Too much disappointment.
Too much pain.
And it is never easy to write a blog when you wish that the last 3 weeks has been a bad dream...
But – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger - at some point anyway. Unfortunately I had a DNF in Kitzbühel. The week before Kitzbühel I did the World Cup in Tiszaujvaros (Tiszzy) where I really thought things were on the up. Going into Tiszzy I had been doing very little running due to a hip injury. The injury had occurred as a result of my crash in Madrid WCS back in June. During the race in Tiszzy I started to feel that the pain was getting worse – but obviously as I was in a good position I tried to ignore it. After the race I realized that I had done quite a lot of damage – I mean everything hurt – even brushing my teeth! But I tried to live with it and tried to focus on Kitzbühel. But as most of you know it’s really demanding to be in constant pain.
Come race day in Kitzbühel I felt a bit better – but at that point I had not been running since the race in Tiszzy. And here I was thinking that it was the run that was my Achilles…..apparently not!! It was to be a poor tactical decision which would end my race pretty much from the start. I picked a spot on the pontoon totally left away from all of the top swimmers. It was a very unwise move. “Why? I hear you ask” my reason being I wanted to try and get clear water. I thought that by picking the far left of the pontoon would help me avoid all the mayhem and stay out of trouble. Admittedly it did, but I was not able to be pulled along by fast swimmers so by the time I hit the first buoy I ended up being stuck on the inside amongst all the mayhem and being totally honest, it took a lot out of me, I like to think I can take a couple of blows but by the time we were out and around the first buoy I was out of contention. I exited the first swim lap in around 50th position I managed to make up a few places but as a result I exited the water in the 3rd bike pack which contained 10 athletes. The front two packs consisted of 25 athletes, both worked equally well.….this must of been my worst swim in a World Championship Series race and with the standard being so high there is no room for error!!
Once out onto the bike it was soon apparent that I was amongst girls that a) were not willing to work or b) simply could not work. I tell you it is so frustrating to find yourself in a bike pack that can’t get organized and work together. We kept on loosing time to the leaders and by the time we hit T2 there was around 4 minutes to the front group. Out on the run I was in big pain and I was worried about it. After only 2km of running I decided to call it a day and pulled out. It wasn’t worth it – I was running for top 30 and I didn’t know how much damage I could cause on my body.
It turned out to be a wise decision. When I arrived back in Denmark I was examined by my osteopath and it turned out that I had a discus protrusion in my lower back the same place where I had my discus prolapsed 3 years ago. The nerve in that area has been compressed for a while so it was swollen and inflamed. That was why I had so much pain in my back and hip. I’m now being treated regularly and the nerve is getting much better. I have now just started to run my longest run so far being 20 minutes. The plan is to gradually increase my running over the next couple of weeks and all being well you will see me on the start line in Budapest.
Admittedly I have not had a great 2010 race season. With now only 3 races left in my season I hope I can salvage something from these next few races and end 2010 in a positive frame of mind. If I can manage to do that then at least I can take some positives from this year’s race season.
(Picture) Courtesy of Will Clarke
Trying to erase all memories of a bad day in the office!!
