing these past few weeks. I appreciate you all.

N1 massive at Exe Valley Tri.

The past few months have truly confirmed who my real friends are. They are the ones who aren’t afraid to contact you through fear of saying the wrong thing or not knowing what to say; they are the ones who keep letting you know they are there and thinking of you. It has also confirmed that I have the best support network around me, from my amazing GP, to my sponsor, Patrick of PDW Sports Massage, to my physio Nigel at Honiton Physio, and to my coach, Chris of Tri Coach Cornwall. None of them have put any pressure on me to get back into training; they have all been kind and supportive and let me know that they are there and happy to help in any way they can.

My season is now panning out very differently to what I had envisaged. The World Duathlon Championships in Denmark in July are off the agenda: after 3 weeks of reduced training and 5 weeks of no training, in fact, of no exercise whatsoever, there simply isn’t enough time to get fit enough to be competitive. It is a shame I opted for the standard distance and not the sprint, as, with the latter, I may still have had a shot, but gaining both speed and endurance within a 5 week turnaround simply isn’t feasible. Not to beat around the bush, it’s a bummer. I was in the shape of my life when I qualified in February and definitely in a position to challenge for a medal if I could continue to build from there. But, shoulda woulda coulda…. I can’t. Circs have conspired against me and 2018 simply isn’t proving to be my year. But, oddly, having made the decision not to go to Denmark, I am now much happier. I felt worse with the indecision: Should I go? Will I be happy to go knowing I’m nowhere near full fitness? Would I rather go and enjoy the experience with my friends Jane and Moira (who have qualified for the sprint race) even though I know I won’t be able to match the performance I delivered in Soria? Would I rather just go and watch and support them? Would I be able to handle being there and yet not being a part of it? If I do give it a go, will I wreck my body for the rest of the season and then regret it? There was simply too much pressure and uncertainty and, in the end, Matt made me realise that what I actually need is a proper relaxing holiday, with no race attached, to just get away from it all. So that’s what we’re going to do and the competitive focus will shift to the Europeans in Ibiza in October, allowing me time to prepare properly.

So, this summer my main goal is now to just have some fun and get some joy back in my life. I really loved the Nello sportive last year, but I only did the 55 mile option…. There is also a 100 mile option and I have never done a century ride, so that is currently piquing my interest. Problem is, it’s in three weeks’ time and I am presently only up to about 50 miles… but I do relish a challenge! Also, the 100 is the same price as the 55, and the Yorkshire lass in me appreciates value for money! I may also enter some local tris and low-key races later in the summer, if I fancy it. No pressure. Coffee rides with my buddies though are very much on the agenda; Garry and I have plans for a Tour de Devon ride, sampling as many of our favourite coffee stops on the way!

So many thanks as always to the usual suspects:

Patrick Ward of PDW Sports massage for staying loyal to me and continuing to sponsor me, even though I won’t now be achieving all the things we had planned for the season.

Chris Dominey of Tri Coach Cornwall: for all his support as both a coach and friend and for not pressurising me by allowing me a free reign to make decisions in my own time.

Nigel Wilman of Honiton Physio: without question the most talented, knowledgeable and trustworthy physio I have ever seen (and trust me, I’ve seen a lot of physios!). In it for all the right reasons; a true master of his profession.

All my friends, both local and afar, for all your support. Too many to name you all, but you all know who you are and how much I appreciate you all.

My Mattie. Always there. Always fighting my corner. Always patient, kind, thoughtful, caring. Husband in a gazillion! Mwah!

Stuck in an endless winter....

The snow has returned. In vast volumes. It is minus 2 degrees outside. It is blizzarding. Races have been cancelled left, right and centre. It is mid-March. It is *meant* to be spring. For the past four months it feels as though we have been stuck in an endless winter that shows no sign of abating. I hate winter. My last blog entry was so upbeat and positive.... apologies in advance as this one isn't so much....

East Devon in mid-March, not the Artic circle...

