Coming back from Injury

If you’ve not read every single moan I’ve written in this blog, then you’ve missed a lot of complaining about all the races I’ve missed: big races, World Championships, small races, team races, track races, road races, duathlons, triathlons – everything from 400m on the track to Olympic distance triathlon. I wouldn’t recommend you read my old blog posts, unless you’re feeling so entirely out-of-this-world positive that you need a bit of negativity to bring you back to reality. Being injured is a pain – actually a pain; walking, driving, sleeping, sitting etc were all a pain, never mind trying to run, bike or swim. And on top of that it’s a bit of a mental battle as you see every sporting thing you’d planned going ahead without you – races still go on, everyone else keeps on training, sporting social circles continue to exist without you. You’re confined to the side lines of what had been a core part of your life, and it’s hard to stay positive during these times. No matter what other activities you fill your time with or how you make the most of the extra time and seize the opportunity to focus on other interests, there’s no denying that when you can’t do something you love and are passionate about, things get a little tough.

I absolutely love my sport(s) and everything they bring to my life. I love running. Every time I see somebody else running, even if I’ve already run that day, I will wish I was running. Every time I see water, I wish I was swimming in it – and I’ve been that way as long as I can remember. And every time I see a cyclist speeding along beautiful country roads, I usually wish I could cycle as well as them and then I wish I was cycling! As I’ve said before, the social side of sport is fantastic – the camaraderie from being part of a team, the friends you make training and competing and the like-minded people you meet everywhere you run, bike or swim! Seeing friends work hard in training and improve is always inspiring, and I love how happy people are when they’ve had a good race. It’s a great world to be part of and although I do love getting good results of my own, I knew I’d be happier as soon as I was back in my sporting world instead of letting it all pass me by, following my friends triumphs and tribulations from the side lines.

So after missing a lot of races, less than 2 months ago I decided I’d had quite enough of not racing. Even if I was going to be racing quite slowly, I wanted to be part of it all again. Since then I’ve done a few road races and some short cross-country races – 5km is my limit till I manage to get some more training in. I was hoping I’d be able to race myself back to a reasonable level of fitness. For me, no training every matches the intensity of racing. I would say I can push myself quite hard in training, hit times on reps that I need to – but I often have another gear in racing that I can never find in training. Must be my competitiveness!

It’s taken 6 weeks, but I now feel like I’m able to race hard over 5km, which is a huge improvement on where I was at the end of September, running XC races in trainers and having to take a few days off a week. I’ve had my first top 10 XC finish of the season, finishing 7^th at the North Staffs league in Stafford, plus a week later I clocked a decent 5km time of 18:58 in the Telford ParkRun. I’ve had a great time racing again, training back on the track with my team mates and enjoying some lovely runs round the countryside. I’m definitely a lot more positive about everything than I was 2 months ago, but whilst I’m on my way back, I’m certainly not there yet and this weekend reminded me how far I still have to go.

This weekend was the Grafham Water Duathlon that I had optimistically entered a few weeks back when British Triathlon suddenly announced a raft of late season races which would be qualifiers for next years’ European Duathlon Champs. After missing pretty much every single big race I wanted to do this year, I was really annoyed that the qualifiers had been moved 5 months ahead of their normal schedule, giving me very little chance of getting fit enough to qualify. Regardless of this, I entered the race and hoped that I would be able to take part. Last weekend I was out on my bike, and after 30 minutes cycling I had a bit of an epiphany…no matter how much I wanted to race, it was very unlikely my body would actually hold up! It didn’t matter how much I “wanted it”, there was to be no battle of mind over matter, I simply had not been able to do the training to even make it round the course. And if I tried there was a definite risk of making my injury worse. So I didn’t race this weekend, which of course means I didn’t qualify for the European Duathlon Champs in 5 months’ time. Luckily though, the World Duathlon Champs are a mere 6 months away, and the races to qualify for the British team are a good 4 months away still, giving me plenty of time to get back to full fitness. Needless to say I am a little annoyed that these late season qualification races were announced with only a few weeks’ notice. My annoyance comes from not having time to regain fitness after injury, but I know a number of my fellow duathletes are a little annoyed at having last minute additions to their already long seasons, which for many started with the British Champs back in March. I believe the normal Spring qualification races were moved to the preceding Autumn as a result of the poor weather conditions we experienced this Spring which prevented some of the qualification races from going ahead as planned – so I can understand the logic here, I just would have liked it to have fitted in with my return from injury a little better!

So, what’s next? Well I’ll be aiming for a few Spring Duathlons now and the World Duathlon Champs in Spain. Over the Winter I’ve got a good few XC races to go at with the Midlands and National XC Champs being my target races. I’m also hoping to get in a couple of 10km races as I build up my training, so I’ve got plenty to keep me motivated to get back to full fitness. And if my love of running wasn’t enough, I’ve got lots of club races with the hope of team prizes and cakes to look forward to as well!