Not the best photo in the world but it suffices and nicely continues my foot theme. Quite a contrast to how the foot looked 6 months ago. Now we have a little bit of felt under my foot which fingers crossed will sort out my foot pain. First signs are encouraging. Of course if it does that I’ll be rather gutted about spending £220 getting orthotics that should arrive just before I leave for Kona.

The podiatrist confirmed what Ioan and his podiatrist had suggested. I feel the consultation was a little lightweight but decided getting the orthotics based on that was worth the try since it’s really my only chance of running in Kona. If that doesn’t work I will have to see about getting a further consultation when I return.

Tomorrow Jo and I leave for Club La Santa for 2 weeks of full on training. Following my performance at Vitruvian I feel really motivated. Some good solid interval work on the bike and in the pool will hopefully see me flying come Kona. As for running – I’ll take my aqua-jogging stuff and try and get the legs conditioned so that should my foot be pain free I can run like the wind (in my dreams and visualizations).

The swim session this morning just proved how good my swim form is. We were given a main set of 4 x 400m (with paddles) on 6 mins, 250m easy, 4 x 400m on 6 mins. The coach adjusted the distance for all the lanes so the whole squad was going off on the same time. I was the only one doing 400m so gave me lots of targets.

It’s taken me about 18 months of persistence with these hand paddles to get to grips with them. It’s a sign I’m getting stronger. I managed all the 400s with paddles in 5:24 to 5:27. I was very pleased.

Come the final set of 400m I knock out the first in 5:20, then the second in 5:15. I can now see that Edwige in the lane next to me is a potential to be lapped. So next one I push even harder and with 50 to go it’s possible. I just edge ahead to come in on 5:10 and get a friendly splash from Edwige who I think was slightly gutted to be lapped

Come the last one I gun it knowing she’ll be putting in more to avoid being caught. She did but I still manage it coming in on 5:04 and double over gasping for breath. That is better than the 400 time trial I did 3 months ago and isn’t far off the best time I’ve done for 400m (4:59 in  a time trial) since being a triathlete. What was even more pleasing was that it was controlled – my stroke didn’t break down as I got tired, I maintained the length, power and stroke count.  It seems at least one of my goals after last years Kona is still achievable – PB the swim.