Yesterday, Saturday 17^th March, I was meant to be competing in the Clumber Park Standard Distance Duathlon. The irony is that this was intended as a back up race in case Anglian Water, one month earlier in mid-Feb, got cancelled due to snow / ice / adverse winter weather conditions. I thought Clumber was the safer bet of the two. Although conditions at Anglian were far from tropical – 1-2 degree temps, ice on the ground and a thick fog to start the day – at least it wasn’t dangerous to the point at which it had to be called off, and at least I managed to achieve my A-goal of the season of qualifying for the world champs. Clumber was therefore going to be for “fun”, giving me another chance to perfect my race strategy over the standard distance, to race my time trial bike and see what difference that makes to my bike split, and to pit myself against Britain’s top duathletes in the National Championships that were to be incorporated into the race.

On Thursday we started to get warning of a ‘Beast from the East Mark #2’ heading our way. Had I been racing we would have travelled up to Nottinghamshire on the Thursday to make a weekend of it. The forecast looked grim and not my ideal racing conditions. I have also been lacking my mojo somewhat since Anglian; I think having ticked that qualification box and had such an unexpectedly great race there, Clumber was never going to get me fired up to the same level. My training ticked over in between, but when the ‘Beast from the East Mark #1’ hit two weeks ago, I was quite content to have a few kick-back days and not hit the watt bike sets as hard as I usually would. When I came in from work Wednesday evening and I couldn’t even be arsed to think about packing all my kit, this was a sure sign that I just wasn’t up for racing. If the forecast had been nice, I’d have gone, maybe raced it at 90% effort and just enjoyed the event and the weekend break away with my Mum, but the forecast looked grim for the entire weekend and I am a notorious wimp when it comes to feeling the cold. Decision made: no Clumber Park Duathlon for me this year. Then Friday came, weather warnings worsened to amber, and the race was officially cancelled anyway: phew, right decision not to travel.  

As my husband still intended to head to Morcombe for the weekend with his Dad to watch Exeter City play (he is a devout supporter), I am on my own for the weekend. I decided to visit my parents in Exmouth yesterday and do Exmouth parkrun. It all started off fine, zipping along at 6:40m/m pace, barely out of breath and with several gears left to work through if needed but knowing I was comfortably first lady. I was thinking how fit I felt at the moment and that 6:40m/m now feels like a comfortable jog…. then I felt that all too familiar feeling; my lower left calf starting to tighten and cramp up.

What do you call it when the logo on your running tights asks if you are all right directly over the spot where you have just torn the muscle? I want to say irony, and yet that seems woefully inadequate in this instance...

The first time I experienced this, during the Plymouth Hoe 10 race in 2013, I thought it was just cramp and I could run it off. I didn’t recognise it as a calf strain and proceeded to speed-limp through the remaining 7 miles of the race as I was representing Devon so felt the pressure to finish, tearing it completely in the process and being unable to even walk on it after. I then tore it again in June 2013, and again in February 2014. Since then, I have come close to tearing it a further 2 or 3 times, but I now recognise the signs and know that it is NOT something I can run through and that if I push on, it will go. There is gnarly scar tissue in there that just hasn’t healed properly and so it is a weak spot. If my calf is ok, then often my achillies will start to give me bother, and for the past 5 years the injuries have swapped back and forth between these two sites, never allowing me to run more than 20 miles a week or farther than 6 miles in one go in training. Over the past year, working with Nigel at Honiton Physio, I have done lots of strengthening exercises and my left leg has been the best it’s been in that 5 year period. However, I am acutely aware that I walk a tight rope with it every day. I don’t do speed work, I keep off the tarmac as much as possible, I do yoga and S + C work every week, I stretch it, foam roll it, get regular massage on it…. but it remains weedy and functionally useless. I struggle to believe that I will ever run a marathon again on it, and as that used to be my best distance, that is hard to accept. Indeed, I only took up triathlon because of it: if it would allow me to train properly, I would still just be a runner: cheaper, safer and gives me a buzz and feeling of satisfaction much higher than I get from swimming and biking. Last weekend I took part in a trail race at Castle Drogo and absolutely loved it: running along wooded trails aside a gushing river Teign, I felt that much-missed sense of freedom that comes with running unhindered through the countryside. You don’t get that on a bike as you are too busy watching out for hazards and crazy motorists all the time. Sure, I have achieved things in multisport that I could never have achieved in running alone: representing my country and winning a medal at the European Championships being top of that list… but I would give that up in a heartbeat to have the pre-2013, injury-free Ellie back….

