one-hundred-and-seventy-something-days

So, I've been injured. I'm on the way back though. I'm swimming, water running, and slowly building up my time on the bike.

Coming back from injury, you can't generally expect much more than this. You need to build your strength and fitness up again and that takes time.

I'm very aware though, that time is ticking. I got a reminder just the other day via Facebook. 180 days to go until Challenge Roth. That makes it one-hundred-and-seventy-something days now. It doesn't seem that far away.


I had my first physio appointment since before Christmas the other day and I left full of optimism and armed with a to-do list.
1. Buy Theraband
2. Do a handful of exercises "every other day" (ie, every day)
3. Repeat Step 2.

OK, I said optimism. Not elation.

The good news was that there was no real need to rest my ankle anymore, so I can start doing most of the things I need to do to build strength and fitness for my next race*. I can do this the normal way, through regular triathlon training.

The bad news was that I will be banging my head against a brick wall trying to do this, until I build up all the little stabilising muscles in my ankle that have also weakened through inactivity. Unfortunately, I can't do this through regular triathlon training.

(Thus the Theraband and exercises every (other) day.)

I'm trying to be smart about how I build up my Ks, and most of I'll, I'm trying to stay focussed. After getting the go ahead from the physio to push a little harder in training, I decided that to get extra bang for my buck I'd do a swim followed by a WT on Saturday morning. This is the kind of session my coach usually prescribes for me at this time of my training to get your body ready for transitions and used to getting food down in the first half hour on the bike.

When Saturday morning rolled around, it all seemed a bit hard - packing my bike, plus the trainer, plus the swim gear, working out my swim set, and making sure I had the nutrition I needed to achieve what I wanted from the session. I nearly pulled the pin. Nearly.

When you're coming back from injury it's really easy to be half arsed about your training. You feel like you can't really train properly, so you start wondering why you're bothering.

(Or maybe that's just me?)

Instead I decided it was time for an attitude change. I decided to start thinking and acting like an athlete. I need to find and apply the consistency and dedication that I'd normally have when training for an ironman. Some days, I might only be able to focus it on my rehabilitation. But that's OK. 

Roth is only one-hundred-and-seventy-something days away and I need every one of them.

*except running