Little steps

There has been progress!

I have been slowly increasing my running as my injuries subside and allow me to do more. I have managed to go from 10 x 1 min walk/ 1min run two weeks ago, to 4 x 10min run/ 1 min walk last night, with a similar level of discomfort. This is an improvement, not a huge one but things are going on the right direction. It is a boost for my motivation too because it could indicate that I am on the road to recovery and I may be able to string some good training together and maybe have a reasonable 09/10 season.

Fingers crossed.

I have an appointment with a Sports Physician on Monday; hopefully he can do the assessments needed to figure out exactly what is going on in my hammy/glute so we can get it fixed.

Good things.

Iron-Parent

This week will be the official start of my training and racing endurance sport with a family (i.e. wife, child and dog).

Before March 1st, I had a wife and dog, and both of them were very supportive of my training and racing. Now I have a new family member that I am going to have to pay dues to, in order to get out the door to train and to pack up to go to races. At this stage she is giving the go ahead to all training sessions (I took her lack of response as consent…) and I am sure she will continue to support me as her beautiful mother does. But how will I cope with the time spent away from my family…? I have spoken with a few Iron-Dads and a lot of them say that even when they have the green light to train; they often drag their feet and find reasons to stay home. I can already feel that I am missing out, when I go to work.

I think it would be easy to put my training on the back burner or take time out, but I think my wife would concur that when I don’t train and sit around the house I go into hibernation and become less enjoyable to be around. I sleep for longer and do less around the house. I think that while my training may have to adapt to the new girl in my life (things are already more pink, that is for sure), it will continue be important to my well-being and to my ability to be a good parent (whatever that means).

P.S. As you may have picked up from this post, my baby daughter Alexandra (Ally) Wendy Duncan was born safe and sound on 1/3/09. Welcome to the Family Ally

In need of purpose

The longer I consider myself an endurance athlete the more I see that I am not in it for the joy of training.

I know that a lot of endurance athletes out there love to train and could train for the sake of training all year round.

Me, I train to race... I train to compete...I train to go faster than the guy next to me to catch the guy ahead of me and to hold off the guy behind me. Training is a necessary evil to race fast/er. Without a race on the immediate horizon and without the pressure to get prepared I am finding it hard to find some fire.

I am in need of purpose.

Being injured and unable to run is making it much harder too. Because I need to get my body in shape to train again before getting in shape to race. This is not how I pictured the early stages of the 09/10 campaign.

I have sucked it up and made an appointment to see the Physio. I am pretty sure I put his kids through college last year, and it seems that they will be awarded the Duncan Scholarship again this year... Also Mr Ibuprofen will be rubbing his hands together when he sees me coming again.

Ahh well, neither ‘getting rich’ nor ‘lengthening my life’ were on my goal list for 2009...

The Lycra doesn't lie

Due to pressure from my adoring fan... I will be blogging again.

I hope to be regular; but with a lot on my plate over the next little while I may not be.

As I said to my to my fan the other day "it's been so long, I could write a novel to update what has happened since my last post!". I won't write a novel; but will give you the highlights and fill in the details over the next little while.

Since my last post:

• 1 Half Ironman – so-so performance
• 1 Ironman – major injury issues, glad to finish
• Numerous injuries – old ones and new ones
• 1 Sea Urchin attack – WTF?
• 1 Surgery to remove Sea Urchin Spines – Yes, the nickname ‘bubbleboy’ is appropriate
• 1 trip to NZ to not compete in a Half Ironman and not attempt to qualify for World Long Course Champs
• 2 months of 0 training sessions
• 1 month of easing back into training and dealing with lingering injuries.

In essence the 08/09 season was not my finest and good riddance I say.

I forgot to mention that somewhere in there I managed to get my wife pregnant and it is currently 13 sleeps till another Iron-Orphan enters the world (kidding).

I anticipate a continued ‘easing’ back into training due to fatherly duties. This all works nicely towards my plan to race Ironman NZ 2010, so baby’s first birthday is perfectly timed to see the grand-parents in NZ (you may remember that my wedding was scheduled around a race last year too…)

I have likely missed some of the details; they will come to me as I go.

It feels good to be back.

Oh, the title is a reference to the way my bike shorts groan when I put them on at the moment, race weight is a distant memory...

Good luck to all competing in April!

Well look at that another post and only four weeks between.

I have little to report, my season has come to an end and I now need to draw a line in the sand and say there goes that season and now we get serious for Ironman in December. I think it will be after the trip we are taking to watch Ironman Australia next week, when I feel it is time to look ahead and put the past season to rest.

A big shout out to the guys from my ETPA that are racing at Ironman Oz. Ken, Mark and Pete will rip the course up big style and I am stoked that I will be there to support and watch them!!!

Also Johan, a friend of mine I have mentioned before, is racing in the Auckland Half Ironman in NZ next weekend. Hopefully the serious training he has put in over the last 3 months will pay big dividends...

Good luck to all that are competing over the next few weeks.

I will keep chugging along and will keep you all up to date as the next few months progress.

Train hard!

J.