When I look at the high mileage other runners bang out, week on week, month on month, some of them doing no strength work at all and yet never getting injured, it is very easy to feel aggrieved and hard done by. I just have to remember that I do not have a monopoly on injuries, and plenty of others go through similarly debilitating injury-recovery cycles. I get that injuries are par for the course… it’s just that most seem to get over them and come back stronger, and I never do. Each time it takes me longer to get back and I never regain the speed or strength I had previously. Meh, I am wallowing in a touch of the woe-is-me, which I generally do not like to do. But my husband is now stuck up North, I am snowed in the house yet a-bloody-gain and there is seemingly no end in sight to this long, cold, miserable winter.

Nothing for it but learn to embrace the rest. I know that I need to have a rest period now anyway as I have been training hard since last October without a break and, mentally as much as physically, I need to regroup and recharge. I am also about to embark on a rather involved and unpleasant medical procedure and have been advised not to exercise during this time, other than a bit of light swimming and jogging…. well, calf says no to that last one, so swimming it is: yay! Lucky me! My favourite...

It would be nice to be able to get out for some easy coffee rides with my buddies too. Jane and Moira have now both successfully qualified for the sprint event at the world champs and so we have all booked an Air B and B in Fyn, in Denmark, so it would be nice to continue our fortnightly visits to the velopark in Torbay to train together... these usually end with coffee and cake and a girlie natter in M&S afterwards! It would also be nice to reinstate our regular Friday gang coffee rides. Anne, Garry and I enjoyed a lovely, sunny ride to Powderham Castle this Friday gone and there was a distinct feel of spring in the air…. shame that the following day it literally snowed on our parade. 

Basically, I need to indulge in a bit of much needed ‘self-care’ over the coming weeks and reduce my stress levels. My coach Chris has signed me off for the next month so I do not have any demands other than to focus on rest and downtime. I plan to do all the non-sport related things I love to do but just don't have the time for when in full training, like visiting some of my good longstanding friends in Cornwall for a long-overdue catch up; indulging in lots of long baths with Epsom Salts and a good book; and doing some lovely walks and pub lunches with my husband... once this latest bout of snow has melted and he makes it back from Morcombe that is. Crucially, I need to accept that my body needs and deserves this rest time and that I should not feel guilty for indulging in it. Inevitably I will lose some fitness, but that can be regained and the process of getting fit again may well be more enjoyable than fighting to keep fit through tedious gym sessions and swimming. Thank goodness for my sponsor Patrick at PDW Sports Massage, as I am going to need all the help I can get over the coming weeks to get my calf sorted so I am able to pick up the running again relatively quickly upon my return to training.

But really, if spring could just put in an appearance, the temperatures could sneak into the double figures and this snow could piss off, then that would really help lift my mood.

Thanks as always to my coach, Chris, of Tri Coach Cornwall, who has proven himself this past week to be a rather good life-coach as well as tri coach in offering me some sage advice!

And to Patrick at PDW Sport for the on going massage programme: my left leg is really going to need your healing skills in the coming weeks!

We're going to the Worlds!!!

As I removed my leggings ready to jump into a steaming hot bath back at the cosy 15^th century coaching inn we were staying in after my exertions at the Anglian Water Standard Distance Duathlon were over, you would think I had participated in a duathlon cross, so great was the deposit of mud that fell off them onto the pristine hotel bathroom floor. No, in fact it was a road duathlon but one which took place in zero degree temperatures, in a thick fog and with a hilly, muddy off-road run that saw 300+ duathletes all start at once on a narrow trail path that runs alongside Grafham Water. I thought I had thoroughly researched the course, but the volume of hills on a path that runs adjacent to a lake caught me by surprise: you were either running up or down something, there was no real flat to speak of. Mind you, hills can feel worse when you can’t see the end of them and with visibility at the start of the race for the first 10k run at around 10m, you couldn’t really see much to be honest!

