Time to stop faffing and start focussing!

 10 months since my last blog post! I think that gives you an indication of how hectic life is as a full-time Mum of two! 

When I gave birth to my second child at the end of February 2021, my body was in a mess. No, I think the word “obliterated” would be a more accurate description! I got off relatively lightly with my first pregnancy, managing to run parkruns right up to my due date, but this time things were very different. A low lying placenta picked up at the 20 week scan meant I had to stop running right there and then (October 2020). I could still swim and cycle, but pools were pretty much shut from that point onwards with lockdowns and so the wattbike it had to be. But also around this time, I started getting pelvic pains, later diagnosed as pelvic girdle pain. It got continually worse as the pregnancy progressed and in the last 8 or so weeks I couldn’t even walk without being in severe pain, let alone contemplate running. I was pretty much sofa and bed bound towards the end. For someone so active, it was a huge deal and my mood plummeted. I just wanted my baby out so I could get my body back! I gave birth 2 days before my due date but, to my utter dismay, I still couldn’t walk. I had hoped giving birth would make the pelvic pain stop, but it didn’t, it actually got worse and to the point that my hip kept giving way underneath me and made it unsafe for me to carry my newborn baby girl up and down the stairs.

 Several toys were thrown out of prams (and we're not talking about the baby’s or the toddler’s here), and then I went and saw my trusty physio, Nigel Wilman at Honiton Physio, who instantly sprung into action. When he said he could have me back running in 8 weeks I wanted to laugh in his face! How could I possibly run when I was wincing just walking the few steps from the car door to his treatment room?! But I should have had faith – Wilman the Wonder phys worked his magic as ever… and I did a hell of a lot of tedious rehab exercises. But I got there. By the end of April, I had taken my first tentative ‘Bambi on crack’ like steps back to running.

 It has been very slow, cautious progress since then. It’s been hard not to compare myself to where I was after my first pregnancy, not least because my babies were born almost exactly 2 years apart, both in February, so I have always had in the back of my mind “by June I was down to a 20 minute parkrun”, “by August I had placed 2^nd at a competitive 10k race”, “by September I had qualified for the world duathlon champs” etc etc. It was a stupid and fruitless exercise that had no meaningful relevance anyway as I was starting from a completely different place this pregnancy having not run at all for 7 months prior and being unable to even walk more than a mile for 3 months, but still my perfectionist mindset went there, berating me for my enforced inertia, my slow comeback and allowing me to become frustrated at my self-perceived lack of progress. The only thing was to avoid any targets for the remainder of the year in order to be kind to myself and to give my broken, battered post-partum body the time it needed to heal. And that is what I did.

Christmas day was my last chance to go sub 21 minutes at a parkrun in 2021. I knew I was capable of it, but illness, weather conditions, course conditions and just general family chaos and lack of time to train properly meant it hadn’t happened. I had clocked a 21:03, a 21:04, a 21:09 and a 21:10 without specifically pushing to go sub-21, just racing whoever was there on the day for positions. Christmas Day was naff weather and, to be honest, priorities change once you have kids and dragging my offspring out in the rain so I could run a sub-21 minute parkrun seemed somewhat low on the list, so we sacked it off. Then on New Year’s Day, I clocked 20:35 at a very wet, blustery Exmouth without even pushing for it, so I think the right decision and a marker set for 2022!

August 2021, Exmouth parkrun with my 6 month old in the buggy

November, Penryn Campus parkrun - New female course record

September - Henstridge airfield parkrun

July - Haldon Forest parkrun

So, now a modicum of fitness appears to have returned, it’s time to start getting more focussed for the coming year. I turn 40 in 2023 and so the qualifying races for the 2023 Euro duathlon champs, which take place this year, are a feasible target as I will move up an age group when I actually race the champs the following year (assuming I qualify). So that gives me a few solid months to get fit ahead of the qualifiers, then over a year to really up my game ready to race the vet 40s, who are a fearsome bunch… often more competitive than the 30-39s who, like me, have all been out having babies!

