We're going to the Worlds!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As always, to finish with some thank yous:

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

Nigel Wilman, physio extraordinaire.

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

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

Race ready? In February?!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A clean start?

2018. A new year, a new training diary, a clean page…. a clean start with a revamped “clean” eating regime? NO!! No damn way!

My twitter feed is agog with talk of new year’s resolutions, fad diets, get fit quick schemes and humpteen other marketing gimmicks designed to play on the soul-searchingly vulnerable. At this time of the year, people seemingly feel compelled – through guilt, tradition, societal pressure, misguided judgment or other – to “better” themselves somehow. What if the you of December 31^st 2017 was just fine as she was? I never make new year’s resolutions. Never have, never will. One, because I think they are doomed to fail and then you feel crap, and two, because they are often seen as being a temporary thing (dry January, that’s the best one!). Shouldn’t healthy living and healthy habits be applicable all year, not just for the first 4 weeks of it?

I see it every year at my gym: numbers soar; you have to set your alarm for midnight a week in advance to get a place on most of the classes; your favourite bike by the window is constantly occupied and you are left to join the queue that limits use on it to a maximum of 15 minutes (what a joke! 15 minutes might be ok for these new year’s resolutioners just embarking on their quest for fitness, but that’s a mere warm up to those of us who are following long-term structured training regimes for endurance events). It’s ok, I sooth myself, most of them will be gone by February… along with their resolve and enthusiasm to keep up the regime. Of course, with my tongue-in-cheek humour, I generalise, but I strongly believe that you cannot look upon eating habits and exercise regimes as a temporary fix. You have to eat well and exercise appropriately all the time, January through to December, come rain, come shine.

So many new exercise DVDs and cookbooks are launched in January. ‘Lean in 15’, ’15 Minute Abs’ (trust me, I do way more than 15 minutes on my abs and they are still barely to be seen!) But, my biggest bug bear is this fairly recent trend for “clean eating”. Pardon the language but what the fuck does that even mean? Who is to decide what is a clean food and what isn’t? And if you are suggesting that something is clean, are you diametrically opposing it to all other foods which must, by default, be dirty? Why dirty? Have they been rolling around in the mud? (In which case, all root veg must therefore be dirty?) I have strong issues with this terminology because it is largely the preserve of the well-to-do middle-class female elite, who can afford to shop organic in Waitrose and at local farm shops and dive headlong, unquestioningly, into all the latest fad “superfood” trends. (They are easy to spot, stepping out of their Range Rovers in the Waitrose carpark, clad from head to toe in Joules and/or Seasalt…. occasionally Boden or White Stuff, but only on weekends….). It is easy to snub certain food groups when you have never known deprivation and when your food choices have never been restricted, be it for financial, psychological reasons or other.

Back when I had an unhealthy relationship with food, I would mentally categorise foods as ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’. Such practices are in fact extremely common within those with eating disordered behaviours. Some would call them ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ foods, but whatever the terminology, it all adds up to the same thing: you rule out entire food groups (dairy, meat, sugar, fat, carbs) and they become forever consigned to some demonic culinary Room 101 that you are henceforth forbidden from accessing: DANGER! UNCLEAN FOOD! UNSAFE! NO ENTRY! Whilst I still retain this same bizarre categorisation system for all fruit items (ask me about it, I’ll vehemently defend my choices on clean and unclean fruits to the grave! And ask Matt what happens if he dares to eat a banana outside of the kitchen and leave the skin lying around…), I have thankfully long since moved on from viewing all foods as such a strict dichotomy.

