Bikes, babies and buses
At then end of Janurary of this year I was new dad and proud as can be of my little daughter, and all the joys of sleep deprivation that comes with it. I had an injury that I just couldn’t shift and could ride or run. I was working all the hours that god gave and I felt under huge pressure for IM Austria. My friends were targetting 8:5x IMs and Kona slots and I just couldn’t keep up. So I binned it. I canned it. I told my wife I was out of Austria. I told anyone and everyone that I was finished that I just couldn’t juggle the lot and something had to give. The company that I had broken my b0ll0ck for folded, and I was unemployed again. Unemployed with a three week old, injured, fat and unfit I just wanted to hide away and spend time with my family so I retired. Except I didn’t.
I found work a fortnight later and things were tense in the new (new old) place so not doing triathlon and having the time committments of it where good so I told myself that I would do my best to do what I could, when I could, without impacting home life and in the new work world order, and then when I got very close to the event I would make a call based on how things had gone. What I really needed was for people to think I had retired and to not ask my how I was juggling training and a baby and work because that only served to make me realise that I was trying to get by on a fraction of my usual training. But priorities had changed and in the new world order training and sport came well down the list. I was happy to talk anything and everything about babies but didn’t want to hear or talk about triathlon. What I also really needed was not to be done that I was being a sh!t dad by trying to do some sports and having a baby. I wanted to go back to enjoying swimming and cycling and running and that is what I did.
I talked to my coach and he knew what I was going through as well and programmes were revised, updated, adapted to my new lifestyle and commitments. He was fantastic in the support, guidance and advice he gave. The triathlon related stuff was handy too 
So we did what I could when I could. The days of 4 bikes a week, 4-5 swims a week and 4-5 runs were gone. Traditionally I did all my training very early in the morning. With only a handful of hours sleep a night this ended. Swims and turbos were what suffered. Long bikes too. Being gone for hours at the weekend wasn’t ideal. Stretching, foam rolling, and core went too for the most part.
A few things enabled me to get some training done:
- Running at lunch – this allowed me get running down, runs up to a point, done without impacting family. Didn’t always work with work but a few days a week it would
- Computrainer and Real Video courses – I love the turbo, I always have, but every long ride, every ride infact being done indoors for months was a little much. I already had the CT and I invested in a few Real Video Courses. I was able to ride for a few hours every week in the shed, safe in the knowledge that if I was required or desired I could be there in seconds. The CT in particular gets much more from the time you put in. The videos are good but the erg files and erg mode of the system are where the real gains are made.
- Use Exposure lights – eventually Aoibhe was old enough to be driven by her mother to her grandparents in Cavan. They’d head up the Friday morning or Thursday evening from the end of Februrary once a month or so. I already had a good set of lights I whacked 2000 lumen of lights on the bike and rode up to Cavan. Pitch black country rodes in the pi$$ing rain. But it was a monthly outdoor ride, and to be honest I had no other way to get up as we had one car and buses didn’t suit the times I need to travel at.
- Everything was targetted to get maximum from the time I put in.
At no time did I consider what I was doing training. I was just doing a bit here and there and having fun. Since no one knew there was no pressure. My first outdoor daylight ride was in May, and I did one two hour spin on which I had company.
About 6-8 weeks out from Austria I took stock of where I was and realised I could do Austria. 10:30 definitely, most likely sub 10, possibly 9:45 and if all went perfectly 9:30. My power numbers were similar to last year but given the reduction in muscle mass (legs literally half the size) the power was coming from elsewhere. I put alot of it down to the savage years biking I did the year before. My swimming was shocking but I’d live with it. But my running was vastly superior to the previous year. My long runs were up to 3:10 easy marathons. (Albeit just the one). My technique and form were completely changed.
I started looking into flights and accomodation and this is when my family said that I was not allowed go on my own. Simply enough I had put them all through hell last year and if I was doing it again they were coming. Flights booked, accomodation booked, the whole lot and I was happy and excited. By this stage a few people knew but not many. I was going back, I was prepared well enough, I would close this chapter in my life. Two and a half years on I hoped I would close the Austrian chapter.