Lying here feeling nauseous and I don’t know if its the chocolate egg, the drugs (diclofenex) or the fact I’ve been weighing up in my head and doubting my Ironman goal. Then again it could be sun stroke.

This week I’ve rested, since last weeks cycle and the knee giving me pain (but only after finishing) I decided not to run or ride until today.

My swim at the start of the week was great. I swam the furthest ever, 3.6km and felt rather pleased with myself. I also swam on Wednesday with the Tri club which is great as I get to swim with others. It’s also encouraging as I’m the fastest in the lane which after only a year of being in the pool again is a great achievement for me. Though also it could be that the others are just slow. 🙂

By Thursday the knee had calmed down to a dull ache and the pain was subsiding so all seemed well for the reccie of the Ironman UK bike course.

I headed down to Lancashire with my IM buddies in training, Tina and Alan after work on Friday with the intention of riding early Saturday morning. As none of us had done the course I’d planned it on Garmin website and had sent it to them to download onto their watches.

The conversation about the course continued in the car, about the hill, and the weird route it took when suddenly it dawned on me that I’d got the route wrong. I’d been thinking it was a clockwise loop. But no!! It’s anticlockwise!! Like most courses in Triathlon in the UK are due to us driving on the left!

Major oops!! Major doh!

So all this time I’d navigated around the course on google street view and all the time I’d expected the hill profile to be loong and sweeping. When in fact the hill is a quick ride of 300m over 5km!! And I’d remembered landmarks to turn but from the opposite direction Doh!

So there we were starting off on the loop. My plan was to do one loop and the see what I felt like. iM route does this 3 times.

My knee was ok going up but I could I get up the hill a second time? I’d been having this conversation with myself for most of the journey after doing the hill once.

The first time up had been great the weather was awesome and the views were even better. I was very fresh when I reached the top and the glide back down was over so quick.

However I fell off in an unclipping incident and grazed my knee and banged the bone.

My knee was holding up. So in my head I’d decided I was ok to do another climb. But this could have been due to peer pressure, not from my buddies but just the fact that they were gonna do another one made me want it. I also wanted to see how I faired after two climbs as on the day we’d be doing 3.

I got to the top and in my head I was done, I should have gone back there and then. But no I persevered and decided to go to at least the half way point of the loop. This was a bad mistake.

After the descent my leg had seized up, partly from falling off but also mainly due to the existing injury. It had never felt that bad until then.

I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place. Go on for another 20km? Or go back over the hill. Either way I was screwed.
My calf had tensed up and was also giving me hell, like a wee sprain.

By now I was letting out grunts of pain. It was so sore.

I decided I had to go on, partly as Tina needed my navigation to get round this course, and partly as I didn’t want to go up that hill, although the other way wasn’t exactly hill free.

Getting back to the hotel it hit me that next weeks sportive, 68miles around Fife, is most definitely canceled for me.

I’m so pee’d off that I keep on having to miss out events due to injury. My injury is most likely overuse from entering the plan too quick after being sidelined with ITB injury on the other leg!

I’m going to have to change my plan. Ditch this Ironfit regime, as its not doing me any good trying to catch up with the times and distances. I’m going to have to rest up. Really treat this knee with respect.

The IM race is in doubt as if this knee becomes chronic then I’m not sure if I’d be able to walk a marathon after the ride if the pain is like it was yesterday.

Anyway, ill leave you with some pics of yesterday. I will say this, I’m glad I did the route yesterday as I’ve learnt a lot. I’m not happy though that I went up a second time around – which I’ve only got myself to blame.