Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome

I felt crap for most of the weekend, no doubt because I was fighting off some kind of virus that had already affected half of my household. It was something very similar to when I ran the Marathon in Valencia. These days I rarely seem to actually get "ill" (touch wood), that is to say, with tangible symptoms - but, every so often, I notice that my energy levels are very low and training even at low intensity is like doing a hard workout. It doesn't happen frequently enough for me to worry that it might be "all in my mind" or an excuse to get out of training but it does remind me of something that happened to me when I was 20. I wonder if there are some psychological scars left over from that time.

Summer 1992, Saturday of Eights Week, Oxford. It was the last day of Summer Eights, the biggest inter-collegiate rowing event of the calendar (the Oxford-Cambridge Boatrace being inter-University). All the "Blues" were back in the college boats after their victory over Cambridge. That year I had decided not to try out for the Blue Boat after my experience the year before but rather to focus on my academic work. The Summer Eights is what is known as a "bumps race". Around 160 crews of 8 rowers and a cox (who steers the boat) take part on the narrow tributary of the Thames known as the Isis. As it is too narrow for the crews to race each other side by side, instead they all start equally spaced by 1 and a half boat lengths and must try to catch ("bump") the crew in front before they are themselves bumped. The competition takes place over four evenings so that crews may advance 4 places in the rankings that year (or even more if they manage to perform an "over bump"). If a crew bumps the crew ahead on each of the 4 occasions, then the crew members are entitled to get their "oars" -  an oar with the details of the crew and their weights painted on the blade. (If you ever go to the Cambridge Blue pub in Cambridge, on the street where I used to live, you'll see a blade of mine hanging there. It was too big to move to Spain!). The male and female crews that finish at the top of the rankings on the Saturday are crowned the Head Crews and get to burn their boat and have their names chalked up over an arch in the college quad. (Strictly speaking, they burn a crappy old wooden boat - it wouldn't do to burn one of those nice expensive plastic boats they race in.)

On the Saturday of Eights Week, the Pembroke Men's First Eight in which I was rowing was at number two on the river, just behind Oriel who rather boringly tended to be in first place most of the time in those days. If I remember right, we had bumped up a couple of times but failed to catch them on the Friday night. We decided to try something new: "hatchet blades". Hatchets - with an asymmetrical blade that supposedly gripped the water better - had just started to be accepted and, indeed, Oriel and some of the other top crews were already using them. We had been offered to try them in a tune up race we in Nottingham but the Captain had decided that we shouldn't scupper our chances in that race by changing something at the last minute. A wise choice had it been an important race but now, here we were, with the same dilemma. This time we chose to try them out for the very first time.

What the others in the crew were not aware of is that I had blacked out during the day. It is the only time I have ever fainted. I just put it down to nerves. But when I was in the boat, pulling for all I was worth, I could tell something was up. I felt incredibly weak and it seemed that all I could do was just move up and down the boat with the rest to avoid spearing the guy in front in the back with the handle of my oar (or being speared myself, for that matter). I felt like I was letting down the others, not to mention myself. That evening I felt an exhaustion I had never felt before, like I could hardly keep my eyes open.

A few days later I tried rowing again, this time in an Oxford City Four that was headed for Henley Royal Regatta. This time I couldn't even row easy ("light pressure") and I had to ask them to row me back to shore. I went to see a doctor whose words I remember exactly: "If I were a betting man," he said, "I'd say you've got Glandular Fever". Glandular Fever or Mononucleosis is also known as "The Kissing Disease" as it is easily passed by saliva. I don't know where I got it from because my girlfriend at the time was fine (maybe she was immune) but it's something that could even be transmitted by sharing water bottles which was common enough.

A test confirmed the doctors prognosis but the symptoms soon made it clear beyond any doubt. I spent at least a week with my glands completely swollen and almost unable to swallow food. It wasn't nice but it was nothing compared to what was to come.

