December decision time

It’s December. The end of December. I said by December I would make a decision on whether or not I am going to the European Duathlon Championships in southern Spain in early March. I have still to decide. The deadline for making up my mind is 3rd January. I have a strong feeling that come the 3rd January, I still won’t have decided…

It’s not that I don’t want to go – I wouldn’t have gone to all the effort and expense of dragging myself, my kit, my husband and my baby all the way to Bedford in October to qualify if I never intended to go. It’s just that I kept thinking (hoping?!) that by now, all of Sylvester’s eating and sleeping issues would have resolved and that a trip abroad with bike, buggy and baby when he has just turned one would be feasible. At the moment it doesn’t feel feasible, largely because the aforementioned issues have not resolved!

We are still not much further on with weaning than we were 2 months ago. He can still only handle small amounts of food and reacts to a lot of foods. He is still on the same number of milk feeds (5 - 6 per day) that he’s been on since around 5 months. He still wakes on average 3 times every night. We’ve had a couple of random nights that have given a glimmer of hope where he slept until 3am, but I think that was the double-dose of calpol and calpol plug in when he had a cold and so, in hindsight, he was probably just out of it in a calpol-induced coma!

He’s also had A LOT of illnesses. Since September it feels as though he’s just stumbled from one illness to the next with barely a week’s respite between each bug. We’ve had several trips to out of hour’s doctors, MIUs, A & Es and we’ve had a couple overnight admissions to the children’s ward, all of which have been stressful and exhausting (even when poorly there ain’t a cat in hell’s chance of Sylvester sleeping soundly on a 6 bed children’s ward with the lights on all night and alarms going off every five minutes!). Illness messes up his sleep further and his appetite for solids, meaning more setbacks with weaning…. It’s all so heartbreaking for him as he is otherwise the happiest, most cheerful, contented little boy who just loves life and making new exciting discoveries each day and he has absolutely no patience for being ill! There’s nothing I’d like more than to take him to Spain to watch his Mummy compete and enjoy a family holiday at the same time, but the idea of him getting ill in another country feels like an all-too-likely and overwhelming possibility.

So sadly, I think Spain will likely be a no-go. Shame, as the location, Pumta Umbria, looks lovely. The other factor is that I am not that fit at the moment as I am hardly doing any training. Between Sylvester being ill and thoughtfully sharing each and every germ with me, I have been in a constant fuzzy-headed fugue of tired, snotty grottiness for the past 3 months! I still walk on average about 6 miles a day with him in the buggy to get him to nap, so after this I have limited energy or enthusiasm left for running or cycling. Plus the unlikelihood of me going to Spain has been lingering at the back of my mind and so I have not really committed to any form of structured training in preparation. Furthermore, I bloody hate winter and cycling in the cold wet weather, which I’d have to do if I was serious about giving the Europeans a go. And lastly, I am quite enjoying prioritising being a Mum, and trying to be the best Mum I can be, my most important and valued role. In years to come, I don’t want any regrets that I missed out of key moments of joy in his development because I was out on a 3 hour bike ride, or ploughing up and down a boring pool. All in all, I just think the champs are too soon in March and I would be better off building slowly towards the Worlds in Amsterdam in September instead…. And surely he will be sleeping better by then, at 19 months old?! (Pleeeeeeease let him be sleeping better by then….)

That all said, the benefits derived from breastfeeding continue to amaze me. To say that I only run on average about 10 miles a week, with just the one parkrun as “speed work” and the rest being slow miles with the buggy, I am actually churning out some decent enough times. On Christmas day I managed 19:39 at Seaton parkrun, which is only 19 seconds slower than my Seaton course best, which was run when I was being coached by Chris in my build up to the world duathlon qualifiers in February 2018 and was super fit. Breastfeeding oxygenates the blood so is akin to being on legal EPO! I hardly feel out of breath and am only held back by my leg speed, which will only improve with speed work and track reps, but that is too risky injury wise. So, from a running perspective, I am fit enough to be up the front on the first 5k and get in a decent working pack going onto the bike. With the champs being draft legal, my cycling fitness doesn’t need to be as high as previous, provided I can get on some good wheels and stick with a pack. Yeh, so, basically, one day I think Spain is on, the next, it’s off…. And I have one week left to make the decision and commit…. Ho hum…. Decision time!

Back in the sub-20 min club again at Seaton parkrun. Yippee!

2019: that's a wrap!

“Stay away from the painted red and white hash sections unless you want to kill yourself”. The parting words from the pre-race briefing at the Bedford Sprint Duathlon did not fill me with joy. This was a qualifying race for the European duathlon championships which will take place in Punta Umbria in southern Spain in early March 2020. Having qualified for the world champs at Darley Moor 3 weeks previously, I wasn’t as fired up for this race, particularly since my almost 8 month old had been ill on and off ever since. I had also been ill - my kind and thoughtful son likes to share everything with his Mummy! - so on the back of this and the resulting worse sleep than our already low benchmark, I went into the event feeling physically and emotionally drained. When I pitched up at the autodrome circuit on race morning and it was pouring with rain and blowing an absolute hooley, my main motivation for racing was not to place well but to get it done with as fast as possible so I could minimise the time Sylvester (and Matt!) had to spend out in the elements! Every race I have done with Sylvester in tow it has rained, which brings added challenges when the event is staged on an exposed motor racing circuit where the only shelter was the gloomy pit garages and the filthy portaloos!

