As you might know from my recent posts, 2011 hasn’t been a good year. Here’s a bit of a review…
After a few 10km running races and the odd duathlon for training I had a solid start to the season with two 4th place finishesin local events during May (East coast and Waveney sprint triathlons). At the Waveney triathlon, run by my club Tri-Anglia, I competed with Matt Ellis knocking 3 minutes off last year’s time. It was particularly pleasing to knock 30 seconds off my 400m swim time and over a minute off from the 3.2km run. We also gained on the bike leg, where being on the tandem and the ability of the guide can make a difference. We were quickest in our age group which was a nice surprise too. Over-all things looked good ahead of the bigger events to come.
Since then It seems to have been one disaster after another when it comes to triathlon. In fact it’s not just been triathlon. I haven’t even managed to finish a single cycling time trial this season, something that hasn’t happened since I started riding a bike in 1992! I think my list of failures is actually quite impressive: –
- Tether rope got caught on rowing bouy, fell over in transition, fell over on run and had asthma attack (National tri chams)
- Punctured 100m after start line (time trial)
- Tandem pilot unavailable (time trial)
- Tandem pilot ill (time trial)
- Rear tri-spoke wheel disintegrated (European tri chams)
- Punctured riding out to event so too late to start (time trial)
- Race cancelled due to bad weather (time trial)
- Kept pulling rear wheel out of tandem (time trial)
- Crashed out of race (World tri champs)
- Just had a bad day all round! (World duathlon champs)
On top of this I have been managing a foot injury since May which caused me to miss the Norwich triathlon and World Invitation Paratriathlon in Hyde Park during a 12 week period when I couldn’t run. It’s still not quite right but nearly.
Clearly my run of bad luck can’t continue…next season is going to be different!!
I think as an athlete you have to try to take the positives out of every race or season, even when things don’t go well. For example I know I am swimming quicker compared to last year and there is still room improvement… We have been able to observe and assess some new and potentially useful athletes coming into our sport ready for next season… I managed to achieve a run PB with only 3 weeks of careful training due the foot injury… The biking legs felt pretty good all year even if I didn’t get a chance to show it…I have a new and talented guide to work with for next season in Luke Watson (who is possibly even more enthusiastic than I am!)…Hopefully I will have a new tandem for next year too…We have met a lot of great people and seen some interesting things on our travels in the UK, Spain, China and Spain again…
So, after a short break, I am now looking forward to easing myself into training again before the hard work begins in ernest from November so I am fighting fit ready for next year (more on winter training and next year’s plan another time).
Finally, thanks to everyone who has given their support this year – Guides, training partners, sponsors/other supporters andespcially Jill who has put in loads of time and effort to make everything work.
Iain