I have totally lost focus on my wattbike sessions, just bimbling away for 25 minutes (30 always seemed over-indulgent when I know that me taking time out to exercise involves my husband taking time out of his hectic work schedule), responding to messages on Wattsapp, flicking through facebook or watching the latest installment of the “What Boris did next…” on the news. But the couple of sessions I have done so far in 2022 have been more focussed, with my goals in mind for motivation, and, with some good tunes playing, I have suddenly found an additional 20 Watts out of nowhere. Probably still approximately 30-40 watts down on my FTP from 2019, but I have no intentions on putting myself through that hell by testing just yet.

 I also need to beef myself up a bit. Breastfeeding does something weird to my metabolism – it seems to ramp it up to crazy speeds and so, despite eating more than I have ever eaten in my life, I weigh nearly a stone less than before conceiving. My body has also changed shape and I find it harder to build muscle now, so I am on a mission to bulk up. This photo of me at a muddy trail race before Christmas this year made me realise that this gal ain’t gonna hold her own on the bike with weedy thighs like this! So I’ve been adding nut butters, chia seeds, protein powder etc to my baked oats every breakfast and have managed to gain back 4 – 5lbs the past couple of weeks and, crucially, my thighs have got a bit more tone and shape to them, so it’s going on in the right places!!

 Incidentally, this was a really cool 7.5 mile race with a 30m long slide in the middle of it, and the fact that I came home with a win made it even sweeter as I had only been running up to 5 miles and so my goal was just to finish in one piece!

So, time to focus. Faff time is over. It’s hard to fit training around looking after 2 small people full time, so I shoehorn in workouts whenever I get chance, but I am going for quality of sessions rather than volume. Recovery is also important and something that is often hard to come by when the 10 month old still wakes two to three (sometimes four) times a night and when the toddler only has to sniff a germ wafting in breeze 10 miles away and gets ill and shares it with the whole household (no covid yet, thank God, but tonsillitis, Strep throat, 7 x cold/cough combos and 2 vomitting bugs, all since September).

My other goal for this year is to get back into doing some triathlon and duathlon coaching. I hope to be able to do my BTF Level 2 coaching qualification later in the year and so I will be looking to work with a couple of people before then to keep building up my portfolio. Message me if you're interested. I have a duathlon and novice/nervous specialism, but happy to coach other distances and disciplines too. 

Not all pregnancies are created equal...

I gave birth to our second child, our precious little daughter Emmeline, on 28th February. Three weeks later, my body is still utterly wrecked. This pregnancy was sooooooo much harder than my first, at every stage, and I am so grateful I now have a beautiful boy and a gorgeous girl to complete our family, as I sure as hell won't be putting my body through another one! The morning sickness, anaemia, fatigue, nasal congestion, aches and pains, the tearing down below (we'll leave it at that... I won't regale you with any further descriptions of how my mashed up muff now resembles a badly stuffed kebab...) and ongoing issues after (piles - oh, what an absolute joy they are) have all been much worse this time round.  The worst thing by far though has been the debilitating pelvic girdle pain. In my first pregnancy, I ran, cycled and swam right up until my due date. This time, I was pretty much housebound from week 34 onwards. 

For anyone not familiar with pelvic girdle pain, it's basically when all the muscles surrounding the pelvis slacken off to allow the pelvis to open and subsequently push a head the size of a melon out of an opening the size of a grape. The hormone that generates this process is called relaxin, and it builds up throughout pregnancy, but it is also generated by breastfeeding, and as I continued to feed my first child 5 months into this pregnancy, my body basically got a megga dose of it. The muscles are then too weak and dysfunctional to support the pelvic bone structure and, as a result, the bones grind together and flippin' hurt. In many cases, the issue resolves soon after giving birth, but breastfeeding can prolong the recovery. 3 weeks postpartum and I still can't even walk. Just shuffling around the house is excruciating agony and my right hip feels as though it might give way beneath me at any moment... not ideal when carrying a vulnerable newborn around with you. It's pretty miserable and, for someone so active, it's really impacting on my lifestyle and sense of self. 