The thing is, amongst triathletes, these fad diets are rife. There’s not a day goes by that athletes whom I follow on Twitter and Instagram aren’t uploading photos of their plate of ‘oh-so-virtuous-but-vom-inducingly-repugnant-tasteless-pile-of-miscellaneous-shit'. It’s like it is suddenly justified to cut out all carbs from your diet because it’s in the name of “training” and is thus designed to improve performance. Sod that for a tale. If I am in hard training and forcing my arse out the door at stupid o’clock day after day, doing 10 hours of high intensity cardio a week, I’m going to bloody well eat what I want as a reward for it. Usually what I want is something nutritious and nourishing, but occasionally (well, more like once a day actually), I will also feed my body cake or chocolate, because I like it, I’ve earned it, I’ve burned it off and so why the hell not? If I were a Brownlee-level elite athlete, seeking every precious second I can get because triathlon was my profession and not just a hobby, then I might look to tweaking my diet a bit: introduce more protein, cut back on the sugar and the weekend alcohol. But I’m not; I'm me: a gin swilling, cake munching, non-elite wannabe who still has so many performance improvements to make in so many areas before I need to start thinking about overhauling my diet (which, incidentally, is pretty healthy 80% of the time anyway). And that is why I find it sustainable: because I am good 80% of the time, I can be naughty for the other 20%, and I can keep this up all year round; as opposed to being 100% good in January, getting bored with all the restrictions, and reverting back to unhealthy habits again in February. So, if we must assign our nutritional intake into strict compartments, maybe ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ is a better means of categorisation than the rather circurmspect 'clean' / 'unclean'?

So, no “clean starts” for me in 2018. Just a continuation of the moderately dirty life I have been living for the past five or so years. Because, quite frankly, if “clean” eating means waking up to a pile of plain cottage cheese with a side accompaniment of raw kale, egg white and chilli powder, washed down by a foaming glass of turmeric, well, I think I’d sooner stay dirty thank you very much.

Oh, and addendum: The Brownlees are both devotees of Frey Bentos pies, fish and chips and cake stops on their long rides. Enough said.

Yours,

Lean, mean, not-so-clean triathlon machine, Ellie .... off to source some cake....

The year in review...

I have just completed my last race of the year this last weekend and so this seemed like the ideal time to write a blog reflecting back on all my sporting endeavours in 2017. It’s going to be an enjoyable blog to write as it has been a fantastic year. The highlights of which have been:

·         Qualifying for the European Sprint Duathlon Championships by winning my age group at Clumber Park for the second consecutive year

·         Winning a silver medal in my age group on my Team GB debut at the European Duathlon Championships in Soria, Spain

·         Taking my first overall female win at a triathlon (Dorchester Dash)

·         Going on to win my target triathlon A-race of the year, The Brutal Half Iron Extreme Triathlon, in North Wales

·         Finishing as first female at all 6 of the multi-terrain races I entered this year: Weston Friendly 5 Mile, Totnes 10k, Killerton 10k, Templer 10 mile, Otterton Reindeer Run, The Scrooge.

·         Being largely on top of my injuries throughout the year, being able to piece together some consistent training and allowing me to start and finish all of the races I entered in one piece (a miracle in itself by my previous track record!)

When I read all of that back, it brings a small smile of satisfaction to my face. There have been some incredible experiences garnered along the way to achieving all the above, including some excellent bike rides with some really good friends (you know who you are, coffee buddies!); some fab training rides with the Honiton Spinners and some (almost) enjoyable sea swims with my buddy Bishy the Fishy. I participated in my first ever cycling time trial (10 miles in 26:45), and my first ever hill climb (4^th place at Chineway). There have been sportives completed with friends (The Nello, with Moira) and alone (Moor to Sea). Parkruns a-plenty have featured, including 9 new venues, in addition to relaxed training runs with my hubby. Humpteen laps of the pool have been swum, including my longest ever swim of 5k (200 lengths) at Swimathon (Christ on a bike, that felt like a slog!). I have seen improvements to my bike and swim times; my run times have actually dropped off a bit over the shorter stuff, but losing a bit of top end leg speed has been the trade-off for improving my cycling and my performance overall: something’s gotta give!

I have achieved all of the above by myself, with no assistance from any coach or even any training plans. Up until now, my training has all been done to feel and done rather spontaneously without much forward planning. If I woke up and the weather was nice, I would go out on the bike; if my legs were aching, I might have opted for an easy swim. My development as a multisport athlete has all been very organic and, to a more experienced eye, probably very naïve and amateur. It has brought me some great results, of which I am extremely proud, but I decided that I was at a point whereby I could go on playing at being a runner who dabbles in multi-sport by doing a bit of cross training on the bike and in the pool and probably still do ok because I have a pretty decent fitness level, or I could try and introduce some proper structure and triathlon focussed training to my routine and aim to take my multisport performances to the next level…. I decided upon the latter, so I recently enlisted the services of a triathlon coach.

