Every so often when I go for a ride, if it rains very very heavily and my shoes gets soaked my right foot will be covered in blood when I take my shoes off. No matter how hard I try I cannot get all the blood from IM Austria 2009 out of my shoes.
I sent my SRMs off a week or so ago to be have the batteries changed. Back they came and now the PCV screen is dead and the whole unit is useless, the service centre is closed for a week and I need my SRMs.
I dragged my ass out of bed and struggled to the pool. An achievement for me these days. Went to get change to swim.
No togs.
Faced with the choice of going home, going to work, or swimming in my jocks…… Well I got some strange looks. But at least the session got done.
My first race report in a long while that has not ended in a hospital stay.
Rocked up on a fine summers evening with the Carberry’s. I was tired from tot’s sleeping habits but sure what is new.
Registered, changed, jogged a little to warm up, some drills to get the hammers and hip flexors firing and then wetsuit on and into the water for a bit of a warm up. Took the wetsuit off to fix a pin that was stabbing me and then eventually got in the water for the off. A 750m swim, slightly against the current, deep water start. Mainly a straight line swim so that would prove challenging as I’ve never swam straight before.
Positioned myself at the front and the countdown became “10-9-8-7-5-4″ remembering something that I was told when I first started in the sport. Go on 3. So I caned it on 3. Went hard for the first 150-200m to try and get fast feet but didn’t get a single draft. After 300m my left shoulder, my bad one, was quite sore, I soon remembered that I have to put my wetsuit on in a particular way to stop the pain in the left shoulder. I swam surprising straight and sighted rather well. I have a pair of mirrored goggles that I need to make sure are okay as if I was going the other way I would have been blinded by the sun.
I had targetting a 12:00 swim and stood up in 12:30. Close enough. However I was very disappointed that if I had held this pace, it would only be a 1:15 IM swim, which would mean closer to 1:20, oh well it is what it is. Started to dolphin dive to shore. Nearly skulled myself on some large rocks. Curved slippy large rocks the whole way to shore. People around me starting hammering over the rocks. I paused and thought – “If you hammer over these rocks that are slippy and don’t allow sure footing what will happen, you’ll break your ankle like LD did and then game over”. So I gingerly exited the water in a very slow and cautious manner.
2:30 later I left transition, 15:00 in. I knew I could run as hard as I could turn my legs and not blow up as it was just a 5km and I didn’t have the speed to blow over that distance. So I ran as hard as I could. Averaged 182bpm or there about for the run, but to be honest I felt could have done it 3-4 more times. I crossed the line 16:26 later and immediately started chatting to Hugh. I could not have run any faster but it just didn’t hurt or take anything out of me.
Middle of the night I woke up and realised “An IM swim is 3800m, not 4500m, it was a 1:03 pace.”
A nice race, swam well considering that I’ve not been in open water since Austria 2009, ran well – was happy with how I ran, reckon the course was 500m or so short though. I think it bodes well.
I was discharged last year late on the Monday or early on the Tuesday. I’ve no idea really.
What I do remember is that horrible fixation on the fact that I had not finished my weekends training. As I was now unemployed I was at home and decided to do the long cycle that was interrupted by the bus again. When I say remember I have power meter files and vague recollections. Turboing in the kitchen on a summers day is never fun. Doing so with your arm in a sling, a fractured collar bone, no sense of balance due to a head injury and a face thats mangled and a head injury isn’t,in hindsight, smart. I fell off the turbo every few minutes. I repeated this process many many times, certainly more that was wise, in fact getting out of bed was unwise., and against advice. Not the brightest in hindsight.
Given it was the anniversary of my accident there has been quite a bit of conversation with my family and friends over it and alot of details were filled in and shared.
For starters I didn’t know when my wife arrived at the hospital she asked her husband David Tunney was. The response was – “Ahh the guy who keeps asking where his bike is and keeps asking about his SRMs.”
I’ve vague recollections of oodles of x-rays and MRIs, however I’d never really thought that I was scanned that much. Turns out I was, bleeding on the brain was a concern I’m told.
I remember lots and lots of pain, and liking tea with sugar and toast. Something I never liked and not liked since.
I’m told as well that I was talking completely and utter shite, that I was going on and on about nonsense. That I was away with the fairies.
Amazingly people let me do a telephone job interview from the hospital as I’d been made redundant two days before the accident.
I didn’t get the job.
This day last year I was in the best shape I have ever been, and probably ever will be in, of my life. I was just finishing my recovery week and about to start my peaking phase after a simulation ride. Given I was uber-prepared last year I probably had my gear layed out and kit prepped for the weekends ride. I was nervous, excited and prepared. Little did I know.