I did start back on my Wattbike at 8 days postpartum, and it didn't seem to make the problem any worse, but then, it certainly wasn't getting any better, so I have reluctantly decided to stay at home and do sod all for a week to see if it helps the healing. This is honest to God the longest period of inactivity I have ever endured in my entire life and it's mentally killing me! Physically, I know I can bounce back to fitness as soon as I am pain free and able to resume training, but sitting on my arse all day every day is just so completely alien to me, and I've been doing it for over ten weeks now, so it's wearing a little thin. I just have to keep telling myself: short term pains for long term gains, and it's best to rest now, during lockdown, than when things start to open up again and the good weather comes. I am booked in to see my trusty physio, Nigel Wilman at Honiton Physio, on Monday, so I hope that he will be able to work his Wilman magic and give me a rehab program to chivvy things along a bit.

That's it really. Not much else to tell. Marathons now mean all night booby feeding sessions; HIIT training means trying to stay mentally sane enough to accept the situation and not HIIT my head against a brick wall; and Ironman is the ongoing supplements I'm taking to try and stave off the anaemia. My identity as a triathlete has very much been replaced by my identity as a Mum. And that is just fine with me... though the Ellie who wants to have her cake and eat it (and without putting weight on), most strongly identifies as a Mum-who-tris (as opposed to the current 'tries'), and that is the me I will strive to get back to, whilst enjoying precious time with my wonderful family of four and some down time from sport in the meantime. Thank God there are no events or parkruns to tempt me at present anyway! And, who knows, if I am playing the long game and aiming for a comeback in the vet-40 ranks, this break may well do me some good!

Workouts are out; sofa snuggles are in!

Pandemics, (non)parkruns and pregnancies... thoughts to round off 2020!

So, apparently it was April that I last penned a blog post. I began that post by musing that it would soon be Christmas.... and indeed, it now is! That was the early days of the pandemic, when we were all basking in the blissful ignorance of what was brewing in the months ahead. Where we knew that the situation wasn't great, but then, SARS, MERS, Ebola and all those other exotic diseases that experts warned could engulf the planet weren't great, but they never lived up to their full threat. April, where we filled our windows with handcrafted rainbows, emerged on our doorsteps every Thursday evening at 8pm in collective appreciation of our NHS and where there was a countrywide sense of unity and "in-this-togetherness". April, where the sun shone endlessly and the long light days were full of picnics and woodland walks and family time and embracing the situation as an opportunity to reset and to reconnect with the important things in life. That was then; this is now. The centre of winter. 

I have never been a huge fan of winter. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I suffer with SAD, but I am really sensitive to the cold and definitely feel less inspired to go out when it's a dull, cold, wet day. I find the winter months a real slog, briefly enlivened by the providentially placed Christmas holiday, but otherwise a chunk of time that I regretfully find myself wishing away each year. If we got the picture-postcard perfect white winters of old, I might think differently; but as climate change seems to deal us a wet and soggy hand these days, there isn't much to get excited about. I have always struggled with winter training too: give me the sun and 20+ degrees to run or cycle in any day! Anyway, this year, this is all an irrelevance as there are no races.... and I am currently 28 weeks pregnant with Baby D. v. 2.0. Being pregnant in a pandemic is in many ways not ideal, but then, it isn't like there has been an a great deal else to do these past few months!! So rather boringly I have followed the madding crowd to become the butt of the "Oh so that's how you kept busy in lockdown" jokes. A Corona kid; a quaranteenie... whatever this generation of offspring will come to be known as, we couldn't be more thrilled about it. Currently planning a home-birth for my due date in early March to avoid the germ-infested hospital if at all possible. 