Something has shifted in my focus since Sylvester turned 6 months. Up until then, it was as if I acknowledged that I was now a Mum, but the ramification of that life-changing status hadn’t yet really hit me, but around 6 months it did: with a sledgehammer! I suddenly felt nervous when riding out on the roads on my bike. Every car I heard approaching from behind I would find myself getting super twitchy and thinking, ‘Please give me room, please don’t come too close’. Whereas up until now, a lovely ride in the sun around the Devon countryside was my means of switching off and having some ‘me’ time, now it was putting me on edge and I found myself thinking, ‘What are you doing? You have a little baby at home who is completely dependent on you. What if you seriously injure yourself?’. It doesn’t help that since I last rode, before finding out I was pregnant, there has been a marked deterioration in the attitudes and behaviours of motorists towards cyclists. I get it, there are a lot of cyclists on the roads now, and yes, if they are in a large group and don’t pull over and hold you up for miles then it does get annoying, but when I ride solo I always tuck in at the soonest opportunity. Sadly this is never soon enough for some drivers who don’t want to adjust their speed for even a nano-second and would rather put you in a hedge or under their wheels than add 5 seconds onto their journey time. It’s a sad state of affairs and another blog post in itself, but I can’t control their behaviour and as long as I continue to ride on the roads, I am guaranteed to keep encountering these ‘near misses’, and, who knows, maybe one day an actual hit. It’s not worth the risk… so I have bought a Watt Bike! Had my eye on one of these beauties for a couple of years after using one at the local gym to improve my base power when coached by Chris of Tri Coach Cornwall before I got pregnant. So my plan for the time being is to do all of my bike training on this and at the velopark and only ride on the roads when absolutely necessary, chiefly for races.

Luckily the two qualifying races I’ve done have both been closed roads at autodrome circuits. This latest one being my first experience of draft legal racing (both the worlds and Euro champs will also be draft legal). I was quite excited by that possibility but wasn’t sure how it would pan out: would I have a decent group to work with? Would someone take the lead in controlling the group or would that person have to be me? I decided pre-race that, if necessary, I would take control and if the other riders weren’t taking their turn at the front, I would be prepared to either ride away from them (if able) or drop my pace and force them to come through. I didn’t want to do all the graft and tow people round for them to then drop me on the second run, as my run still isn’t back to full pace yet so I can’t rely on it to the extent I could pre-baby.

The gun went and we all set off as one huge group: men and women of all age groups. It was hard to see where I was in relation to the other females, but I knew I was quite far back generally as so many people were in front of me after the first mile. I set off with the mindset of ‘you can get top four in your age group and qualify comfortably without burying yourself, so just try to enjoy it’. How you could enjoy running into a monster headwind, wading through ankle deep puddles and being pelted full on in the face with rain, I wasn’t too sure, but either way, I wasn’t in the mood to push hard from the gun so I settled into a comfortable rhythm. I was surprised after the first mile to see my watch bleep at 6:20: it felt slower. Hmm, if 6:20 feels comfy, that augurs well. Next mile: 6:20… I am a metronome when it comes to pacing! I was slowly starting to reel in ladies who had started too fast. Still no idea as I entered T1 as to where I was placed, but just get on the bike and see what happens. The thing with duathlon is you can never predict how the race will pan out. Sometimes the faster runners do not make great cyclists: a lanky running physique often lacks the strength and power needed to go hard on the bike. Similarly, chunky cycling thighs don’t always make for a fast run. I like to think I sit somewhere in the middle: not the fastest at either, but pretty solid across both disciplines. I soon began to catch some of these faster runners on the bike and realised that there was absolutely no point trying to work with them as their bike was far too weak and I would be better going the 20kms alone than reducing my efforts and pace just for the sake of sitting in a pack. With the sprint distance, there isn’t much point trying to save your legs for the final run as the final run only amounts to around 10 – 11 minutes of effort anyway.

After a while I caught a girl who was the fastest on the first run (19:17 to my 19:48) and a fairly decent cyclist. I didn’t know at the time but I had now overtaken all the other ladies and so the two of us where sitting as first and second overall in the race. I would pull away on the straight sections, but she handled the corners better than me (I was being super cautious in the wet and windy conditions) and get back on my wheel again. So I suggested that we work together… in hindsight this proved to be a tactical error as I was essentially helping the fastest runner in the field to enter T2 alongside me, at which point I would duly get ditched… but I hadn’t calculated this at the time. My first experience of draft legal racing was very much a steep learning curve as far as racing tactics are concerned! At this point I had no idea where I was positioned; hell, I had no idea where the bike laps started and finished and how many laps I had completed: I just charged out of transition on a mission and didn’t stop to take notice of these minor details!!

Towards the end of the fourth and final bike lap, I started to pull away from the girl I’d been working with, but was soon caught by another female who then pulled away from me: a slower runner, but faster cyclist. I was therefore still (unknowingly) sitting in second spot overall. The wind was really picking up by this point and some of the tight corners were getting pretty hairy: one had the sobering sight of an ambulance on it and a battered bike lying on the ground next to it. I took the last corner fairly steadily but got caught coming off it by a strong crosswind and before I could correct my line I found myself heading onto the infamous white and red hash paint that we had been warned to avoid. Shit. Don’t brake, don’t turn the wheel. Keep straight, sort it out after. Unfortunately the ‘after’ was a concrete drainage ditch: a better surface in terms of grip, but with sloping sides that made it hard to correct your position and get back on track. Just about managing to avoid ‘phase three’ of the track departure process (chiefly: hashed paint – draining ditch – long grass) I managed to safely turn the bike and get back onto the track. Still upright. Disaster averted. Phew. Note to self: need to work on my bike handling skills in crosswinds at the velopark…

T2 was a sloppy affair, with my run shoes now being sodden it took a lot of faffing to get them on. Finally underway on the run, the first half of which being into a strong headwind, I could see I was slowly gaining on the girl who had overtaken me on the bike. She was about 400m ahead at the start of the run… over 2.5k I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough time to reel her in. I was also mindful that the girl I had worked with for much of the bike, but from whom I had pulled away on the final lap, was also closing on me. Race on! I held my own into the headwind as I could use my strength, but as soon as we turned, the athlete behind me was able to use her superior cadence and pace and reel me in. In the end, after 5k – 20k – 2.5k of competing, it came down to a sprint finish, with the three of us all finishing within 7 seconds of each other. I couldn’t quite catch first, I ran out of room, but I did get caught just 10 meters from the finish line, and so ended up as the third finisher. Disappointing that I couldn’t have found a bit more pace in that final run, but I can’t expect miracles when my run training currently consists of three 3-4 mile buggy jogs at 9m/m and one parkrun a week! Had you said before the race that I would win my category, make the overall ladies’ podium, and be only 7 seconds shy of the outright win, I would have laughed you out of town. So, in conclusion, I think I did ok.

