Tormented by injury this month, Roz lets us in on how she's still training hard and in full prep mode for Motala...
One step forward, two steps back - I guess that’s our body’s way of reminding us that we need to be careful and take things easy! This is something that I often struggle to do, although I believe I am getting better at it. My neck injury from last November survived The Hole Park Super Distance Off-Road Duathlon, which was a tough four and a half hour race in miserable cold, wet and windy conditions. Like last year it was a superbly run event, but sadly still extremely low in numbers and I was the sole female representative. I did manage to get a good lead on the lads on the bike section though, managed to maintain it on the second run and to my astonishment win the race!
I recovered well and then had the luxury of Easter (which normally means four days of hard riding for me). I decided to alternate between riding and turbo and came out the other side of Easter with a lot of mileage in my legs and no trouble in my neck – yay!
That was until the end of the week when I had a stark reminder that I may have overdone things when I woke up one morning unable to turn my head. I’ve had some physio and I seem to be back on track - which is just as well as I am writing this blog post whilst on an aeroplane to Lanzarote. I am with three of my Tri London pals and the plan had been to have a week of endurance training in the wind and sunshine!
I may need to adapt my program to suit my neck and I am fully prepared to do so. There is no point being super-fit but unable to even get to the start line of my races. The ITU Long Course Triathlon World Champs in Motala, Sweden is only a couple of months away now – eek!
Alison, my blind friend continues to race at the Park Runs each week without fail. She is speeding up each week too and bearing in mind she often has a guide with her that she does not know, I am super-impressed. We have bitten the bullet and entered a local sprint distance race in September and are both really excited about it. We are now willing the lakes to hurry up and warm up so that we can start practising some open water swimming. Then I just need to learn to ride a tandem...any volunteers to joint me for some practice sessions?!
Until next month train hard & stay safe and I will try to too!
Roz's previous blog post can be read here. Her next post will be on Wednesday 20 May.
