making the most of what you have!

I placed 5th at the ITU World Championships last weekend. Although striving all year to finally win this race after having medalled twice, I was really happy with my result and with my effort. Especially considering that I wasn´t able to run at all three days out of the race!

All year my preparations for this had been basically flawless and I was looking forward for the last phase of speedwork and tapering when I accidentally tripped, slipped and bent the wrong way the day after winning the Kalmar Sprint Tri. My back went out. Ouch!

It actually didn´t feel too bad and already the day after I was able to run a decent 90 minutes and subsequently the stiffness and pain subsided. Which was great since I was about to embark on some serious hard workouts during the following few weeks!

But after suffering through two very tough days of multiple sessions with some fast running I noticed that I wasn´t just experiencing normal fatigue through my hamstring and groin but an awkward and straining pain that made me feel like I had already raced an Ironman; something was up… My massage therapist worked overtime with my muscles and were sweating bullets trying to work around the problem all the while I was trying to complete my schedule.

As the days were ticking down to Worlds I was finding myself in a routine of having a good day followed by two poor days of training. A week out of Worlds I raced the Swedish Nationals Olympic Distance and although I was 3rd I didn´t run nearly as fast as I should have. And then; two days after that race and being in the final week leading up to my big race I couldn´t get out of bed. I was in big trouble!

It seemed as if though my sciatic nerve was the culprit and had been the issue during the last month and it had now decided to really make life miserable for me….

I was able to bike and swim without much problem but I couldn´t run and I boarded the flight to Amsterdam with a lot of doubt and anxiety.

Luckily for me we had a great massage therapist with us to the race and we both decided to find an osteopath to help with my problem. And the miracle happened! With just one treatment this osteopath managed to find the problem in my back and release the tension that caused my problem; I really struck gold when I decided to pick this particular guy!

So when racemorning dawned on Sunday I was completely relaxed and armed with a great attitude of thankfulness of just being on the startline. Nothing is a given in the world of professional triathlon and sometimes the biggest challenges lay in just getting to the race in one piece and healthy.
    

And although I didn´t swim the 4 kilometres as well as I had hoped due to very rough conditions in the water and exited in a dismal15th place, I felt superior on the bike! I almost averaged 43 km/hour over the 120 k and had worked my way up to 10th place by the time I hit the pavement for the run. I started out somewhat slow but found myself flying five kilometres into the 30 k. I let the hurtin´begin and started catching my competitors one by one and I caught 5th-place in the finish chute! My run time was 1.48 which was the 3rd best time of the day.

All in all; it wasn´t a gold medal performance but it was hell of a lot better than not being able to start at all!