This photo shows how close it was for the top three: all three of us in the finish funnel at the same time, just 7 seconds separating us.

Out-sprinted for second place: my fast twitch muscles twitch even slower than they did pre-baby!

Third lady overall, 1st in age cat = auto qualification for the 2020 Euro champs

So, now for some much needed rest, for all of us. As I type this, we are just back home after yet another hospital admission for Sylvester. This has meant yet more disrupted sleep, considerable angst and more illness for the both of us. I have yet to decide whether or not I will take up my place at the European champs. They are at the beginning of March and Sylvester will have only just turned one, and right now, with all his sleep and health issues, I just cannot imagine the stress of going abroad with him and all his kit and caboodle, plus all the kit needed for racing. As my husband said last time, maybe bikes and babies don’t mix…. So far we have been away with him five times and three out of those five have resulted in him getting ill and ending up in hospital. I could not cope with this stress in another country. I just couldn’t, and it wouldn’t be fair on him. Plus the main point of doing these events is that they are fun and also enjoyable for my family. If they become a chore, then what's the point? But 5 months is a long time in the life of a baby, and maybe he will turn a corner with his reflux and his allergies by then. We can decide later. In the meantime, we all need to get well again, stay at home lots, maybe just stick to some local parkruns and enjoy ourselves as a family without the stress of racing. It's felt like a long season but in reality it's just been a lot of events compacted into a short space of time: Darley Moor worlds qualifier, Honiton Sprint Triathlon (in which I placed 4th lady) and Bedford Sprint Euros qualifier, all within three weeks of each other. It's just been unfortunate that for most of those three weeks, Sylvester has been ill... and when he gets ill, so do I shortly after! Also, travelling to events with a baby is infinitely harder work than it was as just a couple. Gone are the pre-race long hot baths and chill out sessions; the focus now is 99% on him with my race preparations shoe-horned into the remaining 1% of the time. Much is the same for the post-race recovery process. So I now need some exercise-free weeks to recharge the body and the mojo. There is still plenty of pram pushing to keep my legs ticking over in the meantime and my new toy (Watt Bike Atom) is sat there waiting for me when I feel ready to resume training!

Ready to roll at Honiton Triathlon!

In the prizes at Honiton: I've done it this local race three times and placed 2nd, 2nd and 4th... if I could shake off the coughs and colds and learn to swim, I might one day win it!

Bikes and babies do not mix?

Bikes and babies do not mix. Such was the conclusion my husband arrived at Thursday morning when an almighty ‘bang’ sounded as he was attaching the bike rack to our family estate car, breaking the gas strut in the boot in the process which forced its way through the gap between boot and car and warped the metal out of place whilst doing so. We were just putting the final item (namely, the bike) onto the car ready to depart for the trip north to Derbyshire to take part in the ITU World Duathlon Championships qualifying race, to be held on the Sunday at Darley Moor Motor Racing Circuit. Now the boot was broken, in fact, wouldn’t even shut because it had a great hunking wad of metal protruding out of it, and we were faced with the only other possibility which was to transfer everything into my car. Unfortunately, my car is half the size and so that meant a strict ‘downsizing’ of kit had to follow. Size limitations have previously deterred us from taking my car away to a race weekend, yet here we now were attempting to do so with the added kit and kaboodle that a baby brings to the party (he might be small but the amount of equipment he needs is vast)! The broken car was left unlocked on the drive with the boot open (luckily it was a sunny day!) with a message on my FIL’s answerphone to kindly come and sort it out for us! It wasn’t a propitious start to the weekend but one that set the tone of things to come….

Finally underway with paired down kit (I mean, of course we can all wear the same clothes we were travelling in for 4 days, no probs; and why would Sylvester need toys when we he’s just an enamoured by household objects and I’m sure the cottage would have a wooden spoon and a saucepan he could merrily bash away at). We were on the road!

The cottage we rented was in a tiny hamlet called Onecote, in a valley in the middle of the Peak District National Park. It had no mobile phone signal. It also gave me bad vibes the minute I set foot in it. Not bad vibes as in spooky, because I don’t believe in any of that crap, but bad vibes as in it was cold (colder than outside!), dark and unwelcoming. I didn’t like it. Matt said I was being stupid but it just gave me the heebie-jeebies.

The next minor calamity came when we unpacked the car and I decided to take the bike out for a short spin to make sure it had arrived in one piece (my steed has previously always enjoyed luxury travel within the warm, plush interior of the car; Sylvester’s arrival has ousted her to face the elements on the exterior and her pretentious carbon-fibre-self was none too happy about it….) I got my track pump out to inflate the tyres to discover that the presta valve attachment had failed to make it as far as Derbyshire… No test ride for me that afternoon then but a trip to the nearest town (Leek) to source a new pump. Walking around the town, the buggy got it’s fifth puncture in 2 weeks… I deemed the odds of me having a mechanical issue during the race to have just intensified based on this continuing streak of bad luck. Two pump purchases later (yes, two… don’t ask!) and both bike and buggy were reinflated. Rekkie ride done – a blustery affair on the ridge up above the valley we were staying – on the Friday and Congleton parkrun done on the Saturday at full half-pace with Sylvester in the running buggy (plus a sixth buggy puncture on the cool down lap!) and my legs felt good to go for the next day. A good night’s sleep was all I now needed….

Reading to rock and roll at Congleton parkrun.

Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen. Now, Sylvester’s sleep is far from the greatest – indeed, it’s a whole other blog post in itself – but we’ll just leave it as that for today. But I was now used to 3, 4, 5 wake ups each night and had been surviving and training just fine on that. Too bad then that the minor snivel he had when we came away had now turned into a full blown chesty cough and streaming cold. At 7pm when we tried to get him down he was inconsolable and running a high temperature. We took him to the MIU in Leek before it shut at 8pm to get it checked. Ok, just a cold said the nurse. Lots of calpol (a baby’s equivalent to crack; they can’t get enough of its sweet strawberry goodness!), lots of cuddles, lots of fluids. 3 breastfeeds, a life time of cuddles, as many lullabys as I could think of and ten Hail Marys later and he was still screaming like a banshee and refusing to go down in the crib and his temp was still high, despite the calpol. Instinct told me that this was more than a cold. Too bad we had no mobile phone signal and were stuck in the middle of bloody nowhere with nothing more than calpol and a thermometer to deal with the escalating crisis. By 3am, when he was still screaming, none of us had slept and with me now beside myself with worry, we all got in the car and drove to Stoke Hospital. We eventually got out at 7:30am with a diagnosis of a severe ear infection in both ears, some antibiotics and painkillers… (I think they were meant for Sylvester, but in my sleep deprived state they looked quite appealing to me too at this point…)

Sat in a cramped, overcrowded paediatric A&E waiting room with a screaming, poorly baby at 4am, it was looking highly doubtful that I would be racing later that morning. Still sat there at 5am, there was no way I would be racing. When we finally got out we both decided that we wanted to head home that day so we could get our boy back home to his familiar environment that night. We could either go back to the cottage, pack and drive straight home, or go back to the cottage, pack and just about make the start of the race – which would take me about an hour to complete – then head home after and try to salvage something from an otherwise naff weekend. I hadn’t slept, I hadn’t had the breakfast of free-range eggs from the village farm on fresh sourdough toast that I had planned to have to set me up for the later race start time… indeed, I hadn’t had breakfast at all. But I had energy bars, I had coffee, I had a bucket load of adrenaline coursing through me and a can-do attitude, so why the hell not give it a go? I like a challenge…

Before anyone berates me for putting my racing ambitions over my baby’s health, that was absolutely not the case. What Sylvester needed at this point was sleep, and as ear infections hurt more when a baby lies down (hence the screaming each time I tired to put him in the cot), the best place for him to sleep was either in his buggy, being pushed around by Matt whilst I raced, or in the car seat driving home, so that’s what we did.

So, as this has historically been a blog about my sporting exploits, I guess the actual race finally deserves a bit of coverage. It was the last event of three offering a qualification opportunity for a place on the GB team for the 2020 world duathlon championships (the other two races were in spring, when I had just given birth, so basically, this was my only chance). I knew that I am not fully back to pre-pregnancy fitness. The bike isn’t far off, but the run is still about a minute down over 5k on where I would usually be at a qualifying event. (I have only just broken 20 mins again, where I would normally be doing around 19 for the first run of a duathlon). The bike course, however, was not ideal for me, whether fit or not. I am a climber with a high power to weight ratio, and I love to get out the saddle and punch my way up inclines; this course was mildly undulating at best, on multiple laps of a motor racing circuit, so it suited the stronger, more powerful girls on TT bikes. Weirdly, this qualifier was draft-illegal, even though the champs will be draft-legal… not sure of the logic in that. I decided not to race my TT bike as a) I haven’t ridden it since February 2018, and b) I won’t be able to race it at the actual championships (not allowed TT bikes or aero-bars in draft legal racing), so I didn’t see the point in racing it here.

The start line - an all ladies wave made for a more exciting race.

There were a few familiar names and faces on the start list. One girl who I have had some great battles with at three previous races was there. Pre-baby, we were very evenly matched. Here at Darley, she went on to both win our age category (F35-39) and win the ladies race outright… I finished three minutes behind as 10^th lady overall and 2^nd to her in our age group. My run was one minute slower (I did a 19:39, so a post-pregnancy 5k best on no sleep – that’s at least encouraging!) and a 32:30 split for the 20k bike. That gives me a rough idea of where I am at fitness wise: a minute to find on the run, the bike wasn’t my ideal course, so hard to judge that one, but my time was a minute down on the faster ladies, and my second run was well up there, so it’s coming together. Given the previous night’s stresses and its inevitable toll on my body, and being 7 months post-partum, I can only be pleased with a top 10 performance. Got a whole year now to get fit! One big positive, my second run off the bike was the exact same pace (6:26m/m) as my first run on “fresh” legs, and this despite having done absolutely no brick sessions. I know I am a bit of a metronome when I run and this confirms it. I know, as an athlete and as a coach, that brick sessions should be the bread and butter of a duathlete’s race build phase, but if I don’t have the time to do them given my hectic Mummy schedule, I’m not going to worry.

The 20k bike course was 8 laps of a motor racing circuit. Mainly flat, a couple of drag, didn't really suit me but a 32:30 (21mph av) split wasn't too shabby.

Finish line feels: happy to get the job done and get back to my poorly boy and get him home!

Next up? Possibly the local Honiton Triathlon on October 5^th (it got deferred from July after gypsies invaded the transition area the night before the race!), but the next big goal is Bedford Sprint Duathlon on October 13^th, which is the qualifier for the 2020 European Champs. So if the weather looks at all grim on the 5^th, I won’t be risking racing Honiton. Let’s just hope that our trip to Bedford is less eventful. Matt has already calculated the most direct route to Bedford Hospital from our hotel, as two out of the four times we have been away with Sylvester, he has ended up in hospital! Thanks as always to Matt, super-supporter, husband and Dad extraordinaire. Luckily little S. slept through the entire race and so Matt was able to park up him up track side, shout encouragement at me, and enjoy a well-deserved bacon butty from the catering van!

Oh, forgot the important bit - needed top 4 in age group to secure automatic qualification for the world champs and comfortably did that with 2nd, so Amsterdam 2020 here we come!!

With my two babies. Bikes and babies mix very well in my opinion. Husband: you're wrong!

Too bogged down to put a blog down...

So, blogging hasn’t happened in a while. That is because my six month old’s sleep hasn’t really happened either, and my ability to find time do the former is dependent upon his ability to do the latter. Clearly, we are both failing in our respective tasks. I used to blog when he was on me, asleep, in his sling, but he has now outgrown the sling forward facing and as there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance of him falling asleep outward facing when there is far too much to keep him entertained and awake, so we have lost that weapon in our armour. In its place: pram pushing. Miles upon miles of pram pushing. Congratulations to all those who correctly predicted that by running with him in the womb throughout pregnancy I was setting myself up for an active baby who needs to be in perpetual motion to sleep: you were right. But sadly for you, there is no prize! My prize? Being constantly on the go and perpetually knackered. His night time sleeping is still at newborn levels (waking and needing feeding in order to resettle every 2 hours) and up to 8 miles of pram walking a day makes for one extremely exhausted Mummy. On top of this, I have been trying to stick with my training schedule and doing some form of swim, bike or run training six days a week because, in a moment of madness, I decided to enter the ITU (world) and ETU (European) sprint duathlon qualifying races and try to make it onto the GB team for the world and Euro champs in 2020.

