Sacrifices

  I was up earlier than I wanted to be on Tuesday as I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of my triathlon goodies. When they finally arrived at 11am the delivery man must've thought I was crazy. He must've heard me running (crashing) down the stairs and instantly grabbing my turbo trainer from his hands. I have had some delivery men do one knock and then pathetically give up, leaving me no time to even get to the door, but I was not prepared for that to happen today. After taking my 2 boxes of goodies upstairs I opened them with haste (I did spare some time to take a picture though).
  After dismantling my lovely display I began to put together my turbo trainer. I thought this was going to be a nightmare as the instructions were pretty basic, but after half an hour I managed to have it all put together and was rather pleased with myself. I then ran down to my bike. However, my hopes of a quick tester were dashed when I realised my rear wheel was as flat as a pancake (this also gave me some answers as to why I found the last hill the other day so unbelievably hard). As I am still not a bike mechanic whizz I had to leave the turbo trainer test for another day over the weekend when it had been to Dan's workshop. Dan, as much as he hates it, has been my bike mechanic, setting up shop whenever I have a problem. This is something I have to change, we have agreed that being able to sort a simple puncture out is a necessity, especially as this seems to happen a lot to me with my bad luck on 2 wheels. I have been lucky that on all the shorter distance triathlons I have been in close range to Dan so if I did have a problem he would've been there instantly to sort it out. However, due to the length of an Ironman and even a half-Ironman, the likelihood of Dan being anywhere near me if it did happen would be too much of a lucky coincidence.

  So, after realising I couldn't go on my turbo trainer I decided to go for a run. The idea was to explore, as I still don't know the area very well. So that is what I did. I started off going the route we have walked before and then let my legs take me where they wanted to go. It was quite idyllic, running across fields that looked untouched by humans. I ran past a herd of deer, all staring at this fluorescent pink intruder bob past. I then ran through a lot of woods and into another field where there were over 100 sheep grazing. Unlike 'normal' sheep who scram at the sight of an intruder they seemed to hover in their mass numbers and just stare at me. It was rather unnerving and have to admit I was a little intimidated by sheep that day. However, I had the album from 'Django' on and I challenge anyone to not get a bit of a run swagger when listening to '100 black coffins' and 'Who did that to you'. I was glad I was off road as I probably looked like a mad woman miming along with an extra spring in my run. (Maybe that's what the sheep were staring at!)
  When I finally re-orientated myself I had done 50minutes and although I had a sharp pain on the right side of my right knee I wanted to do more. So instead of turning right when I hit Old Beaconsfield for the 100m home, I carried on towards the New Town and Amersham. I added a further 40 minutes onto my run and on the last hill home (it is a killer but good training that Old Beaconsfield is on a hill) I knew I needed a good song to push me up. Childish Gambino's 'Bonfire' did just that. I made sure that his background tempo matched the movement of my feet. After that song had finished I found another motive to get up the hill faster...another runner infront. He had just started his run as I saw him run out of his drive. I had to catch him. I nearly made myself sick with this pursuit but it was a hell of a sprint finish and I did catch him. I knew I could've gone on for longer which was a massive confidence boost for my Bath half marathon next weekend. I ended up doing 10miles in 1h30 which I was happy with. I made a cracking dinner that night, and yes I do say so myself but the pain in my knee was still there. I decided not to think too much into it and went to sleep early ready for work in the morning.

   Now Wednesday and Thursday turned out to be a disaster for training. I woke up on Wednesday after the worst night sleep I have had in a long time. I could not get comfy all night due to the pain in my knee so had what seemed like no sleep and I limped all day at work. I self-diagnosed myself with IBTS (runners knee) Iliotibial Band Syndrome and this was confirmed with a runner at work who has had it before. Thankfully he told me it was not a serious injury and with rest it would disappear. On the way home I got caught up in an extra hours worth of traffic due to roadworks so didn't get home till gone 8pm meaning I had been up 15hours with a rubbish amount of sleep. I was shattered, couldn't run and had missed my spinning class. I took my rest day of the week.
  Thursday didn't hold much luck either. Still recovering from my poor sleep the night before and bad knee I also felt the lovely feeling of shin splints. I could've put in a swim session tonight but had to make myself stay awake until 9.30pm when the lanes open and wouldn't have got the session I wanted due to my tiredness. I vowed to make Friday, my day off, a good one!

  Today, if anyone has read my previous posts, was my first day of my new triathlon club training session. I began to get worried, "will they like me?", "will I be rubbish?", "will I look fat?". When I asked Dan these questions he batted them down, "No, everyone likes you", "If you've done enough training you won't be" and "No you don't". I was SO tempted to stay in and have a glass of wine with Dan but resisted.
  So although the turbo trainer didn't get off to a great start, my new floats did. I did a skills and technique swim training session and loved it, it was like being back in swim club at school again. I revelled on how strong my kicking is and loved zooming upto the persons feet infront. My competitive side came out and the hour flew by and I stayed on longer to do a further mile in the pool.
  When I enerthed from the pool some members were chatting in reception. They had biscuits and cake but being good I avoided them. The members were really nice, it was so nice to chat about triathlons, what events everyone was training for and how many they done before etc. This conversation meant I have officially booked myself in for my first big event in 2014. I am going to swim the channel. As part of a 4-6 man team you swim for an hour and then swap, you rotate this as many times as it takes to get there, normally around 3 times. See how easy it is for me to sign up for new events. I came back with a huge grin on my face as it is something I have always wanted to do. However, behind that grin I know there a lot of sacrifices. We were talking in the changing room about how a social life and triathlons don't belong in the same sentence and I can see that. I have given up my Friday night to be swimming until 10.30pm and there will be many many more times I will have to fight the earge to want to have a glass of wine over a session, but that makes the end result so much more worth it. I am going to become and Ironman and swim the channel in one year. 2014 you are going to be a good one, I have just got to put the sacrifices in now to make it one!