Then at the last minute I entered Ripon Triathlon a fortnight before Outlaw, what a day, Whilst working in transition before the event, I pulled a guy aside whilst he put his stickers on his bike and was hit on the head by somebody's Gazebo, fortunately it missed the guy. It had hit me hard and the side of my face was a bit numb (like when You've been to the dentist) I had planned to swim without my wetsuit as the water was warmish, but decided I'd best wear it. I promised to pull out if I felt unwell. As it was I got my fist ever sub 30 min swim and as I was getting out of the lake I stubbed my toe, I tried to ignore the pain as I cycled, and did my fastest bike time too, the run however was awful, it was so difficult to ignore the pain, but I finished in 3 hours 1 min, my fastest ever time.
During the following week I got a pain in my cheek/tooth, I went to the dentist and found tat the gazebo incident had broken my tooth, and I had to have it removed.
So a fortnight to Outlaw and I'd broken my middle toe. That wasn't going to stop me, Outlaw saw another quick swim (for me) and a reasonable bike, (I had struggled in the wind) I set off on the run ignoring my toe and ran the first 11 miles, more than I'd managed before, things were going well, then I was talking to someone and realised he was walking as quick as I was running so I walked a bit to relieve the toe pain, bad move, when I tried to run again the pain was too much so I walked the rest at a reasonable pace finishing a minute quicker than my slowest Outlaw time.
Time to rest, 2 days later we flew to Tunisia for a fortnight, where I got a stomach bug and apart from 1 run and some swimming I did no training.
On return home I picked the training back up. In September the sea at Ironman Wales was really rough, I struggled and was exhausted on the first lap, I made the decision to withdraw from the race. I am still gutted about this.
October I ran a great time at the 35 mile Round Ripon Ultra and my second fastest marathon time a week later at the Yorkshire Marathon.
On 17 Nov my back seized up, not great especially as my next challenge the great Yorkshire Stair Climb, 522 steps. I did it anyway. On the 25 th, I got a shooting pain down my leg, my sciatic nerve trapped leaving me with reduced feeling in my left leg. I still managed the Frostbite 30 34 mile trail race in 9 hours at the beginning of December.
The result of this annoying back/sciatic issue is that I could swim and cycle but not run. Slowly it has been getting better but it is still not 100% healed.
Last Year's Training.
I have decided to start running again in the New year.
Fingers crossed that your sciatica clears up and that you have an injury-free 2015 :-)
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