So, whilst I have of course been missing parkrun and the thrill of a race, knowing that I wouldn't be able to push the pace at the moment anyway definitely assuages my competitive brain! Somehow, being unable to participate in events that are happening and that others are participating in is harder to cope with than there being no events full stop. FOMO and all that! So when 9am on a Saturday comes, I haven't really thought much about that old absent friend, parkrun, as we have just settled into a new routine without it. Parkruns happening and thus forcing me to make some difficult decisions about whether or not the joy of participating outweighs any potential associated risks to both me and baby, would be harder than there being no parkrun... as selfish as that sounds! I am confident that the whole virus situation will be a lot more positive in the Spring, as the vaccine machine hits its stride and the balmy weather helps to suppress the virus as it did over the summer months. See, there's every reason to dislike winter, as even the bugs and nasties are at their most virulent during this time!

And not all pregnancies are created equal. Looking back now, I can reflect that I had a pretty easy time of it during my first pregnancy. I had a bit of anaemia that somewhat stole what should be the energised middle trimester from me, but I managed to stay on top of it and keep up a relatively high exercise volume throughout... I now know why: I didn't have a toddler to look after! I could go to a spin class as I could then come home after, put my feet up on the sofa and rest for the remainder of the day. My 21 month old doesn't go to nursery as I gave up work to be a full-time Mum, which is so important to me... but it is bloody hard work when you are feeling knackered and there is a pandemic rumbling along in the background. What I wouldn't give on a rainy day to be able to take him to a soft play and sit back with a cup of coffee whilst he uses up his energy in a safe, foam-lined environment; or to just mulch around Ikea, fuelled up on bargain meat-balls, using the mock-up apartments as an interactive play setting! These places just aren't safe at the moment though. Sure, they put measures in place to mitigate the risks, but they cannot be considered completely safe as the virus lurks in corners unseen, and so everything becomes a case of weighing up the benefits against the risks. 

Like so many, I miss the coffee shop trips to see friends. I miss the Mum and toddler groups and seeing the fellow Mum friends I made during my first pregnancy. My son doesn't see any other children and I worry for the impact this may have on his future socialisation as he is a very sensitive, quiet little chap. I have started attending the pregnancy yoga class I attended during my first pregnancy... but it's not the same. Wearing masks, being wary of what you might potentially be exposing yourself to being in a room with others for 90 minutes... it just adds stress when the whole purpose of yoga is to alleviate it! It's as safe as it can be... but then, nothing feels completely safe at the moment. For the past couple of weeks, I've done the class on Zoom, at home, but again, the social side of it I love so much just isn't as accessible via a computer screen. Aside from this weekly yoga class, I just do 25 minutes on my Wattbike, 4 - 5 times a week, just to tick over. Swimming is, strangely for a usual aqua-avoider like me, the activity I enjoy most when pregnant, but that is just so complicated at the moment. Booking a slot, driving to the pool, being unable to shower after, finding someone to look after my boy for the 2 hour long process for just a 30 minute swim, it's just not worth it. So I have decided not to stress. I will just tick over with Wattbiking and walking and get through to the spring and then see what shape we're in. Hopefully parkruns will have returned by then, the end of the pandemic may well be within sight, and I will be the Mum of two energy-sapping littl'uns and so any form of meaningful training might be as unrealistic as the hopes of a white Christmas! Either way, roll on 2021!

Thoroughly let myself go during lockdown...! @ 27 weeks pregnant with a curious 21 month old toddler!

The 'C' word

Christmas!! It’s only 267 days away! Be here before we know it…. Or not, as the days seem to be somewhat dragging at the moment in our current state of lockdown.