I always knew a race in the middle of February offered a higher than usual chance of offering up some harsh conditions. However, there are only 3 opportunities to qualify for the standard distance world championships this year, and one of those is in Stirling, in Scotland. East Anglia in February versus Scotland in March was a close call, but the former won out due to the travel distance being three quarters less! Trekking all the way to Stirling to puncture wouldn’t be a laugh. The other race is Clumber Park, which I had pencilled in as my back up option as it’s a month later, but as that race also incorporates the National Duathlon Championships this year, I knew competition there would be tough, so better to try and secure qualification at Anglian Water…. I hadn’t considered that that would make this race even more competitive amongst the age-groupers as people who were either looking to avoid the National Champs or else avoid a trip to Scotland would all rock up here!

I knew coming into the race I had had a good build up. You’d think that would provide some reassurance and a confidence boost, right? Well, not for me; it just provided added pressure as I had no excuses not to do well. Last year I went into the Clumber Park ETU sprint qualifier on the back of a 9 week long cough-cold-chest infection combo that massively disrupted my training and preparation. I ended up doing ok and won my age group and placed 4^th overall, but if I hadn’t done okay, mentally it wouldn’t have been a disaster as I could have soothed myself with the unction that I did the best I could, given the far from ideal circumstances. This year, there were no such excuses to hide behind: I hadn’t had so much as a snivel all winter and I had also enlisted the services of a coach, so I felt I had to put out a really strong performance to justify this, otherwise how could I write off a bad day at the office beyond the harsh reality that I just sucked?! No excuse-mongering, just go out there and nail it!

So, whilst the pressure was on (well, I had put it on myself), at the same time I was excited to get out there and see what I could do. I knew I was rounding into decent shape at the right time and I knew I had worked really hard to improve my biking all winter, so I was eager to see how this would translate to my performance on the road. Race day morning arrived and, as I sat necking a strong coffee and some protein enriched chia seed porridge in my hotel room whilst the dulcet Scottish tones of the women’s Olympic curling team hummed away on the TV in the background, I glanced out the window to see the cars all frosted up and a thick fog lying low. Not my racing conditions of choice! I know I feel the cold more than most so I decided to race pretty much covered from head to toe with long compression socks, Skins compression leggings, a base layer, my Tri Coach Cornwall tri vest over the top, a buff around my neck, a beanie hat on my head, and a thick pair of gloves on. When I stood on the start line next to other athletes who were just in a tri suit with bare legs and, for some, bare arms too, I did feel a little over dressed, but I also felt friggin’ cold and so I resolved to stick to what works best for me and avoid a repeat of the hypothermic Slateman suffer-fest of 2016! I can honestly say that at no point during that race did I feel too hot and regret the layers!

The start: very congested, narrow and chaotic. Not regretting the OTT clothing choices though, brrrr it was cold!

 The first run was congested, fast and furious. We all set off at once – all the men, all the women – charging down a narrow lake-side muddy path, dodging icy puddles in attempt not to soak and freeze my feet totally before the bike section. I don’t start fast, it takes me time to work my legs into a race, but even I was alarmed by the sheer volume of women who went charging off away from me into the misty murk. At about one mile in, I figured there were at least 20 females ahead of me and so I started to re-evalute my pre-race target of a top ten overall finish and a top 3 age-group placing. Approaching the half-way dead turn, I was beginning to find my running legs and I started to pick people off. 'Out' was with a tailwind and 'back' into a headwind, and my return splits were only 0.10m/m slower than my first 3 outward miles, so my usual metronomic pacing took over and delivered me into T1 as 6^th lady overall and 3^rd age cat. My husband said I passed a couple of females in transition (must be getting swifter at these!) and then I overtook a couple more very early on on the bike.  Approximately 5 miles into the 24 mile bike leg I caught and passed the leading female (though I didn’t realise this then, I estimated I was about 5^th overall at this point), but she was having none of that and came straight back past me. I kept her in sight throughout the rest of the bike leg but just couldn’t quite stay close enough. Entering T2 one of the marshalls told me I was 2^nd overall and the first lady was 30 seconds in front. Time to get to work.

Foggy as hell, and I am dressed from top to toe in black with no bike lights... yeah, I felt incredibly safe out there on the open roads bike course!

