Daz Does Tri

Long story short. Injured. The race done the damage and recovery post race has been attempt to run, fail, weights, attempt to run, fail, weights rinse and repeat. Initially I came back from Torun fired up. Knee flared up in an annoying dull ache a week ago and I've been unable to run since. Depression kicked in a few days ago. Seriously down about it all. Feels a bitter pill to swallow. Pep talk today, the main issue is the lost fitness means that both Dulwich & Mid Cheshire are effectively now non starters. Taking those out of the equation and I can actually start to feel the weight shift from my shoulders. It's pretty fucking far from ideal BUT I can at least start to visualise a come back rather than lay in a pit of self pity with a race clock countdown ticking. Physio is booked for tomorrow so the hardest part is to wait that out. It should hopefully give me ideas about what and when at the very least. From Thursday onwards I'll need to adjust one way or the other. ...

OK, so off a big block it's time to start feeling fresher. Bring the legs in and start to feel faster as I head towards Torun. There is not a lot to be achieved burying myself and breaking down from here. I need to maximise the build and get quick. Monday 26th February Achy back. Head to see chiropractor and back is very sore and tight afterwards. BJJ in the evening and pretty beat up after that. I think I am at the stage now where I can see the back of two things. Tuesday Fuck, my back is absolutely shredded today. Busy day with builders in and home admin but spend much the morning / afternoon stretching, icing, heating, rolling my low and upper back. Quite stressful feeling this beat up off a rest day. Very frustrating. Right side of back - I'm guessing the lumbar spine maybe? is absolutely tight as mahogany. Eddington tonight but I need to get my body relaxed. Will be quite a bit of r&r before I go trying to loosen off the back and then keep it this way. Annoying, was ho...

Venue - Torun, Poland Date - 17th March 2024, 19.25pm (local) The skinny - DQ'd - stepping off inside of track. Could end the blog there really as those are the only facts that matters. I spin a good yarn though and I need the therapy after that race. Build up - was pretty good. Tight back and sore left glute but I hope to have started to address these. Everything on the trip leading to the start line I cannot complain about. Got some good memories of warming up, the call room, getting dialed in but the simple fact was I stood on the start line 100% ready to rock and roll. 10th fastest out of 12 in the race on seasons bests. Bang We're off. Grzegorz  KUJAWSKI  from Poland goes off at an insane pace. World champ and big favorite. (He clocks 64 for the opening 400m).  Ruben  BARRIO LORES  from Spain follows in the hole (70 for first 400) and then it's me leading the entire pack. Sitting on the front I clock and even split 75 for the first 2 laps and bang on 2...

Race week is done. Lines are in the sand, lessons learned and every other sports related chit chattery in the book. From now on, no time for nonsense it's either happening or it's not. Race wise I have nothing in the way. In 5 weeks it'll all be done but 5 weeks is a huge amount of time to move forward. This block is going to be 2 weeks build up, then a week backing off into a race, a final build week adding some heavier work and then again a taper into race week. Last week taper recap Running was all either shakeouts or races. Probably 30 miles in total. No S&C sessions. Taper wise I felt I nailed the training load for the 2 races arnd arrived in best shape run wise to get the best performances in. Health wise, 100% I wasn't right. Lots of shit going around and I have felt like I have had something in my system that's slowed me down. Not real bad but enough to take the edge off. Social wise it was a nightmare. Out Thursday night until late and out Saturday unti...

Training recap... Basically Eddington is strong, Track Thursday is OK and Track Saturday is tired. Rinse and repeat !! I know I am in much better shape than last year but I'm struggling to replicate that training into races. I know I need to relax, keep going as I am and it'll happen. So standard pre-race faffing about. 10 mins easy shakeout and felt good. John picked me up and we headed to Lee Valley. Arrived well early. Couple of trail laps easy. Sat around and then hit the warm up proper. 2 trail laps at tempo - time to bring back the tempo warm ups! Was in race 2 of the open tonight. Threw me a bit as I thought that was too fast for me. Felt OK on the warm up BUT my guts were not good. I was shitting the last of my lunch out with less than 10 minutes to kick off - not idea. I wasn't 100% I'd be out of the toilet at one stage. Lined up, 11 people in my race. Bang, and we are off. Made the decision pre-race to head straight to the back so as not to start too fast. Mis...