My fitness on the bike is back to where it was pre-baby, in fact, I almost think it is better. The average speeds I am hitting on what feel like easy aerobic base rides are far superior to where I was at 18 months ago. I haven’t done an FTP test to see where I am at power-wise and, to be honest, I don’t really care as I simply don’t have the time or flexibility to commit to a structured training schedule that works off numbers right now. Everything is done on feel as and when I can fit it in, but I have always been pretty good at judging my efforts on the 1-10 RPE scale, so I am just basing all my training on that. Not very scientific, but that is the approach I had prior to taking on a coach in 2018 and that is the approach that got me to the European champs in 2017 and got me a silver medal. Besides, it’s the only approach that logistically works for me and my family right now. If I were to follow a regimented coaching plan, I would just be left feeling constantly guilty: guilty that I am asking too much of others to help look after my baby whilst I train; guilty of not being with my baby when he needs me because my plan says it’s swim time now, not Sylvester time; and guilty to the plan and/or my coach because there would inevitably be several missed sessions when my full-time job as a Mum just takes priority over a training plan. It would add pressure to the whole thing and, right now, I am under enough pressure just trying to survive with a baby who doesn’t much see the point of sleep or who is in too much discomfort with reflux and teething to be able to sleep. What I need now is for exercise to be escapism, my bit of 'me' time, and for me to just enjoy it as and when I am able.

So I have put in for these qualifiers but am going into them not expecting much. The way things are going with Sylvester’s night time sleep, I know I will be towing the start line already knackered and therefore at a disadvantage to most of my fellow competitors who have had a nice easy taper week, put their feet up, got the good nutrients on board and had a few nights good quality slumber. I will be relying on coffee to get me through. Coffee and a can-do attitude… let’s hope it’s enough!

My running has ben steadily improving and my times also. This weekend I managed a 5k parkrun in 20:13; still two minutes down on my PB but only a minute shy of my best since I made the switch from being exclusively a runner to a multi-sport athlete in 2015. As my bikes times seem to have improved slightly, this should hopefully only see me around 1 minute slower than where I was at for the other qualifying races I competed in, in which I won my category on all three occasions (to qualify I only need to place top 4, so I am confident that this is achievable… baring mechanical disasters!!)

Nope, not walking a parkrun - walking to the start of a parkrun, namely Southwick in Trowbridge

Southwick parkrun - my 210th parkrun at 49 different events

And another new Post-partum parkrun Pb (a p-p.p.pb) of 20:13

I have been thoroughly enjoying the running and have been pleasantly surprised by how quickly I have regained my fitness. The leg speed has been slower to return, but the endurance – to say I am doing nothing longer than 4 miles in one go – is there. I was so shocked to place second lady at the ever popular and competitive Totnes 10k at the start of August and be only 1m30s slower than my course best time, which I set in 2013 when I was at my fittest and running all my PBs. Plus being able to reset the clock from the date I gave birth has given me a mental boost: rather than seeing a 20:13 parkrun 5k as a disappointing 2 minutes slower than my PB, I can see view it as yet another post-partum parkrun PB (or, as I have coined it, a quadruple ‘p’), and I have had the pleasure of setting a few of those over the past few months, seeing my times fall from the high 23 mins when I first started back, down to the low 20s. Very motivating! We have also been continuing our tour of the country parkrun by parkrun! My total now reaching 49 different events over 210 runs and 20 volunteers (with the goal of hitting the big 50 in Gloucester this weekend). Last Saturday was Southwick: we had to leave at 7am to get there, but that is no longer a chore when we have already been awake for 2 hours anyway!

Totnes 10k: one of my fave trail races; I have run it 5 times now

2nd lady, only 1m30s slower than my course best: a most unexpected result!

My 5 month old giving my prize his 'Syl' of approval...

Also, since Sylvester turned 6 months, I have been able to run with him in his running buggy, a big plus as it means I can now combine my training with his nap time: for a baby who will only nap in a buggy on the move, this now means 6 miles of walking and one 4 mile run as opposed to 8 miles of walking (4 naps x 2 miles each, minimum, assuming he is quick to doze off… longer if the first mile sees him still in the land of the wide-awake!) plus a separate training run on top, bringing my daily foot-fall to well over 10 miles…. all on the back of atrociously disturbed sleep. It’s a good job I am a naturally energetic person and powered by Duracell as I think lesser mortals running on cheap batteries from the pound store would have long since fallen by the wayside! But even I have my limits and this week has been particularly tough: terrible nights of teething and reflux screaming, doctor’s appointments, new medication, baby not gaining weight etc etc and the worry of all this on top of the sleep deprivation and training fatigue has even got to me, super-Mum (Sylvester bought me a mug for Mother’s Day that says I am, so it must be true!). There have been 3 rest days in the past 5 days: unheard of! (By "rest" I simply mean no training, of course that pram still needs pushing come rain or shine!)

Buggy running at Haldon Forest with my boy!