 Leaving T2, I instantly knew that all was not well. I usually bound away, running well off a bike, but not today. I tried to get into my stride and found my whole body just did not want to know. I think I had left too much out on the bike course and my tank was now running on fumes. Matt later told me that he had never seen me look so tired and drained coming off the bike (luckily he didn’t say this whilst I was racing, just a bit of vocal support in the form of, ‘Go on Ellie, dig in, you can do it.’). Unfortunately for me, the girl out in front was also a damn good runner; I haven’t prioritised the running this winter, so that, coupled with the fact that I was utterly knackered, meant I had no choice but to watch her disappear into the distance (the mist had now lifted and the hills looked even worse in the sunlight than they did obscured by fog!) I wasn’t focussed on trying to real her in, I was more concerned about the ladies behind catching me as I was struggling now just to put one foot in front of the other. “Only 5k, just a parkrun; come on, you can do this. Wait? A whole parkrun? Oh, bloody hell, that’s 20 minutes more suffering at least, I don’t know if I can do it”. I have never wanted to walk before in a 5k race, but I did today. Every time I hit an uphill section I wanted to walk so badly, my breathing rate was through the roof. Should a 5k ever feel this hard at this speed? In reality, my second run pace was only 0.15m/m slower than my first, but it felt horrendous, like I had no rhythm whatsoever and it was just a survival mission. The one plus was that aside from the winner, all the ladies behind me were finding the going equally tough, and some who posted a 38 min first run only managed 23 mins + for the second 5k run.

That finish line was a welcome sight. As was the smiling face of Joan Lennon, my team manager from the European’s in Soria, who is also going to be the manager of the Denmark world’s team. The first thing I said to her? “That was nasty; standard distance is hard. I think I’ll switch back to sprints!” But, second female overall (a minute behind first by the end), and an age-group win far exceeded my pre-race expectations. Looking at the names on the start list in my category alone, I would have been happy just to finish in the top four automatic qualifying spots; a podium finish overall never even crossed my radar. And, just to highlight how much tougher this new 35 – 39 age group is, the third placed overall finisher was also from this category, whilst the winner of the 30 - 34 age group (the one I’ve just been unceremoniously booted out of, despite still being 34!) was a full 10 minutes slower than me. As I told my mate Garry, getting old sucks!

Yay! Done. So incredibly done. In fact, done in!

Race done. Prizes awarded. Mist lifted. Aaaaah, there's Grafham Water!

Post-race recovery (in G & T format) in full swing by the log fire at our lovely 15th C coaching inn hotel in Buckden.

Protein recovery on board and prize giving swiftly done and dusted, I was back at the hotel room, depositing my mud on the bathroom floor and sliding into a hot, deep bath. Aaaaah. I felt physically drained for the remainder of the day…. Matt’s suggestion that we go to Ikea in Milton Keynes in the afternoon to buy some saucepans for our new induction hob was not met with enthusiasm, let’s say! The first 10k run at standard distance duathlon takes so much more out of you than the 1500m swim of a standard distance tri…. at least it does at the sedate pace I swim a 1500m at! Approaching T1, I felt like I’d already done my day’s effort after a hilly 39 minute 10k, then it dawns on you that you still have 40k of cycling and 5k more running left to do. Five days later and I have only run once since as my whole body has been so tight and stiff. Luckily I did get a really good sports massage last night to aid with the recovery…. which leads me onto my next bit of good news.

I now have a sponsor! For the rest of the 2018 season I will be supported by Patrick Ward of PDW Sports. Patrick is a former GB skier who now works in the sports industry and runs his own sports massage company. He is based in Callington but offers home treatments in North / East Cornwall and West and mid Devon (including Plymouth and Exeter) at super competitive prices, especially considering his vast array of qualifications and experience. He also does clinics at St. Mellion International Resort, so I went to see him there last night on my way back from catching up with Coach Dom in Bodmin and this morning my legs are feeling so much fresher again. Regular massage is key to maintaining good form and a healthy, injury-free body, so I am so grateful that I can now have access to free, regular treatments. With Tri Coach Cornwall looking after my overall training regime, Nigel Wilman at Honiton Physio helping me with my strength and conditioning program, and now Patrick at PDW on board to iron out all my tight and knotted muscles, I have a great support team around me to see me through to Denmark in July.

