Lollie bag

As in a mixed bag.

That is what today has been.

The bad/frustrating first, because then I can end on the good. My back is sore again. Not in the same, 'hey let's not race that Ironman you have been training for' way that it has been before. In fact this is most definitely a different kind of sore. I know this because it is the other side of my back to where I have been hurt before and it is much lower. Sacral if I had to guess. I would even go so far as to say around S1 and S2, says the man who has spent an inappropriate amount of time thinking about his own back.

I am not entirely sure what it is, but I will seeing a physio as soon as I possibly can to try and find out. I do, however, know what I did, and that is the most frustrating bit. I had just finished up a particularly good run on Tuesday, I had just got home and I tripped backwards over a toy. As I fell, I turned and caught myself awkwardly on my left leg. That seems to have been what did it. It has been sore since. It isn't the sort of thing that seems like it should have done much damage. But it has been niggly sore ever after. It hasn't got in the way of training much, although it stopped me running on Thursday. I rode with it fine yesterday, although I would be lying if I said it didn't get sore. This morning it felt so close to being good that I decided to not run again. One more day should do it I told myself. However, now at the end of the day it is aching again and so I am busy second guessing myself.

I am at the point where I need a medical person to tell me what it is so that I can either feel comfortable running on it, or know that I shouldn't be. Anything to stop me wondering, should I, shouldn't I.

Other than the back it has been a solid week of training, on top of a solid couple of weeks of training. Whilst it has been solid and I have been satisfied with how I have been progressing, it has also been a frustrating couple of weeks. I have missed at least one session a week for the last few weeks. The issues I have had this week with my back just being the icing on the cake. A session a week, so what, it doesn't seem like much. However, it is below the standards I expect of myself. I learnt long ago that the secret to going quickly isn't really a secret at all, it just involves training properly and consistently. I have struggled with that consistency over the last month. Each week I tell myself, this week, this week I will sort myself out. Then sure enough, sometime during the week I make some excuses and take the easy option. It is a strange situation to be in, to be training well and to be frustrated about it. Part of me thinks I am probably being a bit to uptight about this whole thing. It is a sport after all. However, another part of me can name people who have trained inconsistently their whole career and then wondered why they never got anywhere. If a 1% can win you a race, it can lose it for you as well.

Hmmmm.

Well that was depressing.

On to some more nice news. I had breakfast this morning. That in itself isn't so news worthy. But this breakfast happened to be at the Triathlon WA annual awards. At those awards I got THIS!!!

Sorry, a little underwhelming isn't it. But for all its unobtrusiveness, this medal represents the WA 30-34 Long Course Championship (it has a blue ribbon so it must be important). Which is pretty cool. Waaaiiiit a second I hear you say, you are 35-39, what sort of a shifty are you trying to pull here. Well I have to admit it threw me as well, particularly when they called my name for the 30-34 age group. But apparently the awards goes on the age group you were in when you took your membership, not the age group you raced in. So whilst I raced Busselton 70.3 (WA Long Course champs) as 35-39, my TWA membership was still for 30-34 (I only aged up in January). So that kind of makes sense.

Whilst only little, this medal means quite a bit to me. Like my wife, the small size just means that it has a higher density of specialness.

Not a bad way to finish off a mixed bag of a week.