Some people seem to bounce back right away - in fact, the same thing happened to another guy in the crew some months later (no, we didn't kiss) and he was able to resume training within weeks. I felt listless, lethargic and suffered from panic attacks where my heart rate would start racing for no reason as well as sudden, non-negotiable needs to sleep immediately. The panic attacks made me susceptible to blow ups, where I would fly into a rage. I discovered that smoking a cigarette helped calm me down and this is when I started smoking albeit it one a day to begin with. I found that the fatigue would come in waves and I was convinced that their was some psychological element to it, as if just worrying about it happening was enough to make it happen. This didn't make it any less real or any easier to deal with (if not completely the opposite).

It took months and months to get better - even a year later I was still suffering from it. I was now starting my final year at University which would determine 100% of my final results. My mum did me a great favour without knowing it at the time: her suggestion that I should take a year out of University to recover made me very determined to finish my degree on time, but it wasn't easy. The only long lasting casualty was my fitness. I felt cheated of all the hard work I had done to get so fit and I couldn't bring myself to go through it all again. With hindsight, I think that this attitude was very immature and self-pitying. On the other hand, the way that I had got to that point was through gruelling training which I saw as a necessary evil, thriving only on winning competitions. As soon as the reward was removed and I no longer had a coach cracking a whip over my back, it was easier just to slip into a more "normal" lifestyle. In any case, it would have happened sooner or later. It is a classic pattern: as soon as the results no longer justify the investment - something that comes to all but the professionals at some point or other - you drop out and focus on other aspects of your life like building a career and a family. So I shouldn't kid myself that things would have turned out much differently had it not been for Glandular Fever.

Now with what I have read about fatigue and Tim Noakes' Central Governor Theory - that fatigue is something manufactured by our brains, not something physiological - it is interesting to think about that kind of post viral fatigue I suffered from all those years ago. It seems like it is something psychological but, equally, it is just as insurmountable as the fatigue you feel while you are running the last few kilometres of a Marathon. The question is why is the brain telling us to slow down and what can we do to temper it?

Blistering barnacles!

Yup, another picture of my foot, I'm afraid. That's a "Finding Nemo" plaster, by the way, so you can pretty much work out that we don't use plasters of that size very often in our household. This blister is really proving to be a pain in the foot. I think that what is happening is that, as one blister dries out and becomes a patch of hard skin, it causes the neighbouring soft skin to bunch up while I run, causing another adjacent blister. It's been nearly two week's of lancing and draining the blister and then drying it out with talcom powder. I'm starting to get a bit worried now as the Marathon is just round the corner. The blister itself isn't a problem as such: I'm more worried about subtle changes to my running gait that can occur even subconsciously in an attempt to protect the sore spot - I've already noticed a slight strain in the tendons of my other foot, no doubt due to compensating.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know by now that I always get some silly little worry into my head in the days running up to a big event like a Marathon. Not wanting to tempt fate, I'd say I'm more relaxed about this one than any other I have run - for example, I just realized I have run out of salt tablets and it's probably not going to be possible to get any before the race. My reaction? Bah, they probably are just a placebo anyway - when was the last time I got cramps? In any case it won't be very hot in Seville. So you see, I'm quietly confident but it would be nice just to know that the skin on my foot will hold out for the 42 kilometers.

Good news...

I saw the urologist this morning - thanks to the doctor I saw last night, I managed to get a slot right away - and he said that the blood in my pee was nothing to worry about and that I could carry on with my training, perhaps reducing a bit the intensity this week. It was definitely worth getting it checked out though, because there are a number of nasty things that it could have been due to, which have been ruled out. Looks like I have no excuse no but to carry on with the hard slog!

DEFCON 3

The blood in my pee resolved itself so quickly yesterday that I assumed it was a one-off, something to do with a long run at the end of a long, hard week. But as I was running today - just a light aerobic run of an hour - I sensed that something was not quite right and refrained from peeing on route, just in case. Back at the gym, my fears were confirmed as exactly the same thing happened, bright red just as it was yesterday.

The concern is that my kidneys are not working properly for some reason or that I have internal bleeding from a muscle tear. Although from what I have managed to ascertain grubbing around on the Internet, Exercise Induced Hematuria (EIH) is fairly common, there could be a more sinister underlying cause. In any case, I don't think it is particularly conducive to my Marathon preparation to be throwing away all those hard earned red blood cells.