For the past 7 weeks I have been coached by my cousin-in-law, Chris Dominey, of Tri Coach Cornwall. Not gonna lie, it has been a complete shock to my system and, at first, felt like a bit of a loss of control and freedom as I have handed over all responsibility for deciding what training I do and when to him. My previous self-coached approach was rather ad hoc, and so the jump to having extremely structured and set workouts given to me 3 weeks in advance that detail explicitly what I will be doing every day for the next 21 days has been a massive one. It has meant being much more organised regarding getting kit ready the night before and writing down the workouts in advance so I don’t forget them once I get to the pool / gym etc. Having a structure to my swim and indoor bike sessions has been great in terms of me not needing to think about what to do once I get there, which invariably led to me doing the same long aerobic swims session after session, or just sitting aimlessly on the bike for an hour and pedalling at the same intensity, or else relying on my one go-to bike workout of 1 min off, 1 min off x 30! I have been using the Watt bike at the gym for most of my indoor bike sets and – following a ghastly 20 minute all out FTP test – I am now working to power. Again, this is all new to me. Previously I would just go on feel, or RPE scales, and not pay any attention to heart rate, cadence, power etc. Previously I would do the same training all year round and just aim to maintain a high level of fitness. Chris’ approach, using the Training Peaks software, sees me go through phases of training and the workouts are tailored according to the phase (I am currently in Base 3, so starting to increase my strength and endurance with longer reps on the bike, and more tempo runs). To seasoned triathletes, this will all seem obvious, but it is all very new for me and I have to trust that I am doing enough and that the intensity is appropriate for the stage I am at in my race build-up. One thing I have definitely noticed is that since working with Chris, I am much less tired; furthermore, – and I am probably putting the curse of death on myself here – I haven’t been ill at all, whereas before I was picking up a cough or cold virus every 4 – 6 weeks or so. No doubt this is due to the sensible scheduling of the workouts, allowing for rest and recovery between hard sets, but also due to the fact that I have been doing the majority of the work at a much lesser intensity, so I am not constantly fatigued. The one thing I do find hard is the lack of flexibility to be able to just do things on a whim, such as a nice long bike ride with friends because the sun is out and they invited me, or an extra run because I just feel like it, but that is the trade off for what will hopefully bring me better performances in the qualifying races in February and March. It is also a bit of a departure for Chris, as his background is mainly in coaching long distance triathletes, so writing training plans for a duathlete is a new challenge for him… as is reining in a headstrong female athlete with a love of running who wants to race all the time! Thanks to him for his patience so far! 😉

I will have a slightly lighter week over Christmas but I can’t afford to back off too much as the qualifier is so early this year (Feb 18^th). I certainly can’t afford a 9 week long cough-cold-chest infection combo like I had at the start of this year as that hampered my training from Boxing Day right until the end of Feb. As I am also going up to the standard distance this year, which is 10k run – 40k bike – 5k run (double everything of the sprint), I need to keep my bike miles up over the winter and try and get out and ride once a week as I don’t have the luxury of waiting until spring comes to ride outside. Easier said than done with this cold snap we’ve had as I am a notorious wimp in the cold conditions and coming off on black ice is not something I can afford to do at this stage of my preparations….. or, indeed, ever.

Anyway, to finish off with a few stats, followed by a few photos, that demonstrate a bit more ably than my waffling how 2017 panned out….

RUNNING:

2017 mileage (up until 19^th Dec.): 815 miles; 107 hours of running time, 56’000ft elevation gain

5k SB: 19:10 (first run at Clumber Park duathlon, didn’t actually race any 5k only races in 2017)

10k SB: 40:15 (Ivybridge 10k)

Race performances:

Feb.: Weston Friendly 5 – 1^st lady, 3^rd overall

May: Ivybridge 10k: 3^rd lady

June: Welsh Castles Relay Stage 16, 8 mile mountain stage in Brecon Beacons: 3^rd lady

August: Totnes 10k, 1^st lady

September: Killerton 10k, 1^st lady

November: Templer 10 mile, 1^st lady

December: Otterton Reindeer Run 6 mile, 1^st lady

December: The Scrooge 7.5 mile, 1^st lady, 4^th overall

CYCLING:

2017 bike mileage: 3240 miles

Longest ride: Moor to Sea Sportive, 64 miles

10 mile T.T.: 26:45

SWIMMING:

