I get asked this a lot, I take it as my friends checking my current sanity level.
Yes I do know that the IOC has not seen fit to let me go to Rio, something to do with Helen Jenkins being on average twice as fast as me and the swimmers are now half my age!…..
I am however half as fast on the bike as Jonny Brownlee looking at his splits in Japan! That is one delusion I am going to allow myself. (We’re ignoring the fact he “jogs” three times faster!) All in all the chances of me competing at the Rio Olympics is probably comparable to the chances of me shaking my “bootie” down the High St in a Brazillian thong……
Maybe if we’d done triathlon at school rather than being chased round an athletics field wearing belly grabbing green PE knickers I’d have found my sport early enough to have got there. Maybe not, but you know what? The desire to get that first triathlon medal is no less strong than for those who excel at the highest level. I will get there, it probably won’t be pretty, but I will get there and I am closer to it today than I was yesterday. If it was easy I probably would have lost interest by now, my PT would have a space in his diary and my physio would no longer be funding his retirement plan.
Yes I blog a lot of nonsense but if it inspires just one person to think, you know what? I could do that…. Then that’s an added bonus. Maybe I’ve put more people off, who can say!
The six year old I nanny for has announced this week that she is “in training for the Fun Run” (except she pronounced it “bun rum” – This is no indication of my gin swilling, cake eating childcare abilities!)
Watching her run through the woods after the family dog with perfect running form and faster than I probably ever will, it does make you wonder at what point do we become “athletes”!? and what support is necessary?
My trainer said the other week (…..with regards to my prancing down the street doing some ridiculous running drill) “Now you look like a proper athlete….” and no he is not visually impaired! But he did get reprimanded with “We’re not using the “A” word!”
I know he considers me to be one but I’m having a hard time getting over the denial in myself.
Most “non – athletes” do not swim 6km a week, do 50km of bike sprints and 8km of running. (….and I’m only training for a super sprint! Oh and a half mile lake swim!) Maybe we’ll just skip the “A” word and move straight on to the “T” word…. But not till the 14th July!
So why am I having such a hard time seeing myself that way? My PT tells me “you do a lot!” my physio tells me “you do a lot!” and they should know, they see enough people to give a fair comparison.
Marshalling for the “Fun Run” (in my opinion an oxymoron if ever there was one!) last weekend on the same athletics track that 20years ago saw the green knickers episodes kind of gave me PTSD flash backs!
I was never that good at popular “cool” sports when I was at school, I was never a 100m runner, never made the hockey team and positively despised netball. I did alright at the uncool ones like shot-put and cross country (which once led to a 9th place! – Probably because the rest of the year group was sat down by the river smoking!)
I also regularly swam a 100 lengths before school and competed at area level for cadets, once almost making the national team. I went horse riding two or three times a week, volunteered for Riding for the Disabled and did ballet (yes hard to believe I know!) and modern dance but even then I didn’t consider myself “sporty”.
Maybe it’s because I don’t look like an “athlete”. This being reinforced by an osteopath who told me “You don’t really have the physique for sport…”errr well you don’t really look like you can yank my leg around but we’ve all got to work with what we've got....! She also did not read the bemused expression on my face as she instructed me to stretch my hamstrings like a 90yr old granny and I did not sign up for chairobics! (She did not make “Team Rio”)
Lord Alan Sugar moment over and Ok I am once again developing Sir Chris Hoy type quads on my “don’t do anything to get them genetically gifted” legs but the rest of me? Well I look like a shot putter! I still can’t get into my “little black dress” because while I have got 2 stone lighter in the last 18mths my errr “swimmers lats” have got bigger so the side zip still does not fasten!
The distance swims have made my arms a bit more toned, to the point where a sleeveless tri suit doesn’t give me cold sweats but the skin tight thing….. well with 8weeks to go we’re not “at peace” with that yet!
I’m lucky that I can afford the crack team I’ve now surrounded myself with and it does take that when you decide to drag your body into this at the practically geriatric age of 35…. They’re two of only a VERY few men alive who have been allowed to touch my feet, poke my stomach and spend an unreasonably long time in my arm pit!
They do more than fix the physical things though, they also provide the emotional support that you really need when people around you for whatever reason do not. You build a high level of trust with them, they see you naked, they make you cry, swear and if anybody else gave you those bruises you’d be off down the police station! They have to be the right people but when they do a high level of sport themselves they also get where you’re coming from. My trainer plays football and does crazy muddy running courses for err pleasure, my physio is doing the Knaresborough Bed Race and training for the York Marathon. So I know that they “get it”, they are also the only people I listen to other than myself when it comes to pushing forwards or holding back. They never question that I get more pleasure out of doing half an hour of bike sprints along the river on a Friday night than drinking 5 pints of lager and a dodgy take out ……my physio is currently down there with his Bed Race team practicing their river crossings for a start!
