I am very excited to be on the startlist for the World Champs Series in Cape Town this weekend.
After tearing my Plantar Fascia last year before the Commonwealth Games my recovery has been up and down. The Plantar healed really well but what came next was a series of foot niggles as my foot adapted to running again. I had some new orthotics that were in place to help my plantar fascia and prevent further strain on the tendon, but my foot adapting to these also caused a few problems. Long story short it's been a few months of a niggley annoying foot! Throw into that a four-week bout of the flu, which caused a reoccurrence of a back problem from coughing so much, it has not been easy lately. Although the foot has been tough to deal with on the positive side I have trained consistently well swimming and biking since August last year and I have seen some improvements, although my foot has been a working project I have been able to keep running through all these problems, I haven't done a lot of hard running or running sessions but I have been running.
It's great to be getting back to racing after such a long training period. The aims this year are the Olympic selection races in Rio in August and Chicago in September. I still have a few months to prepare for these big aims and Cape Town is the first step towards them. It's been a last minute decision to go and I do feel a little underprepared. I always want to hit every race feeling 100% having done all the preparation to deliver a performance, but I have realized you can't always be in that position, everyone always wants the perfect prep but realistically who gets that? If I'm waiting for perfection I may never race! I will line up in Cape Town knowing I have done everything possible I could, even if its not as much as I would have liked!
I had a training program planned for the eight weeks prior to Cape Town that I didn't expect to do. This would have allowed me to race. Three weeks ago my foot wasn't in a position where I would have wanted to race but as the weeks progressed the foot eased and before I knew it training was done, it was a week before Cape Town and my foot was no where near as painful as it had been. Also I couldn't face another week of hard training in the pool! My swim coach has done a great job this last 7 months, challenging me in the pool every day, thanks Phil.
Also a huge thank you to the continued support of my Sponsors
Asics, Science in Sport, JLL, Giant/Liv, Huub, Oakley and PedalCover.