Thats right it’s going to be tight for Kona. Saw the consultant on Tuesday, well actually no I didn’t. Rather disappointingly I saw one of his registrars (I think thats the name) and was discharged to the physio. He said it would be 4 -6 weeks before I could start running. That puts me to the end of June before I even start … so 3 months to get super quick ! I then saw the physio and I became a little more optimistic. She felt that 3 months was extremely cautious for a tendon repair and said that running would start once I’m weened off the aircast boot and walking with proper gait. Doing a small amount of walking without it in Lanzarote has helped here because I’ve not worn the boot since then and it seems to be fine. Walking though does show that the scar could prove a bit of a problem. I can feel it alot when walking. I’m seeing the physio again in two weeks following my Swim Coaching course !! Hopefully I’ll be allowed to try a run at that point.

It means I’m pulling out of the ETU Long Course in Prague in August. It’s only slightly gutting because the plans for that race had to be ditched when I had the surgery. I’ll be honest, my target there was a medal and I’m not that keen just to go to take part. This just makes it certain in my mind I shouldn’t go.

Something went right in Lanza though. May be something to do with this graph:

This is my swimming graph. The blue line shows week to date swim KMs. The line of interest that rather sticks out is the yellow one – swim strain. I’ll admit ideally you want is high load (red line) with low  strain (yellow line). The idea being that the more load I absorb the better but I don’t want to get injured. High strain is meant to equate to increased injury risk. Strain combines load with the variety of the sessions. The high strain above came about because of a week of swimming more or less an hour a day at a steady effort. The ‘monotony’ of this produced the strain it also produced the following set of 200m last night:

10 x 200m off 3 mins. My 200 times were: 2:35,34,33,32,35,33,33,32,32,33

I haven’t swum that well in 4 years ! I cruised the first one not knowing how I’d be swimming and had a double take when I came in and saw the clock.

Suddenly my goal of sub 55 minute swim at Kona still seems on the cards.