Total swim distance: 190’000mtrs / 190k

Longest swim: 5k

2017 Swim SBs: 200m: 3:22, 400m: 7:02, 600m: 11:18, 1000m: 18:42, 1500m: 28:36

Duathlon Results:

Clumber Park Sprint: 4^th lady, 1^st age cat, 1:08:40

Soria ETU Championships Sprint: 11^th lady, 2^nd age cat, 1:15:21

Triathlon Results:

Stourhead Mega Sprint: 3^rd lady, 1:56:01

Honiton Sprint: 2^nd lady, 1:06:03

Dorchester Dash Sprint: 1^st lady, 1:14:09

Portishead Sprint: 2^nd lady, 1:24:20

The Brutal Half Extreme: 1^st lady, 7:15:15

Thank yous to:

My physio, Nigel Wilman - this has been the longest stretch I have gone uninjured since Feb 2013!
My coach, Chris, of Tri Coach Cornwall
My training buddies for their encouragement, interest, support, and friendship.
My amazing husband, Matt, without whom none of the above would have been possible.

Weston Friendly Five, February

Welsh Castles Relay, June

Totnes 10k, August

Totnes 10k

Templer 10, November

Templer 10

The Scrooge, December

Portishead Sprint Tri, August

Honiton Sprint Tri, July

Honiton Sprint

Dorchester Dash Sprint tri, July

Immortal Sprint, Stourhead, May

The Brutal, September

The Brutal

The Brutal

ETU Duathlon Champs, Soria, Spain, April

Soria

Soria

Soria

Back to the grindstone!

“Check back here in a few weeks” were my parting words from my last blog post. I’m not sure when a few weeks turned into a few months, but it clearly did, and the pain and suffering of my post-Brutal battered body is already a distant memory. I believe I also stated in that blog post that I was going to have some end of season down time… I am notoriously bad at doing this as, let’s face it, I have a few dependency issues where exercise is concerned and start to feel lazy and irritable after two days without any, but I believe I have managed to have my own version of an end of season break. It definitely isn’t the complete two weeks off that many triathletes indulge in, but I cut my training volume right back to just 7 hours a week and, crucially, the long bike rides were knocked on the head and I felt I only needed to do an hour before cutting straight to the coffee stop part! Crucially, my body does feel less tired and ready to tackle the next block of training, which starts in earnest today.

I mentioned that some changes were afoot in the Dominey camp. Well, after much deliberation, I have decided to enlist the services of a professional triathlon coach…. I didn’t need to look far as Matt’s cousin, Chris, is a professional tri coach and personal trainer, based in Cornwall, and so I am keeping it in the family and handing over the control of my training to him. Last week marked the first week of my plan but, as I was up in North Wales and wanted to take advantage of the mountains and get out and about in the hills, both running and on the bike, the rigid plan got tweaked a bit, so this week marks the start of my training regime proper. Having someone else tell me what sessions to do, when to do them, how long to do them for, at what pace, at what heart rate, at what effort level, represents a massive massive change for me. Up until now, I have always done as I pleased. I have never so much as followed a basic plan from a triathlon magazine or from a website. I haven’t even planned a week ahead. My previous method has been to wake up, see what the weather’s doing, see what I fancy doing, and do it. Yes, I made sure I included a couple of weekly swims, three or four bike rides and three or four runs, plus a modicum of S & C work in the form of yoga and core classes, but, largely, my weeks have been unstructured. This new regimented approach will take a lot of getting used to, not least because I am now accountable to someone who will instantly notice if I miss workouts, adapt them, or, more likely for me, add in extra sessions.

We are using the software Training Peaks to chart my progress. Chris uploads my workouts, I complete them, my Garmin syncs with my TP account (like it does with Strava) and Chris can instantly see all my data from the session: pace, H/R, time, distance etc. As its name suggests, this software helps Chris, as my coach, to help me to work towards crucial fitness peaks that will coincide with all my targeted races. Again, a completely new way of working for me as my previous approach has been to just maintain a high level of fitness all year round and then taper off before any big races, but otherwise do a similar training volume week in, week out, all year round. I have no doubt that the prioritising and peaking method will bring results; mostly, if it helps to curb my tendencies to over-train and prevents me from feeling so tired all the time and picking up the myriad of illnesses I seem to attract so frequently, then it will already be worth it. If it brings me more medals at next year’s championship races, then it will be super worth it!

