2013 European Triathlon Championships, Alanya Turkey - Part 1

Tales from Turkey 

Back on 12 August 2012 at the Worthing Triathlon I qualified to go to the Triathlon European Championships in my age group 40-44, not that old huh!?
**Note - I had a running injury for this race, no surprise there!

Here's the tale of how I got there and how great the race was.

That seems like a long time ago now and well it is, 10 months!

2012 was as I described in one tweet my Annus Horriblis as far as injury and not getting to a triathlon start line was concerned. I missed 2 half ironman starts due to a recurring neck injury and doing far too much running and constantly having lower leg injuries. I also took part in one where I couldn't complete the bike or even start the run. I was throwing money at the problem left, right and centre but I have finally found the real answer, please read on if you are struggling to remain injury free :)

As a Personal Trainer I was frustrated and annoyed most of the year at my inability to stay injury free while I kept my clients healthy I did not seem to have the same care of myself!

Then in November I was struck down with a horrible bout of Acute Bronchitis which given my job and training meant that I struggled to do anything energetic, not ideal!

In December and after a month of really feeling sorry for myself and finally being able to breathe without feeling strangled I set about finding someone to help me get to Turkey in one piece! At that time I really didn't know if I could ever get to an A race start line without something being wrong (but it can be done I'm happy to report!)

 I set about finding a coach who would help me to work out what I was doing wrong and who would have the knowledge to help me when it did go wrong (at that time it still felt like a dream to have a period of time where I was uninjured!)

So after much trawling I found a triathlon coach who was also a GB Age Grouper and more importantly a physiotherapist. This sounded like a good combination to me, he would know what I need to do but also have the knowledge to sort out my injury.

After an initial call Paul Savage agreed to coach me. I felt really confident that this was a relationship that was going to be a turning point. So much of what Paul said to me in the call hit the nail on the head as far as where I might be going wrong! Even my husband agreed that it all sounded like a very sensible plan of action.

So what was this mysterious and magical plan?

To stop me being dumb and not run as much! Which initially sounded very scary!

I've been a runner since the age of 10. For those of you who hated cross country running at school, I was the freak who loved it! It's where I found my running legs and my love of the mud and hills! Since then I've raced competitively all my life and it's still the one activity in life that makes me the happiest. So do to less of it sounded really tough!

But as my husband has reminded me on many occasions if you are going to work with a coach then you need to have 100% faith in their ability to deliver what you ask of them and do as they say!

I'm pretty good at doing what I'm told after 9 years in the RAF it's quite easy, that doesn't mean I don't question it or freak out from time to time but generally if I have faith in a coach then I get on with it!

Running - So I stopped doing things like a mid-week 90 min run as well as at least two more 60 min runs and Paul cut it right back to 1 long run, the rest short and on my own or the running I did with my clients. I really felt like I was hardly running at all some weeks but I had to keep the faith!

Cycling - At the same time as cutting back on the running I started to do frequent turbo sessions, at first they seemed really too easy but before too long I was regretting ever thinking that! I'm pretty lucky that discovering how much I love riding a bike certainly helps to get the miles in for triathlon as well as getting stuck into pretty horrid turbo sessions!

I think it helps that I started training for my first triathlon over the winter of 2006/2007  so the turbo and I became instant friends :)

Swimming - has always been my nemesis! I didn't always love swimming but I really wanted to crack it back in 2010 or I decided it was time to hang up my triathlon runners and get back to just running! I'm happy to say with some renewed focus
I managed to find my swim mojo, in terms of enjoyment anyway! The speed is still very much a work in progress!!

I've made the most progress with my swimming in 2013 ever, I now swim the fastest I have ever done and I love going to the pool. I just need to make sure I keep going to get faster!

Next time I'll go into how my running went in the lead up to Turkey and in the final Part 3 a summary of the race and what I'm up to next!