Before then though, I have another run out over the standard distance at Clumber Park on March 18^th. I am super excited about lining up alongside some of Britain’s top pro triathletes, such as Lucy Gossage, and seeing how far off I am in comparison. The plan is to race Ninja, my Specialized Shiv Elite time trial bike with my new Planet X deep rims (kindly donated by my N1 club mate, Nick Johnson) and see what difference that makes to my bike split… however, after a very hairy session on it at the Torbay Velopark in the wind this morning, getting buffeted about all over the track, I must say that if it’s forecast to be windy, I will be packing Lively into the car instead!

As always, to finish with some thank yous:

Chris Dominey, my coach, who has brought my biking up to a level whereby I am now doing the reeling in on the bike section as opposed to trying to hang on to avoid being reeled in, and who has set me a sensible plan for the past 4 months so that I haven’t over-trained and gotten tired and ill, as in all previous winters!

Nigel Wilman, physio extraordinaire.

Patrick Ward of PDW sports for offering me such a fantastic sponsorship opportunity.

My family, including my parents, Matt’s Dad and, of course, my Mattie, for their continued support and belief in me.

Race ready? In February?!

Just over a week to go until my first race of the year – the qualification race for the World Duathlons Championships in Denmark in July – so now seems like as good a time as any to reflect on how my training has gone over the winter and assess the shape I am in heading into it. First point to note, winter is far from over yet and, judging by yesterday’s negative temperatures, is still in full swing. Next weekend's race, the Anglian Water Standard Duathlon, comes very early in the season, unusually so; all the other duathlon qualifiers are four weeks later, mid-March. This has brought about challenges in terms of timing my training build up to peak at the right time. Usually February would be the middle of a big block of winter base training, where I put down some steady, big miles without much intensity. Timings have thus had to be tweaked to accommodate a mid-February race and everything brought forward a couple of months. This meant no backing off over the Christmas period, trying to still get out on the bike once a week to keep up the endurance, and introducing high intensity workouts in January in the form of hard intervals sets on the turbo / Wattbike, multi-brick sessions and tempo runs. As this has all been done whilst the weather is still freezing, it automatically ups your injury risk as muscles are liable to tear much more easily when cold. (No small coincidence that all three of my left leg calf tears have been in either January or February.)

The second point to note is that throughout this winter build up, since November 2017, I have been under the watchful eye of a qualified triathlon coach: Chris Dominey of Tri Coach Cornwall. (No, not coincidental nomenclature, he is in fact Matt’s cousin). If I was going to pay for the services of a coach, I might as well keep it in the family! I have mentioned before how much of a change this has meant for me in terms of my training. I am many things, and stubborn is most definitely one of them! Giving myself over to a coach who has a completely different approach to training to the one I have always employed myself, and allowing him to take control of my entire training regime has represented a HUGE upheaval to my familiar modus operandi. Trusting that someone else knows what is good for me better than I know myself has been a monumental challenge. At first, I freaked out slightly at the lack of control I had over my own schedule. The lack of freedom to do what I want, when I wanted, as I had always previously done, annoyed me somewhat in the early days as I struggled to adapt to the new routine. Having my running volume cut back from four runs a week to just the two when I am actually doubling up in distance this year to tackle the standard (10k run, then 5k) has been a cause for concern! As has doing three swims a week (more swimming than running? but I am training for duathlon?! And I hate swimming!) and being told that I couldn’t do my beloved parkrun every Saturday morning was another change I took a while to get on board with! (I confess I may have tried to find sneaky ways around this latter, like incorporating a parkrun into a brick-set or into a longer tempo run!) BUT, and this is a big but (almost as big as my butt after 3 months of hard turbo sets!), I have stuck with it; I have stuck with the plan. Chris’ oft used saying is ‘Trust in the process’, and whilst it is hard to do that initially, when the process has only just begun and you have yet to see any positive adaptations resulting from it, I trusted that Chris is a professional with far more experience than me when it comes to knowing what athletes need to do in order to improve. And now, almost four months into the program, I am totally seeing the benefits.