Of course, ‘c’ also being for ‘corona virus’ or ‘covid-19’. How can I not write a blog post on this topic? It is so all-pervasive and all-consuming at the moment, it demands that I weigh in with my tuppenceworth. But not forgetting this is a triathlon / running / training blog, so I will of course be putting a sporting slant on the topic.

We have all had to make sacrifices since Corona Virus hit our shores back in February. I am sure I wasn’t alone in tuning into the news over a month ago, when the problem remained isolated to China, thinking, ‘Poor things. Thank goodness that isn’t here.’ Naïve ‘NIMBY’ style thinking indeed. It is now here with a bang and every single person is affected by it to some degree. I should highlight that for me, that degree is relatively mild. Yes, it’s a pain in the arse having to choose between a daily run or cycle or being able to take my baby out in his buggy to get him his nap. Yes, I miss seeing my parents and having their support with looking after Sylvester. Yes, I miss my barista-crafted flat white and natter with my friends at a local café. Yes, I miss being able to shop where I want, when I want and without restriction on the items I place in my trolley. Yes, I miss being able to drive somewhere lovely to go buggy running, such as Haldon Forest or Exmouth sea front. Yes, I miss taking Sylvester to his groups and classes and socialising with other Mums. Yes, I miss being able to break up the long days by planning difference activities throughout the week. And yes, a week in and I am already feeling just a tad jaded at repeatedly feigning fresh enthusiasm for reconstructing my 13 month old’s tower of stacking cups for him to promptly go and destroy again for the 22^nd time that morning. But, in truth, these are all minor inconveniences compared to what some people are suffering at the hands of this awful disease.

It goes without saying that the recent restrictions on freedom of movement and social distancing laws play havoc with your training regime. In fact, it is pretty much a triathlete’s nightmare scenario: we already struggle to train three separate disciplines when we have the freedom to do so whenever and wherever we want. The closure of gyms and pools means no swimming, unless you are fortunate enough to live within walking distance of the sea. Only one form of exercise a day means no brick sessions: it’s bike or run, run or bike; not both. I have seen people uploading 7 hour long bike rides on Strava, but to me that is somewhat taking the piss. You are meant to exercise from home; a seven hour ride, whilst starting out from home, could take you as far as 60 miles from your house. I don’t think that is what the government intend people to do with their one daily outing. I personally think that anything over 90 minutes is not in the spirit of what the measures are designed to achieve. It’s about doing just enough to boost your physical and mental health; not about using the unexpected time off work as an opportunity to put in longer training hours. Yes, staying at home is boring, but the motto is ‘stay at home to save lives’.

For me personally, the biggest impact has not been on my freedom to exercise but on my son’s nap routines. He only does short nap cycles (30 mins max), so still ideally needs three naps a day. He is notoriously bad at napping unless in motion. The ‘one outing per day rule’ has therefore hit him hard! If I want to run, that would either mean Sylvester not getting a proper nap or Matt sacrificing his run to take him out. So we have been alternating; one day I run and Matt walks Sylvester, the next day I go on my Wattbike inside and then I can do the buggy walk. However…. We have just ordered a treadmill, which is arriving next week, so soon we will be able to run inside. We both hate treadmills but have to admit that the freedom to run daily, without restriction, is tempting at the moment… and much needed to counteract all the extra baking and boredom snacking that has been happening! At least I have been able to put some much needed weight back on I suppose! Another few months of quarantine and I’ll be back to my pre-pregnancy weight!

Easter tiffin, made for a 'virtual' coffee morning with my tri club buddies on Zoom tomorrow: even in a crisis, coffee and cake catch up must continue!