I'm in the hospital right now doing a series of blood and urine tests. Hopefully they will be able to figure out the cause and advise accordingly. The doctor who attended me looks like a fellow Marathon runner and he was certainly sympathetic to my desire to get back to the trails. In fact, when he asked me which Marathon I was running he seemed to be consulting a calendar in his head. I asked him if he was a runner and he said yes. He asked me - if it were no indiscretion - what my time was and he looked genuinely impressed. I suppose I spend so much time with other, much faster runners that I forget that it is pretty fast and would have even seemed so to me a year or two ago. If I am honest, I'd been looking for an excuse to back off a bit on the training, even half wishing for a dose of gastroenteritis. But when the doctor wished me luck I remembered my goal. Tomorrow I have an appointment with the urologist, so we'll see if they spot anything because, so far, everything is normal. I just hope that is a good sign.

More soon....

DEFCON 4 (5 is the lowest level)

My legs have been feeling a bit tight since the Half Marathon but nothing serious, or so it seemed. I went for a massage yesterday to "discharge" my legs and felt pretty good afterwards. I've been running for a long time without having any pain and certainly no injuries so I thought it prudent to try and nip it in the bud. When my legs do get overloaded, they tend to hurt in all the same places: left knee, left calf / soleus, right hamstring, right foot. I'm convinced that the accumulation of small injuries and defects throws the whole kinetic chain out of whack and that these asymmetric symptoms are actually all connected. Its probably all because I can't lift the big toe on my right foot as much as the big toe on my left foot!

Today it was "series day": 20 minutes hard, 5 minutes break, 25 minutes hard. I did the first 20 minutes at 16kp/h with no problem - if anything it was too easy and I should probably have run them a bit faster. But my left calf muscle started to seize up in the second set and I ended up doing it piecemeal and stopping 5 minutes before the end. I now have a limp while walking so I think I am one short step away from injury, if it isn't already the case. And to think I was boasting to the physiotherapist only last night that I never stretch. I don't know that stretching would have helped prevent this from happening, but it is certainly useful now. I may not believe in stretching but I do believe in warming up and - guess what - that is exactly what I neglected to do this time. I'm going back to see her shortly so I'll have to eat a little humble pie, I guess.

So I'm going to have another massage, do some electrostimulation therapy at home and apply some Kinesio tape (see photo above). I'll also swap my 40 minute run tomorrow for a commute to work and back on the bike (2 x 40 mins) and I have Saturday off anyway, to get ready for the two hour run on Sunday if the calf is better by then. I really hope so!

A short break

If I had any doubts about whether I should train after Tuesday's experience, the run I did yesterday cleared things up nicely. I set off on a 90 minute round trip at a good, comfortable pace of around 13kp/h (3:47 per kilometer) but after about half an hour I was feeling much more tired than I would normally feel. By half way I was feeling decidedly crap and wondering whether I should just jog the remaining 15 minutes to my house and get a taxi back to work or whether to attempt the run back. The 45 minute run back turned into more of a 55 minute run back as each kilometer was harder than the one before it. By the end just walking at a snail's pace was elevating my heart rate to 150 bpm, the aerobic threshold at which I do most of my training runs. I felt as exhausted as I would have done after a 3 hour run or after "bonking". Today it is clear that the cold has gone south and the infection is now in my lungs so there's no more training for me until I am feeling a bit better.

Not again...

So much for my Ironstomach... I was all set to get up at 6am and run for 2 and a half hours before breakfast and work but now that doesn't seem like a good idea. I was already in bed by 10:15 but as soon as I lay down, I could hear bubble bubble toil and trouble coming from down below. I hope it's just something I ate and not another bug like I had a few weeks ago. (The instructions on the packet of quinoa did say something about rinsing it thoroughly first but I didn't bother.)

Ok, don't panic - I'll jiggle the remaining workouts around a bit and see if I'm up to doing the run on Thursday.

