After the dramatic and traumatic year after Diane passed away,
the 12 months that followed were a lot more settled race-wise and culminated in
success at last in Rotterdam. But after that, I was conscious of not making the
kind of progress I was expecting to.
I made such a huge change in my life in those first 12
months that I suppose at some point I had to get a feeling of anti-climax when
the progress slowed. The weight fell off so quickly to begin with that I fell
into the trap of thinking that’s how it would always be.
But my times barely improved in the second 12 months of
my odyssey and that made me question myself in a way I wasn’t expecting to.
The weight even started to fluctuate again and is only now really coming back
under control. I look in better shape and I feel better than ever, it just
doesn’t seem to be translating into performance in the way I had hoped.
It is 12 months since my first swimming lesson and I
believed by now I would be open water swimming to a sufficient level to have a
crack at a full distance triathlon this year. That’s unlikely to happen now. The
disappointment of realising how little progress I have made hit me hard when I
tried to do 500m at my first sprint triathlon in Nantwich a month ago.
I was embarrassingly hopeless and took an age to do the 16
lengths of the 30-metre outdoor brine pool. I told myself I should be better
than this after 12 months and it is frustrating me that I’m not. I completed
the sprint distance eventually and for the record I wasn’t the slowest on the
bike for the 20k and I certainly wasn’t the slowest when it came to the 5K run
to finish off but the swimming performance left me feeling a bit of an
impostor, if I’m honest. I feel I had no right to be there and that stays with
me for a good while after the event.
Maybe I’m just being foolish. At my age, starting from scratch
after never having swum or ridden a bike and not having run for 40 years since
leaving school, did I seriously think I’d be conquering full distance triathlons by now?
Well, yes is the short answer. And now I know I was being
too ambitious. But I am only prepared to concede that it will take longer than
I anticipated. I refuse to accept that I will not at some point reach my goals.
I need to work harder, I need to get more power in my legs
and I need to improve my endurance. Bit by bit, I need to chip away at these
things. I started off wanting to walk longer than a minute on the treadmill but
now I have allowed myself to get carried away with everything I have achieved.
I need to rein in my expectations and be more realistic. Target one is to get
under an hour for a 10K, closer to 2 hours for a half marathon and inside 5
hours for a marathon.
As for swimming, I need to make a decision to concentrate
less on the principle that ‘practice makes perfect’ and ease up on just doing
length after length poorly in the hope that one day it might all click magically
into place and start doing some drills instead.
I need to stop thinking about open water swimming. I need to
master the pool first. The wetsuit is hanging in the wardrobe anxious to be
tried out, but it will have to be patient. Its time will come. When I’m ready
and not before.
****
June 6, 2015. 5.10am. No need for an alarm clock. I’m up
already. Bonny and Cassie aren’t quite sure why they’re up so early but neither
is complaining. An early snoop around the garden as the dawn chorus is still
playing suits them fine.
As for me, I have begun the final countdown to the Bolton
Hill Marathon, a ‘testing’ 26 miles-plus over the trails of the West Pennine
Moors. It’s billed as a toughie and I’m ready for a long day. I’m nervous but
can’t wait to get started.
Nervous in no small measure because it is seven weeks since
Rotterdam and six days after the sprint triathlon disappointment in Nantwich.
So while I’d been concentrating on the pool in an attempt – sadly a vain
attempt – to perform OK in the pool, my running had gone by the board. I had
done one 10K, one parkrun and one training run of nearly 20 miles over parts of
the hill marathon course with Julie Bower. She had been focussing on the hill
marathon for a lot longer than I had and she was in much better shape for it
than me.
But with a generous cut-off time of 8 hours, I was determined
to do it by hook or by crook. Make that by run or by walk. I would do my best
to run the hills where I could but I also knew I had to respect the distance
and make sure I left enough in the tank to finish. So no mad heroics early on
just to see myself run out of steam before the end.
Everyone knows how tough it is but tough doesn't really come close. Certainly for a first-timer of my standard, anyway. Brutal is better, especially the sharp rise from Rivington
near Horwich back up the Roman road. After 21 miles, it’s hard enough to walk
up let alone run up. I could not believe anyone could run up that section, but
of course lots of the front runners did. They must have robot legs, machines
from the waist down. Did anyone check them for this at the end?
I make it home, though, and cross the finish line in a
couple of minutes over 7 hours. My legs are complaining heavily, but I feel
elated to have done it. Even though my time is four hours slower than the
winner.
Strangely, it restored my faith in what I can achieve. I
felt good out there. Slow, but good. I walked quite a few of the steeper hills
but not all of them and I managed to run unbroken for the last two miles or so to the finish.
I felt remarkably strong at the end, considering. I felt fitter. It sounds odd to say it, given I
was an hour and a half slower than in Rotterdam. But this was a real demanding
course – even though Steven Snape the winner dismissed it to me as “not really that tough”.
He should try running it for 7 hours see how he feels then! (To be fair he did say he had huge respect for anyone who stuck it out for so long to reach the end - felt I had to balance that up)
No, as far as I was concerned, I found it tough but I handled it. And it made me feel very positive about what lies ahead. Maybe not in the pool, but certainly on the roads and trails that lie ahead of me. I am sure now
that I have a lot more in my tank. A lot more potential in my running. I need
another marathon. And soon.