We have already pencilled in a handful of target races, with the early season duathlon qualifiers kicking things off in February and March. I have already qualified for next year’s European Sprint Duathlon Championships courtesy of my silver medal in Soria last year, so a trip to Ibiza in October is a scheduled highlight of 2018. The World Duathlon Championships also take place in Europe next year, in Denmark in July, so they are a target too. However, as I seem to be more of an endurance athlete than a speed queen, we have decided to target the standard distance (10k run – 40k bike – 5k run) for the worlds, before dropping down to the sprint for the Euros. Nothing is a given though, first I have to qualify and that will be a tough ask in itself. With the qualifying race being in February, the weather could very easily be naff, and so I have a back-up race pencilled in just in case. Most of my training between now and then will be heavily weighted towards the cycling, to get this slightly weaker of the two disciplines up to scratch. My previous approach to cycling over the winter months has been to do a couple of spin classes a week and to get out on the bike whenever the weather is favourable. My new plan focusses more on quality turbo sessions (good job I still have several episodes of my Downton Abbey boxset to work through….), with twice weekly social rides and the occasional visit to the velopark in Torbay for some tempo rides.

We had discussed the viability of me moving up to Half Iron triathlons next year, as I coped well with the distance at the Brutal, but with the timings of the world dus in July and the Euros in October and the very different training patterns needed for them compared to half iron tri training, we felt that sticking to sprint triathlons next year and keeping the main focus on the duathlon is the way forward. This will also allow me another year to really work on improving my swim in order to be more competitive when I really do want to give the 70.3s a good crack.

All of the above comes with the caveat that we are trying for a mini-Dominey, and so the aforementioned plans may well be thrown out the window at any point… however, we have been trying for a mini-Dominey for the past two and a half years without success, so we are just carrying on with our lives as normal, making plans as normal, and if we have to scrap them, well, we won’t mind one iota. I simply cannot put everything on hold as, quite frankly, I will go mad without a focus to distract me. And to all the people who have commented – albeit in good faith – that I should maybe just cut back on the exercise as that might help, sadly, it won’t. Believe me, if it would, I would give it all up in a heartbeat. But even my GP says to keep training and keep my competitive focus as it helps me to cope with the huge range of emotions that comes with desperately wanting to do the most natural thing in the world to a woman, to become a Mum, and being unable to.

Yesterday I enjoyed a run out at one of my favourite local races, the Templer Ten. It's always been a happy hunting ground for me, having run it 4 times and won it 4 times, so I was thrilled to take a win there again yesterday. Despite not having trained beyond 6 miles all year, my body held together well and I managed the 10 miles without too much of a sufferfest in the closing stages. It's good to know that the running legs are still there, lurking beneath the chunky cycling thighs!! But that marks the end of the autumn fun and now it is head down and back to the training grindstone this week, then next week we are heading out to Madeira for a little spot of relaxation and winter sun, where my training focus will shift to swimming and running, before returning to a week of baseline testing sessions (including running and swimming time trials and the dreaded FTP test on the Watt bike). Using the data from these, Chris will then plan my next block of training. Working so precisely to heart rate and training zones is not something I have ever done before, I have always just gone on feel and rarely even worn a heart-rate monitor, but I trust him and his approach explicitly and, to be honest, it’s rather nice being told what to do for a change; it takes the pressure off me making my own decisions!

River crossing at around the 7 mile point of the Templer Ten.

Templer Ten - 1st lady for the fourth time in a row of running it. My lucky race!

In the meantime, enjoy a few piccies of my recent trip to stunning Snowdonia, where a few fell runs and bike rides were enjoyed, in amongst some prosecco swilling with Moira!

50 miler on the lovely flat, open, empty roads of Angelsey.

35 miler along the Straights estuary trail to Caernarfon.

This road (and accompanying view) featured on the Brutal bike course. Nice to be able to go back and ride along it at a sedate pace and take in the stunning view!

The Brutal: my perfect race?

6am, dawn rising. An eerie mist and stillness lies over the lake. Normally I am in a state of pre-race panic about now, but this time I felt unusually zen! I had had a terrific night's sleep in the Victoria Hotel, right next to the race start, I awoke 10 minutes before the alarm at 5:10am feeling fresh and raring to go. Soria and the ETU duathlons champs were my A race for the early part of the season, but once they were over, all focus shifted to this. I had been building towards it all summer, albeit it whilst enduring an unusually high (even by my standards) collection of coughs, colds and D & V bugs which kept punctuating my training schedule, but I guess nobody ever has a hiccup-free race build up.  

