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Testing Times

As an athlete, it’s easy to always sing when you’re winning and keep quiet when you’re not. For me, the past month or so of training and racing has been a real rollercoaster ride. In early September I raced – and won – Bala Olympic Distance, which was a great booster. It was the first Olympic distance race for me since the Age Group Worlds in Vancouver in June ’08. Going into Bala, I’d done my biggest block of training to date so the race was just an experiment to see what my body (and mind) could do when fatigued. Answer: swim, bike and run well and just about hold on! I was buzzing after that race and, after a week of textbook recovery (early nights, great nutrition, stretching, massage) I headed into my next block of training ready to kill it in preparation for Clearwater (70.3 Worlds on Nov 13).

Unfortunately, an old shoulder injury flared its ugly head just a few days after this blissful recovery week – and, as much as I tried to prevent it happening, this really got to me. I knew that with rehab and some strengthening work I could be back in the pool in not too lengthy a time (and it wouldn’t affect my ability to bike or run) yet still, someone robbed me of my mojo and I felt flat and lost. Bike sessions which I could usually nail seemed impossible and sometimes just getting my butt out of the door was an effort in itself.

From somewhere, this weekend, though, I rediscovered my mojo. Maybe it was staying up until the small hours of Sunday morning watching the Ironman World Champs live from Hawaii, maybe it was the six hours of riding on my Focus TT bike with Stenners, or maybe it was the fact that I’ve just remembered why I’m doing this in the first place – because I love it.

In three weeks time I’ll be in Miami, staying with some great friends whom I can’t wait to catch up with, and we’ll be getting ready to journey over to Clearwater for the final race of the season. Win, lose or draw, I’ll be smiling and enjoying every second.

Wi-fi permitting, I’ll regularly update my blog and Twitter account.

Keep smiling and keep training

EK