A tough decision, made for the right reasons

Much like Rio gold medallist and ITU sensation Gwen Jorgensen I had planned to do a marathon in the quieter period following the triathlon season. Unlike Gwen I hadn’t planned to run the New York marathon but instead had chosen a venue a little less glamorous and closer to home, Kingston. This will no longer be the case, injury has forced me not to risk my off season and look at the bigger picture.

Ever since returning from Mexico I have been unable to run. I’ve had pains on the inside of my left shin only, diagnosis suggested posterior shin splints, and so I took some time off running. I left kept up my swim and bike work, beginning to build towards next season all the time excited to make more improvements. All the time wary that I wouldn’t have done much running before my marathon.

I held off to the week before the race to try running again, knowing my base fitness would be more than capable of carrying me through the distance, it was just a case of would my leg have recovered in time to get me round the 42.2km course. Answer – a resounding no. Whereas the pain when running was far reduced from what it was, it was too big an ask to consider getting round Kingston, all the time hoping I wasn’t doing further damage. I would have also been disappointed with the time knowing on a good day I could have been in contention to finish top 5 in a time well below 3 hours (based on past results).

The deciding factor came the weekend before as my support team (my parents) and I sat down to plan out next triathlon season on a big wall planner – yes we are probably taking it a bit seriously but we wanted to make sure I planned properly for events I wanted to do. Lessons on planning had been learnt from last years early season 7 in 7 weeks and 2017 I want to approach it smarter. I looked at the finished chart detailing events in Spain, France, Denmark, Austria, Slovakia, the UK and Greece and it just brought it home to me how much an injured marathon could be putting at stake.

Next year is going to be another step up for me and I want to be in the best possible condition to race. This meant sacrificing a short term goal of a sub 3 hour marathon for the long term picture. I wanted to run Kingston so badly but in the shape I am in it will be a poor effort which could put pay to winter training and worse next season.

Despite being downhearted at being unable to run Kingston I have to be grateful for the fact I can still cycle and swim, both of which I will continue to work on during my recovery period, not only maintaining fitness levels but continuing to build strength in important areas to hopefully prevent injury in the near future.

The extra time off will also give me time to structure my training better, improve nutrition, connect with sponsors, and most importantly learn.

As I draw a line under 2016 I want to thank the team at Better You and Accutek wheels for their product support this year. As a small time athlete I am always humbled when companies, big or small, choose to invest time with me, and I could not have chosen better teams to work with this year.