Location:The toilet

I spoke too soon

I'm getting really fed up now - I've had diarrhea since Monday now and it's really screwing with my training. I did a 40 minute run at aerobic pace outside without too much problems but then the killer was the 40 minutes at Half Marathon intensity with a 9 kilo flak jacket. I started one of those absurd conversations with myself. It literally went along the following lines

- I'm feeling really crap, there is just NO WAY that I can keep this up another 30 minutes.
- You feel even worse all afternoon if you stop now, you'll be in a bad mood for the rest of the day and you have an important meeting this afternoon you can't afford to be down for.
- But surely this isn't doing me any good and, in any case, I'll be wrecked for my training tomorrow.
- This is the kind of training session that makes a difference, don't wimp out.
- Come on, Jonathan said that even if I do only 80% of the training, I'll be in good shape.
- If you finish this, you can really celebrate and feel good about yourself!
- But I've got to do four hours on the bike tomorrow!
- NEVER think about tomorrow's sesssion while you are doing today's!
- I'm pressing the stop button...
- I'll let you buy yourself some piece of triathlon kit if you finish, whatever you want!
- I'm really pressing the stop button...
- If you do this then maybe you'll be able to break the 10 hour barrier in the Ironman...
- That's crap - I'm pressing the stop button NOW...

...and I could see my hand press the button as if it were someone else's hand. I only managed to do 10 minutes with the jacket on and another 10 without and now I feel exhausted and I still have a swim to do this afternoon, not to mention getting up early tomorrow to start on the 4 hours of cycling I have to fit in around work.

The main thing is to put a stop to the runs - I mean the diarrhea, not the running of course - and to keep hydrated. Then I have to concentrate on the quality of the remaining training sessions and not obsess about the small (hopefully it will still be so) amount of training I have had to skip. Right now I feel like I did on Tuesday - I could quite easily spend the rest of the afternoon sleeping but I really cannot afford to miss this meeting.

Fingers crossed and my tummy will settle down.

POSTDATA: (Not quite sure whether "postdata" makes sense in English - I think it has crept into my vocabulary from Spanish.) I rather un-sensibly went back to the gym to finish the workout as I started to feel a bit better in the late afternoon - it seems like I actually managed to digest my lunch properly. It's stupid I know, but I feel better for having completed the workout (even though it wasn't quite the same as doing it in one go, but hey).

I'm back (again)

Amazing what a good siesta can do. I went home at half time yesterday and slept most of the afternoon. Got up to have a bit of dinner, see the family for a bit and then went to bed again. I made sure that I drank loads of Aquarius to rehydrate (I'd noticed that my pee was a disconcerting brown colour during the lunchtime run).

I wasn't sure how I'd feel today so I tried coming in on the bike but I didn't tell my colleague he could use my parking space as I usually do, because I wasn't sure if I'd make it... I made it in OK and so I felt like I could try the 80 minute run I had programmed. It's amazing how when you are sub par you feel like you will never regain that fitness, that to run another kilometer is a pointless nightmare and you start to dread your next outing. So I was a bit nervous before setting out because, only the day before, I had attempted a shorter run and it felt horrible. This time it was a completely different story. It felt so easy and enjoyable. I did allow myself to listen to music to motivate me when I normally run without music partly because in the race itself you are not allowed to listen to music and partly because if you can hear your footsteps you tend to run more lightly. I ran the whole thing at 4:30 pace (if I'd carried on another 15 minutes, that would be a Half Marathon in less than 1 hour 35) keeping my heart rate in the aerobic zone (145bpm average) and it was about 24 degrees and cross country. Not a record for an aerobic run but good enough to prove that I am still in good shape for Lisbon in a 2 and a half weeks. In the end the collateral damage of the sunstroke or whatever it was was only a weights session, half a swim workout and a 20 minute run, so pretty minimal.

Tomorrow I have to run 40 minutes at aerobic pace and then 40 minutes at Half Marathon intensity with a weighted flak jacket... One of the more sadistic workouts.

Runs with the runs

Last night I felt pretty terrible, starting with a dodgy tummy that forced me to cut my swimming short. It was as though I were witnessing a battle that my body was raging against some unknown and unwelcome intruder. I crashed out at 9pm only to not be able to sleep past midnight, so I went downstairs and watched a film and drank copious amounts of water. I think (touch wood) my body won the battle. At least I feel a bit better this morning but I had no supper last night so I'll have to refuel well at breakfast. I'll be cautious about the training today - at least it is a "light" day with only 80 minutes running and a couple of weights circuits. Then I'll try to finish off the swimming from yesterday.