I never look forward to the swim, but as I stood lakeside in the stillness of a crisp autumnal morning, I wasn't dreading it, which can only be positive! The start got delayed by 30 mins because the swim marker buoys had moved off course during the night and needed to be replaced; this was not ideal when you have timed your pre-race fuelling and toilet visits to perfection for a 7am start, but we all took advantage of the extra time for a quick cup of tea to keep us warm (provided by an aid station lake side - the catering on this event was simply unrivaled!) Due to waterlogging on the ground near the lake, we were stood in cold standing water for those 30 minutes and so my feet were already freezing cold and going numb by the time the swim even got underway! I had hoped for a swim time of around 40 mins, so exiting on 42 mins was down on what I'd have liked, but all the swim times were slow and I only lost 4 mins in the water on the lead ladies (I can often lose this over a 750m sprint tri, so 4 mins over 1900m wasn't too shabby!) and I came out in 6th place, so maybe it wasn't too disastrous and everyone was slower due to the cold. (9 degrees!!)

Neoprene Queen! Let no bit of flesh remain exposed to the cold!

Onto the bike and it took me a while to get settled and into a rhythm due to my feet being totally numb by this point. However, the forecast had drastically improved from the torrential downpours of the previous day and, taking extra time in T1 to put on a dry base-layer and cycling jersey, socks and gloves, meant that the rest of me was a nice temperature. I learnt many lessons from my flirtation with hypothermia at the Slateman last year, chief of these was that 3h30 mins on a bike if you are soaking wet and freezing cold is absolute torture. Above all, I wanted to enjoy the race and if that meant sacrificing a minute in T1 to ensure I was warm, then that's what I'd do. As it was, I had a comparatively swift T1 as I managed to overtake 3 ladies in transition and so went out onto the bike course as the 3rd lady.

The bike was a two lap route (29 miles each lap) around the Snowdon massif, heading out from Llanberis to Llanrug, up and over a cheeky climb (not the longest on the course, but the steepest in terms of gradient), down into Waunfawr, along down to Beddgelert, before starting the massive climb up through Pen-yr-Gwryd (Pen-Yr-Horrid, as I renamed it on lap two into a headwind!), to the top of the pass, then the long, fast descent down into Llanberis. Repeat. Seeing my friends Anne and Jim, and Anne's Mum, Jeanette, halfway up the long climb at Pen-Yr-Gwyrd on lap one was a massive boost. It was so lovely of them to come all that way to support me. They have become some of my best friends since joining N1 and it was great to have them there on the day to spur me on. I had already overtaken one of the ladies in front of me at this point and at the top of the pass a spectator told me that the first lady was only a minute in front. This possibly spurred me on to descend faster than my usual cautionary self would allow and I tried to get aero and make gains down the steep, windy, stone-wall lined descent: good job my Dad wasn't here to watch this part - he'd have been having a nervous breakdown. He has a 125cc motorbike he pootles about on and he never goes over 30mph on it or he says he gets a nose bleed! When I tell him I hit speeds of up to 40mph on my bike, he flips a lid!

I caught the first lady about 5 miles into the second lap, as we crested the hill out of Llanrug. There was a stunning view off to our right of Angelsey, which I pointed out to her, but she seemed more interested in trying to up her pace and come straight back past me. I figured if I'd reeled her in on lap 1, I must be cycling at a faster average pace, so I put the hammer down and put some daylight between us. Cautious that there was still a hell of a long way to go I kept telling myself: Do not get caught up in racing; if she comes back at you again, let her go and you can get her on the run. This isn't a sprint tri, it's your first time at the distance. Luckily for me, she didn't comeback and by the end of the bike leg I'd put 6 minutes into her and found myself with a decent lead starting the run.