The main focus for this winter was to improve my biking as Chris felt that this is where I could make the biggest time gains. I thought my biking wasn’t too bad, because I do a lot of it, I am good on a hill and I have a high fitness and endurance base, and am not afraid to hit the hurt locker and raid the pain parlour. My potential scope for improvement on the bike was highlighted by the two FTP tests I have done as part of my coaching plan. My only previous experience of an FTP test was in January 2016. I had only owned my road bike for 6 months, I hadn’t even got the cleats for it and was still cycling on flat pedals. The result I posted was apparently not too shabby for someone with such little experience. When Chris had me do the test in November 2017, I was miffed to have only increased by 3 poxy watts. Less than a 2% improvement. I couldn’t understand it: nearly two years of cycling at least 70 miles a week, much more in summer, for only a 3 watt gain?! It came as no surprise to Chris, who told me on one of our telephone catch ups, ‘You’ve been training as a runner who does a bit of cycling as cross-training and commuting; you’re not a cyclist’. At the time I was mildly insulted! Not a cyclist? But I posted the fastest bike split in my age group at the European’s last April! It’s only now I have gone through 3 months of specific cycle training that I concede he may have been right… I hadn’t previously done any cycling-specific training, so how could I expect to improve my FTP? In January, after 2 solid months of structured watt-based training, I did a retest and was up by 15 watts, which equated to an 8% improvement over the eight previous weeks. Not a shock to Chris, but a nice surprise for me!

From the outset I was always a little fearful that a shift to focusing on cycling would mean that my running would drop off. And yes, it did a bit initially in terms of top end speed, but the endurance hasn’t deserted me and the strength I’ve gained in my legs from the bike translates well onto the hills and off road running: the fact that I won all six of the hilly, muddy, multi-terrain races I entered last year and yet didn’t place higher than 3^rd at the fast, flat tarmac stuff is testament to that. Over the past 6 weeks though, as Chris has had me doing twice-weekly brick sets with the runs done at target 10k race pace, I have definitely sharpened up and this resulted in the fastest 10k (39:44) I have run since May 2016 and my fastest parkrun time (19:05) since July 2016; I also set a new female course record at Seaton parkrun (19:20), all within the last couple of weeks. Since January, Chris has introduced a weekly multi-brick set (bike-run-bike-run-bike-run-bike) into my plan and this has been an absolute killer! Both the cycling and the running had to be done at tempo effort (Z4 H/R, 8 RPE scale) and they left me ruined each time. They also garnered me some rather interesting looks when I did the bike element in the gym on the Wattbike and then kept charging out the door to use the cinder track next door for the runs and repeated this four times in succession! But by God do they make you fitter and used to running fluidly off a hard bike. No more jelly legs for me!

Tackling one of the three energy-sapping pebble sections on route to setting a new course record at Seaton parkrun.

I would also like to add in here a big shout out to my physio, Nigel Wilman of Honiton Physio, as he has managed to do what I was beginning to think was the impossible and get my battered, broken body to a place whereby it is strong enough to cope with all these workouts. I previously avoided brick sessions in my own training regime as running off a bike on tight calves would have been a big injury risk for my weak left leg. After 4 months of dedicated strengthening exercises, lefty is still weedy but less weedy than he was and getting stronger by the day. Before seeing Nigel I had tried humpteen other physios, all of whom had come up with a different diagnosis on the cause of my lower left leg issues, but none had hit upon a long-term cure. I had been prescribed two sets of orthotics by two different podiatrists: neither set did any good. It has been a combination of some great advice by Lou Nicholettos of Cornwall Physio (St. Austell), who analysed my gait and found that I was over-striding, and got me to modify my running style by lifting my cadence from 170 steps to an average of 185 (190+ for speed workouts and racing) to bring my leg underneath my body when it makes contact with the ground, and Nigel’s strength program that identified inherent weaknesses in my whole left side, meaning it was just too feeble to cope with the impact demands that running puts upon it, that has seen me running pain free, niggle free and with confidence for the first time in 5 long years of repeated injuries. I cannot tell you what a joy that is.

