Well, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks.

Last week I eased myself into doing a little exercise again after a short post season break. It was by no means full-on training, but it was good to get active again. I did what I felt like, including cycling to work twice, a 90 minute ride in the sunshine on Saturday and two swim sessions. All in all pretty easy really with no running am I am trying to let my foot injury heal properly. This week has followed a similar theme, but I have had quite a few other triathlon related things to do too.

I have been busy contacting a number of potential sponsors for next season and beyond to compliment my existing sponsors. This is quite a time consuming process and there is no guarantee any of the companies involved will be interested, but you have to try! This is also the best time of year to make contact as most companies seem to allocate their sponsorship budgets between October and December. Already I have had a few ‘No’s’, some ‘Maybe’s’ but no ‘Yes’s’ just yet, so we will see…

On Tuesday morning I met with Nigel Farrow, a photographer and journalist who is interesting in doing a feature on triteamdawson. He is keen to show that competing in triathlon is a real team effort for me…guides, Jill’s help, sponsors, clubs etc. Nigel positioned himself along my route to work and took a few shots as I cycled past (trying to pretend I wasn’t cold as it was only about 4 degrees!). At Lunchtime I met Nigel for more photo’s in the pool at Dereham Leisure Centre where I do some of my training. We got plenty of strange looks from other swimmers who were probably wondering who I the hell I was and why I was getting photographed. This was especially so when we took a few more shots with me lying on the side of the pool on some large floats pretending to relax after a hard session! Nigel is a very experienced Photographer who has covered many big events and had his work published in lots of magazines and newspapers, so I am sure they will be great pictures!

On Tuesday evening I went to the Anglian  Chiropractic clinic for a post season MOT on my body. I have been working with Andy Goddard for about 11 years now and despite this it seems his sense of humour is still intact. He just laughed at me when I suggested I was probably in perfect spinal alignment despite the crash in Beijing and my generally poor posture before muttering something like ‘well, we could say that if you like but…’

 Thursday afternoon saw a trip to the Foot Function Centre near Ipswich to complete a biomechanics assessment using the RSscan computer system. This basically involved completing a range of assessments and tests before running up and down a 22m long mat barefoot then in trainers. The aim of this was to try to prevent future foot problems caused by a few little oddities I have in my feet, ankles, knees, pelvis…The results that flashed up on the computer screen certainly made interesting viewing, even more so once they were explained to me! More on this another time.

So I should have some orthotics in a few weeks time ready to help me get back to running and full fitness ahead of next season.

Nigel visited us again on Thursday evening, this time to take some phptograhs at the weekly Diss-Ability multi sports club for people with learning disabilities that Jill and myself run with some other volunteers. It runs in the town of Diss hence the name. Afterwards we all sat down for a fairly informal interview for the article Nigel is writing to finish a busy day off.

With work on top it’s been a pretty busy few days. Over the weekend I will
be doing a 2-3 hour ride with my tandem parter Bobby De’Ath to finish the week off nicely before starting it all again on Monday! Phew!

Iain