POSTDATA: I am still feeling crap, the "run" I did at lunchtime turned into a walk and I ended up taking the afternoon off. Emilio suggested it could be to do with the sunburn I got on Sunday - it makes sense...

Hitting the limit

It seems like I have hit my physical limit in the training. I hadn't expected it to be like this - I thought I would suffer the dreaded overtraining syndrome of demotivation, sickness and injury. Of course it is important to have rest days in your training program so that your body can recover and make the necessary adjustments to be able to tackle an increasing load; the thing about triathlon training is that the bike is a rest from running as swimming is from the bike. To give you some idea, yesterday I found myself considering that it was a "day off" in that I only had to run an hour and a half.

Since Saturday I have noticed that my lower back has been getting painful. It's not a sharp pain like you get from contractions (for example, in my shoulder) but rather a dull pain which you associate more with general fatigue. It can be an almost pleasant sensation of feeling that you have done a good workout with the proviso that, as soon as you lie down and rest, the ache goes away. Well, that's the problem - it doesn't go away, it keeps nagging all day long and is starting to interfere with my sleep. Yesterday, after the run (and running usually calms any back pain I might have) it got particularly bad. I went to see Paloma, the physio at work and even she was only able to slightly alleviate the pain and discomfort. Some Ibuprofen also helped. Paloma said that it was not a problem with the muscles but with the joints as a result of fatigue from training.

So it seems like the common denominator in the three sports is the back and that it simply does not get a chance to rest. Today I am having to skip my training for the first time since I broke my elbow in June last year. I think what I do now is what makes the difference between the kind of "boom bust" athletes (of which I was one) and the steady improvers. It's always very difficult to break the training schedule because of the fear of losing fitness, the fear of breaking the habit or even the fear of being a "wuss" - and having a incessant pain in your back doesn't put you in the best mood for taking these kind of decisions. This was the main reason I got in touch with my trainer, Jonathan, in the first place: to be able to charge him with the responsibility of me having to "slack off" every now and again. It's funny, my trainers in my rowing years in the late 80's and early 90's were there for the opposite reason, to make sure we didn't slack off. I'll send an email to Jonathan shortly and see what he says. Hopefully a couple of days rest will be enough, followed by a few days to build back up to the volume and intensity I have been training at. It's a shame that it should happen in this important peak week that I have been building up to for a month now, but it's also not surprising that it should happen now.

Taking this break will probably have no effect on my performance in the Ironman - just as well that it happened now and not in two month's time - but, suppose that it results in my time being 10 minutes slower than it would have been. It's still my best possible time. Had I sustained an injury from falling off my bike or overdoing it generally, not only would the effect be greater (most probably), but it would be something avoidable. That I am physically unable (at this point) to complete 100% of the training program Jonathan has set out for me is as much a real limitation as the fact that I couldn't run a Marathon in 2 hours and 4 minutes even if my life depended on it. This is my way of rationalising this little setback, and I hope it will be little.

Shouldering the pain

The pain in my shoulder has been getting too much lately so I decided to get some help. I normally see a physio at work, Paloma, who is brilliant but the other 6,500 employees seem to think so to, so it is often difficult to get an appointment, unless it is in the middle of the work day which I am reluctant to do. Instead, I called A Mano Fisios who are able to come to my house at whatever antisocial time best suits me. Marta turned up with a foldable massage bed and, despite her unassuming size, she gave me a very tough massage which was just the right side of being intollerably painful. I'd rather have to put up with a lot of pain during a concentrated and controlled period of time than have it creep up on me during an otherwise taxing training session (or competition, for that matter). It made me realize, though, how serious the problem was - the muscles in my shoulder blade were knotted like an old sailor's rope. I find it curious how much pain you can tollerate by breathing heavily - I wonder, where does this link come from? Is it an evolutionary trait inherited from the labour of childbirth?