So my goals have changed. Indeed, I currently have no goals. Last weekend I was due to have a weekend in Cardiff with my Mum and race the Cardiff Bay 10k. This has now been rescheduled until November but I am reluctant to get focused and train for it as part of me thinks that there may be no mass participation events allowed for the remainder of 2020…. The World Duathlon Championships in Amsterdam in September look extremely doubtful. Instead, I am using this time to build some steady base miles and to enjoy my one daily outing as escapism, so I have mainly been running off road: much more pleasant and also much quieter, away from other people. We are lucky that we live in the country and there are so many options for stunning off road running routes within a mile of our house. Another bonus of all this is how clean the air quality is at the moment due to the decreased road and air traffic. To keep the focus and the fitness up, I have been doing Strava fartlek sessions, where I pick a couple of segments to target each run and go for it! A bit of fun and it just reminds my legs that they have another gear aside from the 8m/m plod pace.

Before all of this ‘kicked off’, we had been fitting in a lot of new parkrun events, including Salisbury (where I ran a post-pregnancy parkrun PB, a.k.a. a quadruple 'P' of 19:30) and Bolberry Down (where I set a new female course record). I also managed to squeeze in one race in on 1^st March: the Exmouth Ocean Brave 10k. It was a multi-terrain run that went out along the cliff tops and came back along a 3 mile stretch of sandy beach, into a headwind the whole way. That was tough! Amazingly I managed to finish as first lady and second overall! The prize was a voucher for £30 to spend in Ocean, Exmouth, on any meal and drinks off the menu… which will now obviously have to wait. Hopefully the restrictions of eating out will have lifted in time for our wedding anniversary in July and I can “treat” my husband to our first meal / evening out since our son was born! It’s a shame as when the clocks changed we intended to get back to going to our running club and my tri club once a week. Nevermind, it will make us all the more appreciative of these things once the restrictions are eventually lifted.

Bolberry Down parkrun: a stunning course on the cliff tops in the South Hams

3 mile long beach section into stiff headwind at Exmouth Ocean Brave 10k

Finish line! First lady and second overall.

My son shows off my trophy!

 In the meantime, stay safe friends. Follow the rules – they are there to protect us all, especially the most vulnerable members of our society. Now is not a time to be selfish. We are all inconvenienced; for some it’s a pain in the arse, for others it could lead to financial ruin or the death of loved ones. If you are in the former category, you are lucky. Use exercise to stay sane, but don’t abuse exercise: an hour a day is sufficient to keep fit; don’t get greedy and use this free time to put down base training for Ironmans! We all need to play our part. #staysafe #stayathome #savelives #keepsmiling

It's a Euro no-go for me...

No, I haven’t suddenly lost my mind and decided to pin my flag to the pro-Brexit mast: NEVER! I'm a modern languages graduate for gawd's sake! Rather, I finally made the decision on whether or not to go to the Euro duathlon champs in Spain on 5^th March and it’s a no-go. On 3^rd January I took the plunge and paid the (semi-extortionate) international race licence fee to commit to going, hoping that the manner in which 2020 started – namely with me on my hands and knees, crawling pitifully back and forth between bedroom and bathroom, battling a severe bout of food poisoning incurred on New Year’s Eve after eating Morrisson’s deli-counter chicken – was a blip and I could now look to regain strength, resume training and still have enough time to get semi-fit for the champs…. It wasn’t to be. The bad luck that greeted the new decade continued.

