Good Days and Bad Days

 

  Simon Lessing, Mark Allen and Me at the World Championships Awards in Edmonton, Canada

 

Having had a disappointing three or four week period health wise, it was so nice to get back on my bike this morning. We just did a steady little bike ride to see how it went and I didn’t feel any worse at the end of it. We all go through bad patches with either injuries or bugs. I have only been very slightly under the weather; I’d say not more than a degree under but it has hung around for about a month now. Then there has been that hamstring that has been tender and aching, oh yes and the knee that started to swell after the Windsor race in June. Then there were the glands under my chin popping up, the daily morning headache and sore throat. 

The list actually goes on a bit more but we will leave it at that. Yet during that time I had a couple of good runs and some swims that I was more than happy with. There was a half ironman race in Poland on the horizon; I had entered it at the beginning of December last year having watched a full length video of the race and thought that it might suit me even though it has been eight or nine years since I did that distance. The bike profile had not looked much different to our rides locally at home. As sometimes happens when a race becomes a qualifier for a Worlds event, they changed the bike route to make it harder. I admit that I had worked myself into a bit of a state of worry about it and when all these little problems and niggles started I seriously started to think that they were all in my head. 

We had booked a super holiday for the trip, with some exceptional stop overs included in it that I have already talked about. It was a great holiday. Then after a couple of bad nights sleep, I woke up extra early on race morning and told Steve that I was not doing the race. It just seemed completely dopey to do a race that I had absolutely no confidence about, when I was not feeling very good anyway. The thing that bothered me most was that my friends would be disappointed. That would just have to be something that I accepted and was still able to think that I had made the right decision under the full set of circumstances. My husband/coach/best friend’s reaction when I told him I was not going to race was a glance in my direction as he said in a completely calm voice, “OK”. He didn’t try for a moment to change my mind. He did start, and was first in his AG out of the water. After the race was over he told me that he was glad that I had pulled out, because he said I would not have liked the bike ride at all and probably would not have made the bike cut off and that would have made me feel worse than I felt anyway.
 

 

                                                    Ironman racing with two broken toes.

Today, on the eve of my seventy-seventh birthday, I am still not in great form so it was not all in my head, caused by worry after all. I have lots of friends who have times when things are not going well or when an injury keeps them out of training for a while. I know from experience that these things do pass in time and if you have a lick of sense, you know that it is not any use trying to push yourself through those times. A few of my training pals have been sweetly sympathetic to me and some have not known what to say, so have said nothing. Both of those reactions are fine for me because I have had my great moments in the past, some may think that I am stupid to think that there are any more satisfying times ahead given my age, but I am still looking forward to enjoying more of the sport I love. I have two more events that I am really looking forward to this summer, stupid or not. We all go off the boil sometimes and I will just simmer along for the present.

 

 

                                                   Clearwater, Florida on another good day. 

The last few days of being glued to the TV watching the greatest athletes in the world perform to their very best is hugely motivating and tremendously lifting. We can all follow our dreams but we must know and accept that those dreams only come true when the work has been done and the time put in. Every day cannot be fun but some moments are worth every second of toil and disappointment along the way.
 

 

The top photo here is with John Lunt at my very first race, the Damp Dash at Kingston. This last, very happy picture was taken by my photographer daughter Jacqueline Rackham on the last day of the 75 Mini Triathlons I completed for charity in 75 days during the summer of 2014. This was my 75th birthday.