Marta prescribed me some exercises to do with one of those big rubber bands to strengthen the muscles but, what was most helpful, was that she pointed out something that was probably obvious to anyone but myself. The shoulder separation I have not only means my shoulder hangs down slightly lower, but my shoulder blade itself tends to stick out the back - something I wasn't aware of as I can't see it myself. She showed me how, by bringing my shoulder back slightly, I could reposition it and she told me that this is what I should aim to do while on the bike. It makes perfect sense: when I am doing active work with my shoulder it tends to position itself correctly - swimming and running are not a problem, for example - but on the bike, the work is more passive, the arms and shoulders have to balance the work of the legs and respond to shocks in the road. As a result, I tend to have a "lazy" posture, one which means that the muscles are at a disadvantage when responding to what is required of them. I have to make a conscious effort to position the shoulder correctly when I am on the bike, without tensing it up, of course. I also have to be aware of my posture while I am at my desk at work for the very same reasons.

I also bought some bar ends for my mountain bike, which give me an alternative (and more comfortable) hand position. Its too early to say whether all these measures are enough to tide me over until the Ironman, but I had no shoulder pain this morning during the two hour ride I did before work, so the early indications are good.

Note to self...

Remember to cut my toenails regularly...

I've gone and done it now

Why is it that I have to keep on pulling bits of dead skin off my foot (and there was loads after my foolish footwear last week - we are talking 7cm x 3cm x 1mm) until I accidentally pull off some skin that is still alive? It becomes like an obsession, all time dilates and I could easily spend hours doing it. Maybe that could be the secret to getting in that elusive "zone" that athletes are always talking about although I can't quite see how to combine it with anything else.

It took ages to get those leathery Hobbit like soles on my feet, I hope this doesn't set me back to months of blisters. I wonder if I will be able to run tomorrow...

Postscript: I did an 18km run but the new skin wasn't quite up to the job so it looks like its back to the blister cycle. I've put a Compeed plaster over the raw bit, hopefully that will tide me over until the skin has fully grown back. I really must resist picking next time!

Achilles

So the strory from Greek Mythology goes: when Achilles was dipped into the river Styx to make him immortal, he was held by the ankle and so this part of him was vulnerable (and in fact, lead to his eventual downfall). So we have Thetis (Achilles' mum) to thank!

The Achilles tendon is placed under enormous strain while running, especially at higher speeds. Its also in a part of the body that doesn't have a good flow of blood, so any damage takes ages to repair. Thankfully, I have never actually ruptured my Achilles but I have had quite serious tendinitis (and more recently, a very mild case) in the tendons of my ankle. The good news is that now the problem seems to have gone away altogether, just in time for me to start running series today, in preparation for the 10k race I have on the 31st of December. In part, this is due to following the advice of a couple of Swedish researchers...

Apparently, one of them was trying to actually rupture his damaged Achilles tendon completely (all in the name of science, undoubtedly) by "eccentric loading of the calf muscle". Eccentric loading means to put a muscle under strain while it is contracting rather than stretching (concentric loading). What the researchers found and eventually demonstrated scientifically, was that the injury healed much more quickly when this routine was performed. In practice, you stand on the edge of a step and, using a hand to steady yourself, you lift yourself up on to tip toes using both legs and then lower yourself down to below the height of the step using only the bad leg. (If both of them are bad then I suppose you are screwed.) You do this a certain number of times each day - more details can be found here.

What I found perversely satisfying was that the recommendation was to add extra weights to the point of being slightly painful to complete the exercise. Is it just me or does it not feel as though you are getting better more quickly if the treatment hurts?

By the way, the condition used to be called Achilles tendinitis - the difference being that it was thought to be an inflammatory condition when in fact it is not. The point is that it is actually better not to take anti-inflammatories as a result. The reason the ankle feels stiff in the morning is because the collagen builds up in a random fashion around the damaged area; with use you break some of the structures leaving only the correctly aligned ones.

(DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor or qualified to give advice on how to treat injuries. In other words, enter at your own risk, don't blame me, etc. Still, if there are any inaccuracies or things that I have simply got wrong, I would be interested to know about them.)