On January 7^th we took our 11 month old son for his long-awaited allergy testing and, in the worse outcome possible, he reacted as positive to every allergen they tested for! My Mum helped look after him whilst at the clinic and later that day she came down with the flu (as in, confirmed genuine flu, despite having had the vaccine), which then turned to bronchitis and double pneumonia some days later. Two days after, sure enough, Sylvester got ill. Really really poorly – like, actually sleeping on me all day, not feeding, temp of 40 degrees, no attempt to engage, whimpering pathetically and just plain out of it. I suspect he had the flu also, caught from my Mum. Then two days later again, it was my turn. So, two weeks into 2020 and my entire family was sick. My Mum ended up needing a hospital stay of over 2 weeks duration to get over hers. It was a huge stress and a massive setback in terms of preparation for the Euros. How could I train looking after a poorly baby who was waking again around 4 times a night, whilst also stressing about my Mum and trying to fit in hospital visits, whilst trying to make sure my Dad was coping, whilst also feeling like utter crap myself? Something had to give! Determined Ellie did not want to give up on the dream but thankfully sensible Ellie (prompted by home truths delivered by my straight-talking GP, who knows me very well and asked me 'what are you trying to prove and to whom by going?', and told me to sit down and write a list of reasons to go versus not to go... it was a very unbalanced list!!) made me realise that what I was contemplating was utter madness. The logistics of getting us all to Spain were proving a nightmare and the thought of my baby having an allergic reaction in a foreign country before he has had all the allergy tests completed (so we still don’t know the full extent of his allergies) seemed like an overwhelming prospect. Priorities change when you become a Mum and suddenly the things that once drove you and seemed important pale into insignificance where family and health are concerned. Dream abandoned. Reality check delivered. Time to regroup and refocus my goals for the World champs in Amsterdam in September instead.

Thankfully February has thus far been better than January. I’ve always hated January; bad stuff just seems to lurk within the deepest recesses of its dim, daylight-deprived hallways. My Mum is slowly on the mend and I had Sylvester’s first birthday to plan as a distraction. Anyone who knows me knows I just love an excuse to bake and rising to the challenge of making Sylvester a dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free birthday cake was just the distraction I needed. Furthermore, sampling the practice runs of said cake making enabled me to put half a stone of weight back on. What with the food poisoning, the flu and all the stresses of the past month I had dipped to nearly 1 ½ stone less than my pre-pregnancy weight and was starting to look super scrawny. My thighs had lost all their cycling muscle and, whilst I haven’t felt remotely inclined to do an FTP retest, I knew that I was struggling to hold my usual numbers on Wattbike sets and so estimated that my FTP had dropped by at least 20W. It’s alright dropping weight, but if you lose power too then the gains are limited.

Birthday baking for my bestest birthday boy and beef-me-back-up baking for Mummy!!

However, a lighter frame has proved handy for running and so this has enabled me to make the decision to focus on that discipline for a while. A potentially dangerous move given how injury prone I have been in the past. But thanks to regular physio check-ins with my awesome physio, Nigel at Honiton Physio, and the strength program he has given me, I have been able to increase my mileage slightly the past few weeks. We’re not talking anything big here, I only hit 20 miles for the first time in over 2 years last week, but I hope that a “hurry slowly” approach will pay longer term dividends. Besides, I am biding my time for the better weather to arrive! I have always hated the cold and the wet.

So I have a few races pencilled in for March and April, alongside a few new parkrun tourist trips with my boys! In fact, the weekend we were meant to be in sunny Spain, we are now off to sunny Salisbury! I don’t know if I will have a “triathlon season” this year: I have only swum 40 lengths since July 2019!! Swimming has never been my favourite of the three disciplines and driving to the pool, changing, swimming, showering, driving back, is just a time consuming, unwelcome hassle. Effectively it’s a 2-hour affair for just 30 poxy minutes of swimming! Going for a brisk 30 minute run or doing 30 minutes of HIIT intervals on the Wattbike gives me a higher fitness return and infinitely more satisfaction. We are also looking at getting a treadmill for our home gym. Neither of us are fans of treadmill running but the idea of being able to hop on for half an hour whilst our little man plays with his toys is a tempting prospect going forwards….

Next up: Exmouth Ocean 10k cliff top and beach race, this coming Sunday. This race was rescheduled from February due to the storms and threat of participants being blown of cliff tops etc. Hopefully it will go ahead this time!

A few recent parkrun pics:

Christmas Day Seaton parkrun

The residual drag from those un-aerodynamic antlers cost me at least 10s!

Seaton pebbles, January 2020

Haldon Forest parkrun: not the easiest course with 20kg of baby and buggy!!

Cool retro style image at Teignmouth parkrun, February 2020

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!