An unexpected side-effect of all these challenges is that I can literally eat whatever I want, in vast quantities, and I still weigh around 5lbs less than before I was pregnant. A lot of people have commented that I am looking rather slim for someone who recently gave birth and I think they assume that I have made ditching the baby bulge a priority, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. For once I didn’t care that my stomach wasn’t toned and my physique at last resembles that of a woman rather than an athletic teenage boy (I have the short hair again, but this time I also have hips and boobs, and so the question put to my parents at races in seasons gone by – ‘How old is your son?’ – should na’er again be repeated!) I was prepared for it to take as long as it takes to get back in shape as I now had something more important in my life than the vacuous achievement of looking fit and toned: I was finally a Mum!! Indeed, I was shocked by the rate at which the weight just fell off, especially in the two weeks immediately after the birth and I was back at my pre-pregnancy weight by 14 days post-partum. But when I do the maths, it’s not too surprising. 500 calories a day are burned just breastfeeding. I burn an addition 500 – 1000 (depending on the activity and length of it) six days a week doing my training; then there are the miles upon miles of pram walking (at least another 500 calories). Lastly, factor in that when I am at home, I am never just sat around anymore: I am running around! Changing nappies, doing the laundry, carrying a baby, playing with a baby, moving a baby from one activity station to the next because he got bored there after 10 minutes… and in between this there are multiple visits to the fridge to shovel food in. I am probably burning around 2000 calories a day on top of the 2000 I already burn just existing. 4000 calories a day is an awful lot of food to put back in, particularly when finding time to prepare and eat food is a challenge, so on top of my three regular meals, things like dairy-free cakes and chocolate etc have also featured. Bloody hell – there have to be some treats to keep me going and sadly gin and prosecco are still off the menu whilst I’m breastfeeding!

Got to skidaddle now: my boys are back! I sacked off a bike ride today because I am just too knackered to contemplate it and so my kind and supportive husband, who has taken the week off work to support me, took our boy out in the pram this afternoon to give me a couple of hours chill time. Chill time over: they are back! Hopefully write a post about how the qualifying races go (one in September, one in October)… so maybe get chance to write about them before January is over?! Who knows…. That is all rather dependent upon a certain little someone who is now here next to me, eyeing up my boob with longing (men huh, they never change in this regard!), so must dash!

Of todgers that squirt and those who bathe in dirt

In my last blog I spoke with good intentions of trying to be a little bit less perfectionistic and a tad more relaxed about things. I was under no illusions: I have had such good intentions innumerable times before and have inevitably slipped back into my old stress-head ways very soon after. I am the one who can’t sit still; the one who rolls up her yoga mat and leaves the hall before the savasana (relaxation) bit starts. I am the one who over-analyses everything and has the ‘not good enough’ record stuck on repeat in her brain. I am the one who never thinks she’s done enough training, who could do more, be more focussed, be more disciplined. I am the one who constantly compares herself to others (race-circuit triathletes who are faster than me; other Mums at the sensory class who breeze in looking effortlessly cool with their babies asleep in their carry-cots, whose babies don't cry, feed calmly then lie down on the floor to play with the toys, while I arrive in a flap, trying to juggle carry-cot containing already whimpering child, changing bag and backpack full of "essentials" and figure out how I'm going to change him, feed him and then keep him upright so he doesn't scream with reflux pain and disrupt the entire class). I am the one who always finds herself lacking. My husband both loves me and despairs of me for it in equal measure. He wishes I could still be the energetic, bubbly Ellie on the outside, but be equally as confident and outgoing on the inside. A life time of ingrained personality traits and behaviours is hard to change overnight though, but it doesn’t mean I can’t give it a damn good try and hopefully feel much happier within myself for doing so.

So, with this goal in mind, I have tried to start by shifting the focus of my athletic performance away from numbers, times, percentages, placings etc to experiences, enjoyment and accomplishment. In my last two races (also my first two races back since giving birth in February) my main aim has been to get round in one piece and enjoy myself in the process. As we are dealing in the realm of ‘feelings’ here, it’s hard to assess whether or not I have met these goals; however, for more tangible proof, I only need to look at the marked reduction in the number of pre-race toilet trips due to performance anxiety and nerves to surmise that I’ve at least in part nailed it!

My first outing was at the Anglesey Trail 10k in Newborough Forest, North Wales, on June 1^st. I entered this race in March after we booked our first family holiday to Snowdonia to visit who I affectionately refer to as my ‘Welsh family’ (Moira and Sarah, with whom I lived in Llanberis when studying for my PhD and working as a French tutor at Bangor University back when I took up running in 2010). In March, June seemed a long way off and so I was confident I would have increased my mileage enough by then to make running a 10k a feasible ask. Yeh. That didn’t happen. What did happen is that I got carried away feeling the amazing effects of breastfeeding extra-oxygenated blood at Seaton parkrun at 5 weeks post-partum and my legs were unable to match my lungs and my troublesome left calf cramped up at 2.4 miles. One minute I was trotting along euphorically as 2^nd lady, thinking ‘well, if I feel this good 5 weeks after giving birth, who knows what’s possible’, the next minute I was hobbling back to the car thinking what an idiot I was. I then couldn’t run for 3 weeks, followed by a very slow walk-jog rehab phase, followed by another slight calf tweak, followed by…. oh shit, the 10k is in two weeks’ time and I have only run two parkruns in preparation. I decided to give it a whirl, take it very conservatively and walk bits of it if I needed to.

Ready for the off. First outing for the AVR vest, as I joined the club a month before getting pregnant!

The gun goes and off I jog at a very comfortable 8m/m. I suddenly find myself right up at the front with about four other men and no women. I check my watch: still 8m/m and feeling easy, so just keep going at this pace. By some miracle, I soon find myself out alone in second place overall with just one guy about 200m up the trails in front of me. The race covers a stunning route, including sand dunes, springy forest tracks and more technical, twisting sections. For June, the weather is abysmal. Cold and wet. I worry about how Matt is coping looking after our 15 week old baby in these grim conditions, with nowhere other than the car for shelter. A good incentive to get back quickly and ensure they are both ok. The last mile is a tough slog into a strong headwind coming in off the sea and through thick, claggy sand. It’s energy sapping and my pace drops off to 8:45m/m, even though it’s relatively flat! The finish line was a welcome sight and the announcer calling me out as first lady and second overall is a welcome sound. Spectators are ringing cowbells and as I turn towards the finish I see there is a winner’s tape being held out for me to break. I am elated. I never expected this. I hoped, at best, to get around in one piece without my calf playing up. I ran relaxed and the win was a bonus but not the goal. The prize haul (see below) was pretty impressive too, even if hanging around for the podium presentations in the pouring rain put my husband into a grumpy mood and delaying my son’s access to boob juice put him into an even grumpier one!

We're off - 10k to go.. more than I've run in total in the previous 2 weeks!

Finish line feels! Taking the tape is always special, but when my husband and 4 month old son are stood by it watching, it's even more so!

