Seasons End

It has been a weird season this year, starting really well and ending really well with despair in the middle. I put together a really good winter block aiming for a marathon somewhere around 3:25, and the sessions were going so well I started to believe the number on the plan might be real. In the middle of a progressive long run in mid-March I suffered a nasty calf tear and that was the end of it.

Of course I tried to run a few times, far too soon, desperate to get back on track, but every time I made it worse and set myself back further. Every injured runner knows that loop, the itch to test it, the small bit of hope, and the walk home knowing you have undone the healing. It led to weeks off my feet completely, and a marathon OPB went from a target to something I would have to come back to another year.

In the end it was that frustration that got me somewhere. I pulled out the dusty smart trainer, repaired my road bike and got on it, mostly to have something I could actually do. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made, following the same pattern as lockdown, where being unable to run forced me on to the bike and I came out the other side fitter than I went in.

Somewhere along the way I made a mistake. I made the decision that if I could now run and bike, I might as well swim and see if I could do a triathlon. Something that wasn't simple to do, given my shoulder issues I have written about before, so this was not a decision I took lightly, but something I thought possible for the first time in a long time.

So what I had written off as a ruined season turned out to be one of my busiest. My simple Runna plan was replaced by a TrainingPeaks log filled with double-session days and technique drills in the pool, all to get me fit enough for a tester triathlon at Rutland Water. Entering this was the second mistake. I somehow won my age group at the Dambuster Triathlon, and then at Outlaw Sprint a few weeks later. The season turned itself around in two races and I have now caught the bug badly enough that the season finished off with a sub-6-hour 70.3 and have more planned for next year.

For now, I am looking forward to a couple of weeks 'off' to relax a little and recoup, and looking forward even more to the training blocks that follow. There is a newfound desire in me to push the limits of what I am capable of, and looking at TrainingPeaks filled with workouts fills me with excitement rather than dread.