The other massive up side to having a coach and a set plan is that Chris is very careful to monitor my fatigue levels and make sure I have adequate rest and recovery between the hard sets; a) so I don’t get over-tired and ill, and b) so I have the energy to hit the hard sets hard and get more out of them. I almost daren’t say this with 10 days to go until race day, but I haven’t been ill at all since Chris has been setting my training, when last year I was picking up a bug every single month, no exceptions. If left to my own devises, I will always convince myself that I am not doing enough. I look at the handful of female athletes on Strava who train for 20+ hours a week, along-side their work, motherhood, a social life and whatever other array of super-human feats they effortlessly seem to juggle. I seldom notice the hundreds of other athletes who do less than me: they are inconsequential. If Chris tells me I’m doing enough, I believe him. I trust he knows what is best for me and that sneaking off to an extra spin class will be of no benefit to me whatsoever…. in fact, it could be detrimental. The body needs down time for adaptations to occur: you get fit when you rest. It wasn't until I experienced this for myself first hand these past few months that I now believe it. So, even if having a coach means having permission to be what I would otherwise class as lazy, then this is another benefit, because I would never give myself permission to lounge on a sofa all afternoon doing nothing: far too indulgent!

So, thanks to my timed-to-perfection training plan, I am virtually race-ready and raring to go. The question now is: can I translate all of this improvement onto the tarmac? The other downside to a race so early in the season is that I have not been able to do much riding outside to gauge my form on the road. Apart from the staple weekly 2-3 hour coffee ride with my buddies, all my cycling has been done indoors, on the turbo or Wattbike. No wind indoors, no rain, no hills, no potholes to avoid, no traffic, no crap on the roads… I have only ridden the bike I will race on a couple of times at the velopark circuit as I haven’t wanted to risk clanging it through a pothole. With just over one week until race day and the weather looking very cold and grim, I am grateful that I have given myself a back-up option in case something goes wrong at Anglian Water. It could be icy on the day, I could be ill (this time last year I was in the throes of a two-month long cough-cold-chest infection combo that derailed my training from Boxing Day right up until the end of February). There are just a lot more things that could potentially derail your chances of a good result when racing on the open roads in the middle of the British winter.

The ideal scenario is that I finish in the top 4 of my age group at Anglian Water and gain automatic qualification. Incidentally, I have just gone up an age-group this year to the 35-39 (eeek) and it is waaaaaay more competitive that the one I’ve just come out of. Last year I came fourth overall at Clumber Park, but I won my age group…. Why? The first three ladies were all 35 – 39 year olds. There are many reasons it is so talent-rich; one is that this is the age at which the pros get past their best and “retire” from elite level competition and step down into the age-group stuff. Two, lots of women aged 30 – 34 are out having babies (…. Humph, chance would be a fine thing…) and come back better than ever on their post-baby, breast-feeding boosted bodies. Thirdly, 35 – 39 seems to be the peak age for a woman for endurance, so women who previously competed in single sport events and who have lost their speed edge branch out into a sport that allows them to utilise the endurance they have built up over the years. Either way, a glance at the ‘intention to qualify’ lists on the BTF website reveals that the F35-39 category is by far the most represented of any of the 12 different 5-year age groupings. Terrific.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail: I have a contingency plan! If I wake up feeling ill, or if the race is cancelled due to ice, or if I puncture, then I have Clumber Park pencilled in as a back-up option, one month later on March 17^th. Advantages of this are that I know the course and the layout of the transition area, and it’s a hilly route, which suits me. Disadvantages are that this year it also incorporates the British Championships, so all the elites and pros wanting to add a national title to their name will be lining up…. Lucy Gossage is already on the start list and just happens to be in my age group, so that’s my chance of repeating my age-group wins from the previous two years right out of the window! Best case scenario, I qualify at Anglian Water and then use Clumber Park as a pressure-free run out to gain more experience over the standard distance prior to the world champs in July and to pit myself against the best duathletes in Britain and see how I fair. It also means another weekend break at the delightful Clumber Park Spa Hotel, which is never to be sniffed at!

The downside to having a coach is that there is an added pressure to do well to reward all his time and efforts with a good performance. Previously, I was only accountable to me (bad enough, as I am a notoriously hard task-master on myself!). I will be racing in his kit and representing TCC as a brand, and so I want to do that justice as a thank you for all the faith he has put in this strong-willed, stubborn, swim-hating, run-addicted cousin-in-law of his. I can only control the controllables though and if something like a puncture spoils the party, well, just got to pick myself up and look forward to the next race.

Please send your finest anti-illness, anti-puncture, anti-ice, anti-rain, warm-weather good luck vibes my way on February 18^th!