Good prizes!

Next up, Killerton Sprint Duathlon. I had a deferred entry for this race as I discovered that I was pregnant 3 days before last year’s event and no way was I going to race bikes whilst carrying such long-awaited, precious cargo. Matt and I met at Killerton, doing the parkrun there, back in 2013. When I left my career in education in 2015, I took a job there as a ‘stop gap’ whilst trying to get pregnant. That took longer than anticipated (4 years longer) and so I am still there, though on maternity leave at the moment. It is a lovely place to work and an even nicer place to compete. The acres of parkland, contouring around a disused volcano, make the terrain challenging and varied. An off-road run and a road bike is my ideal combination for a duathlon and so this 5k – 20k – 3k sprint race ticked all the boxes. Typically our wee man, who is going through the dreaded 4 month sleep regression phase, decided to give us the worst night’s sleep since he was a newborn. Not ideal pre-race preparation, being awoken on the hour, every hour, from 11pm through to 6am, at which point he finally decided he would fall asleep until 7:30am, but I had to get up! Probably not Matt’s preferred way to spend his first father’s day either, being left holding the baby after a sleepless night whilst his nutter of a wife raced around the Devonshire countryside. I expressed a feed for Matt to give him and then I chugged 2 strong cups of coffee to satisfy my liquid needs!

Bit better weather than in North Wales for the Killerton Duathlon!

Last year this event offered both a sprint and a standard distance, but this year they only ran the sprint. This meant that two fields were condensed into one and so the line up was much more competitive. A quick glance at the ladies warming up and I deemed I would be lucky to place top 10. Then I remembered, do it for fun. No pressure. It’s your birthday tomorrow, this is your treat. Enjoy it. Be sensible. No expectations. Que sera sera etc. We’re off across the rutted, cow-pat covered field and my legs are slow to get going. Even when fully fit, I have always been more about endurance than speed, but since pregnancy they just don’t seem interested in anything quicker than 7m/m. Fitness-wise though, I felt very comfortable: all puff, no pace! I was well down the field after the first run – even though I did pick a few people off on my preferred uphill sections – and as there were relay teams in the mix too, it was impossible to gauge what position I was actually in. 

At the end of the first run.

The stunning grounds of Killerton make for a good run course.

Onto the bike and off to Collumpton! Wow! This feels amazing. Zipping along at 27, 28mph feeling easy. 6 miles later, turnaround at the farthest point of the course, realise why it felt so damn amazing: we had a considerable tailwind. So, headwind all the way home and as the field is now strung out, I am all on my own for most of it. I do note, however, a couple of groups engaging in some rather blatant drafting. I always race honest; even if that means a slower split and a solo slog into the wind. Integrity is more important than ill-gotten gains. My pace on the return leg is much slower but the overall 20k bike split comes in at 35:57 for a 20mph average: I’ll take that for my first race back! To be honest, on the start line, I had apprehensions about the bike. I wasn't sure how I would feel racing on open roads now that I have a tiny wee fellow waiting for me at the finish, relying on me to return in one piece. I have observed a marked decline in the attitude of motorists towards cyclists in the 9 months I had off whilst pregnant, and it wasn't in a great place to start with. Luckily this race was early morning on a quiet, open route and so I did not feel threatened. I think my days of racing time trials on the S26/10 course along the A30 dual carriageway towards Honiton may be behind me though!

Bike leg done! 20mph average: I'll take it!

The usual ungraceful mess at the dismount line and I spill into T2, nearly getting cramp trying to put my running shoes back on. Just the second run to go: come on legs, you can do it! But they can’t! At least, they are extremely reluctant to. The distinct lack of brick training makes its ugly presence felt and I lug my thunder thighs around the hilly 3k loop at a rather lacklustre 7:55m/m. But I make it and my strong bike split (2^nd fastest) sees me finish as 3^rd female overall. I tried to steer clear of having any pre-race expectations, but if I did, they were certainly not that! A podium place at my first multi-sport outing just 4 months after giving birth and on barely any run training: a performance to be proud of. A confidence giving performance too and one that has persuaded me to sign up for the GB team qualifying race for the 2020 European sprint duathlon championships. The qualifying event is in Bedford in October: hopefully enough time to get a bit fitter and to get to grips with draft-legal racing as this has subsequently been introduced since I raced for GB at the Euros in Soria in 2017.

Finish funnel thumbs up with buddy Anne watching on!

Back home and I decide to kill two birds with one stone by opting for a bath instead of a shower and having our baby boy join me to save both time and water giving him a separate bath later. As usual, his todger goes off all over me the minute he gets in the water, but I exact my revenge as I realise that my legs were covered in mud and cow muck picked up on the off-road run course around the Killerton grounds. I giggle at how we are both sat there, wallowing in each other's grime and urine, and both grinning away at it, happy as two proverbial pigs in shit! 

The day after the duathlon was my 36^th birthday and I celebrated it by visiting the Life Centre in Plymouth to have a much needed sports massage from my sponsor, Patrick, at PDW Sports. (Not quite a spa day and an aromatherapy massage, but of far more use to me!). Thanks to Patrick for his continuing support in 2019 and also for the parenting advice he simultaneously imparts to me alongside the massage. He is 2 years further down the parental time line with his little boy and so it’s definitely time well spent getting my legs flushed out whilst discussing green poo, the merits of Calpol, sleep deprivation and unruly bath-time todger incidents... amongst other things!

Good enough?

I am back in training. During pregnancy I was reticent to call any exercise I did ‘training’ as it didn’t have a specific end goal, other than to keep me relatively fit, healthy and sane. Now, however, the workouts I manage to squeeze in to my manically hectic weeks have more of a purpose and so training has officially resumed…. but it looks very different to how it looked pre-baby!