Cycling through Waunfawr on both laps was very special. This is where I used to keep my horse, Arrie, (or Moonlight Dancer, to use her official papers name) when I lived in North Wales. Back then I was no where near as fit and healthy as I am now. I didn't really take great care of myself at university and used to struggle massively with the cold Welsh weather, particularly during its harsh winters. Rewind 10 years to 2007, and I was in fact in a hospital bed in Ysbtwy Gwynedd, having been buckerooed off Arrie for the humpteenth time, partially dislocating my shoulder, then being given cocodamol for the pain, and subsequently discovering I am in fact allergic to codeine and spending the next couple of weeks in hospital as they tried to stabilise my drastically low blood pressure. The whole episode left me weakened for some time and I would feel the cold even worse than usual. At this time, if you had told anyone who knew me that in ten years time I would be back here, swimming in a freezing cold lake, cycling around the mountain and then running up it, whilst being competitive at it, they would have laughed you out of town. I couldn't even ride when it was wet and cold as my body just shook with cold and then shut down. I was feeble. That thought wasn't lost on me as I cycled past the lane that led down to Arrie's stable. Two different decades, two very different lives. It made me a little bit proud to think how far I have come.

Matt, who was crewing for me, had the very thoughtful idea of putting some hand/feet warmers inside my run shoes before I got to T2, as he knew my feet were still numb and like blocks of ice after I told him as much when I flashed through race HQ at the end of the first bike lap. What a treat to put on warm run shoes; my feet were toastie in no time. A quick diversion into some bushes for a little wee I'd been needing for the past 20 miles on the bike and then I got into my running. The first 2 miles around Llyn Padarn are completely flat and allowed me to establish a rhythm. Matt ran these first two miles with me and was his usually calm self when I said, 'This stupid race ID bracelet is too tight on my wrist'. 'It's ok, you're doing ok'. 'I'm not doing ok: the circulation in my right hand is being severed'. (I do have a tendency towards the dramatics when I'm racing!). The remainder of the lake lap is undulating on wooded trails. I have run this loop countless times when living in Llanberis and knew every boulder underfoot that I skipped across.

Ok, 5.5 miles around the lake done, now just to finish it off with a little jaunt up and down Snowdon. I lose track of how many times I have run up Snowdon: in excess of 30. I used to venture up there regularly for a post-work, pre-dinner run when living with Moira in Llanberis. I have also done the Snowdon race 3 times. My Snowdon race PB being 1h 36mins.. it would take me a little longer today, 34 minutes longer.

As this was by a long way the longest endurance event I've done, I was worried about fuelling enough. I suffer quite badly from dramatic blood sugar drops and if this happens I feel faint and weak, so I was desperate to avoid this happening - so much so I probably ate too much (the whole bike section just felt like one continuous picnic!). Luckily I seem to have a robust constitution as I ate a whole manner of gels and isotonic products that I had never even tried in training (I know - rule number one right? But I simply cannot bear the things and it's only the competitivity of race day that will force me to consume them). Fortunately I didn't have any stomach or digestive problems at all.

As I set off up Snowdon, I had 2 young boys try to race me up the initial steep road section. 'Very impressive', I said, 'but you haven't just biked 58 miles around this mountain twice before this have you, ay'?! They soon ran out of steam!! I then saw Matt a quarter of the way up and he told me I had about 10 minutes on the next lady. I walked all the steeper sections and tried to bank time and run the more runable bits. At the steepest point, three quarters of the way up as you round Clogwyn and begin the hike up the steep scree slope, you are doubled over into the mountain, a Chinese lady appears out of the mist, sat down at the side of the path having a breather, she looked at me wheezing on past and said aghast, 'Oh my God! You must stop, take a rest. Come, sit down'. I replied, 'Rest! I can't rest, I'm in a race! ... I mean, I know it doesn't look like it, I'm going so slow right now'. It was quite funny and a welcome distraction from my calves which were screaming at this point and desperate for level terrain. I was very glad to get to the top, where a surprise was waiting for me in the shape of Jim Ephraums! He had summited via the Pyg track and was waiting for me at the summit cairn: I gave him the hugest hug before he spun me around and shouted after me, 'Go on! Down you go! You've got a mountain to descend'! The descent I had longed for was possibly even harder on the legs than going up. 6 days post-race and my quads were still burning and aching! Having gravity on my side helped though and I used it to assist me back down to the finish line, where Anne and her Mum, and also three of my best friends from my uni days were waiting for me. And, of course, my long-suffering husband, Matt.

