Celtman, Coffee, Cake and a Collie

I've just failed a bike session... I did everything I could to try and get it done despite waking up feeling tired after a full-on couple of weeks.  But nope... no, no, no.  Not happening. Not today.  Sometimes, the body just says No.  It happens less and less now, as I gain fitness and resilience, but sometimes you just have to take a rest day.  So, to try and avoid beating myself up for not completing it, it seemed like a good time to look back over progress in the last few weeks and months.  A warning: this is a looooong geeky post!  The last couple of months have seen me gradually regaining progress lost while I was ill in November, and going beyond where I was in terms of strength.  It's been hard-won, and setbacks like that can make regaining the lost ground feel really tough.  I've got there though, and have had some really nice wins recently.   I think this has mostly come through old-fashioned consistency.  Simply showing u...

I nearly didn’t do my bike session yesterday.  There are a million excuses available at this time of year, and a million distractions that suck away time.  Add to that the usual NHS 'winter pressures', busy shifts, long dark nights, cold weather and the fact I've been out with a repeat of my skin infection for a couple of weeks, and getting out and getting sessions done can feel like an impossible task.  It's times like these when I have to remind myself WHY I'm doing this.  And just how much time, effort, energy and money I've invested in this thing.  But actually, the most important thing to remind myself of when it gets hard is just how much support I have from some very important people.  Most of my training is done alone: all my indoor swimming is solo; most of my bike training both indoors and out; and most road running is also alone.  Mark and Riof tend to join me for trail runs, and for short runs before work; Mark occasionally joins me for a b...

Everything hurts.  Legs...yup.  Shoulders... yup.  Hips... yup.   I noticed this t-shirt online this morning, which kind of sums up how I feel just now.  I'm due back to work tomorrow after a week of annual leave, and for the second time since starting to train under the guidance of Alan from Triathlonworkx , Annual Leave = Training Camp.   And in that week, we've had some adventures, spent plenty of time out & about... but I've also seen a couple of important little pieces of progress.  More on that in a bit.  So how's it going?   Well, the last 3 months have seen me working harder than ever before in fitness terms, but I seem to be managing to fit it around my shifts, and with Alan's help I'm managing the fluctuations in energy levels that go with shift work, and being a middle-aged, menopausal, female athlete.   I've also learned a lot about how this is going to progress over the next few months.  My training load is fairly s...

  This is a short post, but an important one.  It's also extremely geeky, so if you're not into training 'numbers' you might want to turn away now...  I thought I knew what 'training consistency' meant.  Turns out I didn't, really.   Coming up for two months in training under the hand of Alan Cardwell and  Triathlonworkx  and I'm learning.  I'm learning a huge amount, but one of the big lessons is around what consistency actually means, and what I am capable of.  Turns out, that's more than I thought (I know- you told me so, right?).  Some people will understand these graphs...          That's what consistency looks like....   And the results?  Well it's early days.  But so far: VO2 Max for both running & biking up, front crawl swimming pace up, weight and body fat percentage down.  And that's just the start.      Consistency, accountability, and hard work.  The next te...

A month or so has passed now since my Celtman DNF, and I’ve had plenty of time to digest the experience, reflect on the last year and make some decisions. I’m back at work too, with a real bump: straight into a set of busy shifts with big waits at hospital and some pretty brutal night shifts. Work always brings things into perspective... I wanted to write a little round up of what I think happened on the day, and what followed in my decision making; of where I am now, and how I'm going to move forward.  This is for me - as all of my blog posts are - but if it helps anyone else... well that might just be a good thing too.   So first, what happened on the day?   Having completed the Celtman swim (3+km in 1hour 27 mins, calm conditions, 10 degree water temperature), gone through transition and got on my bike feeling ok, around 45-60 minutes into the bike I started to suffer.  My energy disappeared, legs felt heavy, chest felt tight (not heart attack tight before you won...

Kate (Support Crew): "Hi Paul, it's Kate, Zoe's support crew, race number 157, she is withdrawing" Paul (Race Director): "Ah that's a huge shame"... Me: "Hi Paul.  Yeah, I'm done.  Today's not my day..." Paul: "Are you absolutely sure?  We really want you to finish.  Do me a favour and sit down for 5 minutes & think about it, then phone me back". Me:  And so Celtman 2024 came to an end for me, sitting under a tree in Gairloch, feeling frankly awful.   So... what happened?  The short answer is I don't know for certain.  I can assess what I think might have gone wrong, but I don't think I'll ever know with absolute certainty.  So I'll try to dissect it here in order to learn from it... for next year 😁. ***** 3am and we're in our van at Shieldaig campsite.  It's still dark despite being almost midsummer in the north of Scotland.  The alarm went off at 2:15, breakfast eaten, Kate arrived at 0245.  So ...