The biggest change is the lack of structure to my weeks. I fit in what I can, when I can, around being a Mum. This may mean that some weeks, such as those with a bank holiday when Matt is around more to help look after Sylvester, see me covering some pretty decent mileage, whilst others are thinner on the ground. A training week pre-baby would typically see in the region of 12-15 hours of various cardio, strength and yoga workouts; now 5 hours is a good week and 2-3 is more typical. This means a shift in focus from quantity to quality and the intensity of the workouts, particularly the cycles, is much higher. If I’ve only got 30 minutes before Matt has to leave for work, then I need to make those 30 minutes count and include some high intensity efforts. If my long rides are now limited to 90 minutes max between Sylvester’s feeds, then I hit the hills hard to ensure a good cardio and strength workout. It seems to be working as I am feeling super strong on the bike. The running, hmm, that is taking a little longer to crack.

After coming back too fast too soon at Seaton parkrun at 5 weeks post-partum and tweaking my left calf, I have had to reel the speed in somewhat. My brain is raring to race but my body just isn’t quite ready yet. All the muscles slacken off during late pregnancy to allow you push something the size of a melon out of an opening the size of a grape and those muscles take a while to regain their strength and return to normal after. I need to remember this and be mindful that my left leg is injury-prone at the best of times and so playing the long game is what’s needed. That said, I feel fit cardio-wise and I have now managed three parkruns in the 23 minute region running very much within myself, so it’s just a case of being patient, strengthening the legs and hopefully those times will continue to tumble.

I have mentioned before the positive effects of breastfeeding in oxygenating the blood and essentially giving your body the effect of being on natural EPO. A lot of women have benefitted from this and have gone on to produce PBs and outstanding performances in the year after giving birth. Ultra runner, Jasmin Paris’ Spine record being a classic example, but also Irish runner Fionnuala Birtton, who recently ran a 2h30 marathon 6 months post-partum is another who has been in the sport a long time, seemingly plateaued and then benefitted from a resurgence thanks to the effects of breastfeeding. Due to these well documented performances, and also to local club athletes I know who have followed a similar trend, there is a lot of pressure on me to go out and bust out a few post-partum PBs already. Mainly it’s a pressure I exert upon myself, but comments from other runners along the lines of ‘Oh, I expect you’ll be back in the sub 20-min 5k club again by Easter’ only add to that pressure. I am, by nature, a perfectionist and the hardest of task-masters on myself; add to this a highly driven, competitive personality and often highly ambitious goals and I pretty much exist in a pressure-cooker environment that sets me up for failure. My husband frequently despairs of me and recently bought me this book….

With a baby who won’t be put down, a home to run and trying to fit in training, I haven’t yet had chance to read any of it, but it is about learning to quash the inner voice that tells you that you aren’t good enough, that you don’t matter, that you have to be constantly amazing at everything and appear in control at all times whilst doing so. Essentially, it is about learning to silence the negative mind chatter – the monkey on your shoulder who leads you to self-doubt – and to learn to love you as you are, warts and all: someone who is not perfect but who is good enough. And good enough should be enough. I have the most adorable baby, whom I have been trying for for four years and had begun to doubt I would ever get; I have a loving, caring husband who provides for us to ensure that I can be a full-time Mum with the option of returning to work or not; I have a lovely house in a lovely rural location near to both of our parents; I have friends, plenty of them, and good friends…. This should all be enough… and yet a part of me still feels that this isn’t. A part of me still feels inadequate. I need to be an amazing athlete too. And I need to be the best Mum. Sylvester needs to have his tummy time, he needs to be stimulated, and socialise with other babies, and he needs enough sleep to consolidate his learning (he only napped in the sling for 45 minutes when the book says he should be napping for 2 hours), and he needs to hold his rattle, in both hands… and shouldn’t he be holding his head up now? (one of the babies at sensory class is the same age as him and holding his head up already, are we behind?)… and I need to take him to baby swim lessons to get him used to the water, and shouldn’t he be able to roll over soon too?... oh gosh, I haven’t read to him today – I must read to him to nurture his intellect… and why is he screaming all the time when the other babies are chilled? Is it me? It must be me, I must be a rubbish Mum.... Yes, the negative mind chatter applies to my parenting too and the perfectionistic pressures I place upon myself are in danger of being transferred to Sylvester…. God help the poor wee lad: I can only hope that my influence is counteracted by his father’s rather more relaxed approach.

So, my main sporting goals for the 2019 season have been somewhat tweaked. Finish in the top three at Honiton Triathlon and Killerton Duathlon and qualify for the GB sprint duathlon team for the 2020 Euros have been knocked down the priority list and replaced by the following:

•          Enjoy spending quality time with my family
•          Enjoy being able to train when I can and maybe do a few local races for the fun and endorphin rush
•          Venture to some new parkruns and find inventive ways that allow Matt and I to both run them (such as our baby-baton change over at Heartlands parkrun two weeks ago)
•          Remove the focus away from times/results and towards experiences
•          Be less ‘full on’ in my approach to everything and instead aim for a healthy, happy balance in life

·         Accept that ‘good enough’ will do just fine, thank you, and that Matt, Sylvester and my parents will love me the same whether I run an 18 minute 5k or a 28 minute one…

Good enough is just that; perfection is an unattainable goal. My value as a person does not increase as my parkrun times decrease. Being fit enough to even compete in a parkrun so soon after giving birth is a massive achievement in itself: I do not need to win the thing to justify my status as an athlete. In trying to fit everything in and in trying to be amazing – as both an athlete and a Mum – I am in danger of missing out on this precious time with my little miracle man. And Sylvester might not be the perfect baby, he has his health challenges with his reflux and he cries more than the average baby as a result, but he’s absolutely perfect to me. I might not be the perfect Mum, but I am doing my best and that is good enough. I might not be the fastest runner in Devon and busting out those post-partum PBs yet… I may never do that and my PB days may well be behind me. But I am running, and keeping fit, and doing what I can, when I can, despite the hectic schedule and diminished sleep and demands of motherhood. Surely, this is more than enough?

At Heartlands parkun in Cornwall - my 199th parkrun at my 45th different location

My 200th parkrun celebration cake, made by the lovely Anne Ephraums

Sylvester took a liking to the cake and made a grab for it - baby-led weaning on cake at 13 months?!

With N1 Tri club buddies Anne and Jim - Anne has been such a support to me since having Sylvester and often brings me baking or comes over to look after him for 30 minutes so I can squeeze in a run. Thank you!!