Like the little girl I look after I am quite single minded. I don’t really like team sports, I don’t really like having a gym buddy or a training partner. I do find the odd person to race and I do race myself against the last PB or against previous race results. The two people I usually "race" in the pool are men, because they like that competitive thing where you look across at each other and there's an unspoken "Show me what you've got" thing... I'm currently 4th on the bike overall going off the local pool triathlon times and am for the most part chasing down the boys.
Unlike a "female specific" triathlon training guide I just read which suggested:
"Isolating yourself as ladies away from men, and experiencing the training for a woman’s triathlon by placing yourself in shoes belonging to your own kind rather than another, is a lot more rewarding."
- Said the bloke who just got beaten by a woman.......
I'm not some bloke hating feminist for the record but seriously, the fact that this crap can be spouted in this century is a worry! Train with girls if you like, train with the boys if you like, whatever works for you. For me a female only gym is my idea of hell, it's a woman woman competition thing that only women really get. I feel much less intimidated in a weights room full of sweaty blokes than on a matching lycra treadmill line up. I need someone who pushes me on, be that male or female and generally I find it's men. My non skinny jeans conducive thighs also mean that most of the girls times on the bike are behind me so I'm left chasing down the boy in front. It's also interesting to note that many elite sports women train with and against men, Kerry Anne Payne for example.
Maybe before 2012 women's sport hasn't had the same high profile, there haven't been the role models or the same media space given. But that's changing, next year could see a woman on the formula 1 track, women's footballers and cricketers are finally getting some of the recognition in the news rooms that they deserve, Nicola Adams and Ellie Simmonds have changed the perception of "women's" and Paralympic sport.
One day maybe we can drop the prefixes and just call it "sport".....
So how does that six year old become the next Paula Radcliffe? To the envious relatively untrained eye she has the potential ability and she’s blessed with a Marathon runner’s physique. Like me she was fascinated by the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics and I really hope that in a totally non pushy way she sees and hears about my training and is inspired by it. She’s just moved swimming classes and has started kickboard drills for the first time but she doesn’t really like putting her face in the water. She was really captured by Ellie Simmonds watching the Paralympics and we’ve talked about how to swim that fast she has to put her face in the water! I was lucky enough to swim with Claire Cashmore before she won Silver and we’ve talked a lot about what she had to do to get where she has. Her 8km a day makes my 5-6km a WEEK look puny in comparison but that’s because I hold myself up to a high bar. I know that for some people 5-6km of swimming a year would be an achievement!
I’m stubborn and as my physio and PT will attest to I have a high pain threshold…. They generally compete to see who can make me cry/swear/bruise the most! You have to go out in the rain or when you don't always feel like it if you're going to get where you want to be.
I want the little girl I look after to achieve her potential but I think it’s important she sees what it takes without putting her off.
I had a conversation with my physio this week (….while he was ripping me a new adductor and admiring the bruise he left on my “new” bicep tendon!) as I go into taper for my first swim race of the year. (Luckily like my first triathlon event it’s also at Eton Dorney and there’s another triathlon on the same weekend.) Neither of us like to be faced with the unexpected, however horrible the thing is I like to see it coming then I can see what I have to do to get past it. I’m planning to put my bike in the car and have a little recce round the bike course. I also want to get some pointers of what to do and not to do in transition, again reducing the fear of the unknown is a huge part of reducing pre-race stress for me. Anything you can do to reduce anxiety burning up hard won muscle gains is worth it in my view.
He did however point out that it’s a bit of a double edged sword; What if it takes you longer than expected? What if you find something you don’t like?
The course is all on the flat and is a straight loop of the lake so on this occasion I really don’t think I have to worry. But is he right!?
I would really LOVE to do the new triathlon Human Races are putting on in St Lucia as a training goal for next year (I have yet to seriously broach this subject with "the boys"!) and with 18mths to train for it I think it could be awesome. However there is virtually no possibility of a “recce” for that one and it’s a “multi lap course with steep incline” so how do you get round that!? With swimming endurance events I like to go into a “race” having trained 50% past it. That way I know mentally that I can handle it if it gets rough or there’s current or there’s cramp etc. With the bike I know I’m fast and strong….. on the flat! Hills however are generally my nemesis. Running….. well not crawling over the finish line is the current goal there.
I’m gradually winning the mental and physical battle with running but it’s never going to be my favourite or probably my best discipline. The thought of doing the 5km Fun Run with my charge sends shivers down my spine, mostly at the thought of losing her as she laps me. She knows I find running hard and we make light of it. I think it’s important that she knows I don’t find it easy though. I explained to her that it’s OK not to be good at something; it just means you have to try harder and practice more and then you will get there, maybe not as fast as Mo Farah but faster than somebody who’s tried less.
Now I just need to take some of my own advice!
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