Your typical Tuesday morning run workout with 2km warm up some stretching, drills and then into main set...10x300m. The group I was in was to do the 300m on no more than 55, and they were actually around the 49-51 second mark. Things were going well until the 6th one. About 200m in, it felt like someone had stabbed my right hammie with a big needle, followed immediately by solid muscle tightening... Oh no! What had I done?! Perth is in my sights and I didn't know if this would keep me from it. That was it for me. I limped around work for the day, and then went to the pool after work for a swim set. I figured if my hammie was sore, I could still use a pull buoy and get a workout in. Oddly enough, it felt not too bad, (that and you really don't use your hammies to swim).
I went to physio Wednesday to get it checked out. Had I torn it? strained it? what? Well the good news is, it was a strain of the lateral something or other hamstring muscle. 2 rounds of physio and a massage had me in decent shape, but it was still lingering. I was allowed to still ride and swim, but when it came to running, I could only run Wednesday (7, 1km repeats where the muscle felt okay), Friday and then Sunday at the race. Racing was allowed, but I was under strict instructions to stop if I felt any tension in it. I still managed to get some good swimming and rides in this week and was feeling okay, but with a bit of caution.
My Saturday morning ride (3 hours) felt okay, so I took my bike down to check in Saturday afternoon and then it was an early morning start Sunday. My heat was off at 5:52am and transition opened at 4:45, so I was out the door at 3:30. (I must love this sport WAY too much).
Well I went down to the race the sprint man of the Gold Coast 70.3. My distances were 1km swim/33km bike/7km run.
A quick warm up in the water and I waited near the start line for my heat, the 3rd of the day. The sprintman heats were only 1 minute apart, so when the gun went off, it didn't take long for me to catch the wave in front. I was swimming well again and was constantly in a crowd of people. I guess you know your swim is coming along when you actually pass more people than people passing you. Just when I was getting into a solid rhythm, I was at the ramp. All the people around me were caps from the previous wave, so I was really happy with that. I jogged through to T1, quick exit out of my wetsuit and out onto the bike. A flying mount and I was off.
I was happy with my swim and it was now time to give it hell on the bike. 33km and I wanted to pass as many people as I could. Well, on the way out, that's all I did. Actually I didn't have anyone pass me on the bike. I had a couple of people who sprinted by me, but I caught them within a few 100 meters. I wanted to keep my speed as close to 40km/hr as possible, so with any hill, it was out of the saddle and pound the pedals. Things were going well on the bike, so it was just the wind that one had to worry about, but everyone had the same issues. Before I knew it, I was back into transition and putting my shoes on. my bike computer said 52:56 so I had managed to ride very well averaging over 37km/hr, not bad.
Focus on the run, was to run without pain...seems simple enough, doesn't it??
I headed out and was not feeling any pain, good start. I didn't use my footpod as I wanted to run on feeling rather than time or pace. Things were feeling okay and I felt like I was running at about 75-80% so not bad. As it was a 2 lap 7km course, I took the first with the same speed and would try things out a bit on the second. At the end of the first lap, I was feeling good and the hammie seemed to be holding up. So I took it at the same speed for about 500m and decided to try things out. I picked it up slightly, and waited.....no pain, this is good, not even a twinge. So I decided to pick it up closer to my race pace. I could feel the hammie tightening so I immediately backed off to the pace I had been holding, all good.
As I ran into the finishing area, I was extremely happy my leg had held up.
The times below, T1 is with the swim, and T2 is with the bike
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Actually my time was good enough for a top 10 result in my age group! Never have I done this in Australia, so I'm extremely happy! Actually my run average was around a 4:16/km so things are looking okay, down from my 4 minute average at the peoples race a few weeks ago, but considering I thought I might not be able to race.... Phew.
Now with my leg seeming to be holding up (I'll be going to physio a few more times this week) I'm going to listen and do what I can. After talking with Mark, we're going to push my taper down from 2 weeks to around 5-7 days as I really want to have a decent result.
I did try my team Canada tri suit at this race and it was very comfortable, no chaffing so a good test run for Perth.
That's my week, only 20 more days to go....
Cheers
Richard
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