Bah

I'm feeling today how I was expecting to feel the morning after. A combination of my overtaxed immune system having to tend to general body repair and an hour spent waiting for a taxi in freezing winds at Heathrow last night. Oh, for a minicab - I would have paid in blood - but no, Heathrow is too "civilized" for that.

I'm aching all over and I've only managed to eat a couple of packets of crisps and a bag of mints to try and get some energy back. I'm regretting the albeit very light workout I did this morning (walking on the treadmill with a very steep incline). Had I known I was going to feel like this I would have happily stayed in bed! Now I see why the Marathon can be hard to recover from. Anyway, never mind - I think it is the only time I have felt ill all year and, if I had to get sick, I couldn't have chosen a better day for it (well, in terms of my training cycle at least; not so good from a work point of view).

Believe me, this post is supposed to be anything but a "poor me" appeal; I want to remember this lesson for next time. I should have kept taking my iron tablets a little longer and avoided traveling for a bit.

Back soon!

Location:London

How did I get here?

Florianópolis, Brazil, home to the Ironman 

Just over 3 years ago, I decided that enough was enough and I made a radical change in my life. I gave up smoking, drinking (well, for a while anyway...) even biting my nails and decided to GET FIT again. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to do anything in moderation and throwing myself into running and cycling after 15 years of sofa-lounging came with more than its fair share of injuries.

I started 2008 thinking that running a Marathon was insane and unhealthy. Later that same year, I ran my first Marathon in Amsterdam. In 2009 I started having problems with my knees but that only made me even more determined. After initially going down the well-trodden route of huge (and expensive) running shoes and orthotics, I decided to retrain my running gait to reduce stress on my knees: I refused to believe that I was some kind of freak of evolution that could only survive as long as Nike didn't go out of business. In retrospect, had I gone about this in a sensible fashion I think I would have got to where I am now much quicker and with much less pain. I totally underestimated how long it would take for the muscles, ligaments and bones to adjust to a different running style that gave more protagonism to the lower leg and foot. As my coach put it, "Maybe 35 years of wearing shoes can undo millions of years of Evolution". Hence the torn Achilles, torn hamstring and, finally, the stress fracture in my foot. The stress fracture was a kind of blessing in disguise as it forced me to STOP and retrain from scratch. Since then, I have been injury free - well, at least, running injury free. Now I am able to run for hours without any discomfort or aches and pains the next day. All this was thanks to the POSE method.

Me at the Berlin Marathon. I really hadn't noticed the sign behind me.

Ouch

While I was recovering from my foot injury, I decided to take up cycling. I was practically born on two wheels as I grew up in Cambridge, but it had been 10 years since I had last ridden a bike because - you guessed it - I had a very serious road accident that really should have been the end of me, all things being equal. I managed to find a route from my house to work that took me through forests and virtually avoided any contact with cars and other evils from the modern world. I started with a mountain bike because it made me feel safe, with sturdy wheels, a solid frame and a forgiving suspension fork. So safe, in fact, that, in a brief moment of Evel Knevel inspired madness, I went flying and tore three ligaments in my shoulder. When the doctor said my shoulder would look like that "forever" I actually asked him if he was joking. Thinking that mountain bikes perhaps weren't quite as safe as they looked I bought a racing bike...

In 2010 I moved to duathlons and triathlons but I vowed to myself I would NEVER consider undertaking an Ironman (3.8km swim, 180km bike + full marathon run) - I mean, that's just ridiculous! Instead, I started going out on long cycle rides with a bunch of Ironmen and women and it was inevitable that I would end up talking to them... So I did my first triathlon in April - a half Ironman in Lisbon - and I have not been able to get the stupid idea of doing a full Ironman out of my head since then.

Recently, a dear friend of mine died of a heart attack aged only 41. I was so shocked and angry about this that I became convinced that I would do an Ironman in my friend's honour. He was also a keen cyclist. You can see more about that and check out my podcast at my website.

So, I am about to buy the flights to Florianópolis, Brazil, where the Ironman I am taking part in takes place on the 28th of May 2011. This is the point of no return...