This is a very low key event. There is no announcement, no fan fare as you cross the line, just the race director waiting to give you your medal and also the trophy for coming first lady (a piece of Welsh slate... I'd run over enough of the stuff, very fitting). In fact, 'informal and friendly' are the two words which most sum up this event. It is all very relaxed and supportive - you are allowed help in transitions from your crew; your crew can run with you or meet you at any point on the route, you rack your bike wherever you want, you take as long as you want in the transition tent, helping yourself to the huge array of food and drink on offer. Everyone who takes part in this event is on a journey together and the cameraderie is immense. 

Thank you Mr. Massage-man for making my legs better so that I could walk away from the event and not need to be carried!

Reflecting on the whole experience - because it was so more than just a race - afterwards... It was epic. I loved every minute of it from start to finish. I normally go through a bad patch in a race where the negative gremlins invade - Why am I doing this? Did I seriously pay for this? Where's the finish? Can it come now please? Ow, my legs ache - etc, but I can honestly say I did not experience any form of "bonking" or any negativity at all and just loved the whole thing. I'm not sure it's ever possible to have the perfect race, but, for me, the Brutal comes very close. The scenery, the setting, the support, the sporting performance I managed to pull out from god-only-knows where, all made it incredible. I finished in a time of 7h15mins (my optimistic target was 7 hours and my realistic target was 7h 30 mins, so slap bang in the middle!). In the end, I won the women's race by 24 minutes... I could have stopped and had a cheeky cuppa with Jim at the summit if I'd known this! Whatever the future holds for me in triathlon, this race will take some beating.

It must be highlighted that I did the shortest of 4 available distances on offer over the weekend. I did a half iron, which took me 7h15m of gruelling effort... there was also a full iron, a double iron and a triple iron, all starting together at 7:30am on Saturday. But whilst I was done by 3pm Saturday afternoon, the triple athletes were still going on Sunday.... on Monday.... and into Tuesday morning. They swam 11.8km, biked 350 miles and ran 78 miles (including Snowdon), continuously, just taking cat naps on some camp beds set up in the transition marquee here and there. The defining moment for me was on the Saturday night, when I went to bed aching, tired, but satisfied with a hard day's effort, turned out the lights in the bedroom in my friend's cottage in Llanberis that overlooks Snowdon, and saw the glowing lights of head torches making their way up the mountain at 10pm: the full Brutal iron athletes. The following night (Sunday night), the same thing again, but this time the double iron athletes, then on Monday night, the triple. Mind boggling just what the human body is capable of, if its owner also has the strength of mind and will to accompany it.

One week later, today in fact, and I had all but forgotten I had a place in the Killerton 10k. Possibly not the wisest post-Brutal recovery remedy, racing an off-road 10k with nearly 900ft of climb, but I had a free entry as I work at Killerton, so decided to just go and see.... and I managed to win it! My legs felt great. I have been working with Nigel Wilman at Honiton Physiotherapy and he has put me on a strength program for my weak lower left leg that is clearly working: no way would I have come off a 14.7 mile (with 3500ft of climb) run and been injury free enough to race again a week later prior to this. But now, it is definitely time for a rest. 2017, you've been truly amazing, bringing me podium places at every triathlon and duathlon I have entered, a silver medal in the European championships, and a win at my debut over the half iron distance. But that's a wrap for this year. Planning for 2018 is in progress now and in a few weeks I should be in a position to announce a few exciting developments that are taking shape. Check back here in a few weeks!

Thank yous to:
Nigel Wilman for getting my unruly left leg race ready.
Moira Tait and Sarah Thornton for the superb post-race hospitality (and prosecco!).
Glynis and Stef Kelly for the kind use of their lovely cosy cottage in the Brecon Beacons for a week of post-race relaxation.
Anne, Garry and Liz for lending me essential race kit (wetsuit, booties, waterproofs, etc).
Moira, Anne, Jim, Jeanette, Sian, Nigel for on course support and photography.
My friends at N1 Tri and Honiton Spinners for the company and motivation, especially on the long training rides.
My Mattie: for being there, not just during the race but throughout the whole build up to it. For not minding that we couldn't spend another Sunday together as I had to go out and do a 60 mile cycle instead. For being the best, most supportive husband ever..... even if your shamefully abysmal and frankly comic attempts to pronounce Welsh place names constitute grounds for divorce! I love you. x