A Big Decision to Make…….
After a bike ride at the weekend, my achilles has grown again! It doesn’t hurt but I thought I should return to the doctor to see if it’s ok. He looked at it with ultrasound, and said that it’s just tired and recommended another 2-3 weeks of rest. Most of the doctors here overestimate time for recovery but even so, it’s getting very near the cut off for getting my money back for the triathlon (by the end of April)…. I’m thinking that if I’m not going to get fit in time that it will be better to get the entry fee back and give it to Blue Dragon and postpone the challenge until next year.
If I don’t do that then I will go through with it this year or forfeit the entry fee. I’d prefer not to do that, but I’d also prefer not to cause myself a long term injury either.
What do Blue Dragon do?
Blue Dragon is an Australian charity helping poor children and families in Vietnam. Their base is in Hanoi, but they have other branches in other parts of the country.
Aims
Their main aims are to provide orphans a home and street kids and children from poor families a chance to get some kind of education.
Education
Blue Dragon offers various education to kids, from learning English, or computer skills or sponsoring children from poor families to continue their education at school. Education in Vietnam is free for only 6 years. This could help them in their future working life, and help to break the cycle of poverty.
Runaways
Blue Dragon is involved in finding runaway children (who tend to run away because they can see their family is too poor to look after all the children). They often go to a city to try to earn money shining shoes or something similar.
Trafficked children
Blue Dragon help to locate children sold into ‘education – to give them a trade ‘by their poor families; actually sweat shops and other unpleasant places of work by desperate families – who later realize what has happened and try to find their kids. Many of these families live in rural areas.
Other Activities
The first point of contact for many kids is the weekly game of football organized which any children can take part in. As well as this, they try to offer local children other life skills – eg. A UN statistic is that 40 children drown every day in Vietnam, so Blue Dragon helps teach kids to learn to swim.
A Personal Note
On my visit to the charity, I bought the Blue Dragon football shirt, and wore it later for lunch. I was very surprised to find a young waitress there keep looking in my direction while we were eating. When we finished she came over and asked if I knew Michael (the founder of Blue Dragon). I said no, but asked why and she told me that she had lived there and seemed very pleased to see the football shirt I was wearing! – It was an eye opener for me, and a firsthand experience of how Blue Dragon is helping to train poor, young and underprivileged children to become independent and learn a trade.
They also help distribute food to people affected by natural disasters in the country.
So these are some of the reasons why I decided to support their cause.
For the Blue Dragon story: http://www.streetkidsinvietnam.com/blue_dragon_story.html
For more information on the charity: http://www.streetkidsinvietnam.com/
And if you agree that they are doing a great job out there, feel free to donate something to the charity: http://www.theintrepidfoundation.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19_34&products_id=77
The mysterious recurring injury…..
After four days of bandages and cream the achilles problem seems to have completely disappeared, but now I firmly believe it is related to the other muscle pains I was suffering before Christmas. This took some time to diagnose as the doctor thought I had joint or back problems. I had x-rays, CT scans, physio and electro therapy. All the tests turned out negative and nothing helped for long.
Then I found I had a number of trigger points (hard lumps of muscle) in my calves and thighs which don’t hurt until they become active. When they do, they can really hurt you and also refer pain to other parts of the body. For me it originally felt like cramp in my calf which never went away. This time it felt like I had a problem in my achilles, but can also feel like knee pain or hip pain (I suffered with this before Christmas, only not too much) depending on which muscles contain trigger points. On Monday I went to my masseur and found that my achilles problem is most probably referred pain from my calf muscle.
Strange, you might say? I have done a lot of reading about trigger points since Christmas and it doesn’t seem so strange, especially among long distance sports people. I have never taken enough care of my muscles and now they are crying out for some attention!
The condition is called myofascial pain (or myofascial dysfunction) and it seems that once you realize you have them you can start to correct them. I have spent 2 days massaging one small area of my calf – which really hurt to touch, but now seems to be getting better. eg, soft and pliable, like a muscle should be instead of a tight knot which doesn’t move.
These problems account for a huge number of cases in athletes and also in normal people. I read some shocking statistics on the internet about this, so if you have some aches or pains which the doctor is unable to explain maybe you should see someone knowledgeable in this area.
At the end of this week I’m feeling much more confident that I will be able to continue training for my challenge. I’m even contemplating running the Half Marathon on Sunday, but I think it’s probably better to skip it. I’ve also bought a book from Amazon about self-therpay as I’m so pleased with the effects of the self massage techniques I tried on the internet webpage. I’ll keep you posted on my progress in this area.
A Training blunder….
After a nice week of skiing I decided that to sign up for the Bratislava half marathon in 2.5 weeks and thought I should do a bit of speed training as since my autumn injuries and then winter snow I’d been unable to do any. With the snow melting and the upcoming race in my mind I set out on Tuesday morning for a slightly longer run than normal and did 20-30 mins of long intervals in the middle.
On arriving home I was feeling good and in the afternoon I took my bike out for an hour in the nice weather. Wednesday was a day off, and then on Thursday ignoring all conventional advice I’ve read I went on another long run and did some more intervals. Still great! But in the morning my ankle hurt like hell. My punishment for not following my training plan.
I’ve never taken all the advice I’ve read in books too seriously. I’m lucky that my body generally responds well to training and though I generally increase workload or intensity gradually I’ve never followed the 10percent rule discussed by many experts. For years I’ve followed a fairly good running plan – 3 times a week, 1 long run (up to 2 hours), 1 tempo run (1 hourish) and in season a run with some type of interval training (1 hourish). When training for longer runs I’ve done up to 5 runs a week (usually the other two are easy and or short).
After reading about this pain on the internet it seemed I’d developed achilles tendonitis, but reading through the information not everything seemed true. I had no swelling, and my foot didnt hurt much without shoes on. So what was happening to me? After 5 days I decided to try to run again…. it hurt for 40 mins and then stopped – so I continued for another 40 mins – great, I’m cured…..
Only for the pain to return later, not as bad but still there. I looked for advice on the net and found some massage tips – so I massaged it and noticed that now it was swollen and red. I stopped massaging it and went to the doctors next day. Funny enough, it stilldidnt hurt without shoes on, so I was worried what I had done.
He’s told me to rest for a week and given me cream and a bandage – it seems like pretty standard procedure. No half marathon next weekend but I hope to return to training next week and am still hoping to return to fitness in time for my first planned triathlon at the start of May.
I am feeling the pressure of training for this long distance race more than ever, 4 months seems very close now and it is driving me to take risks in training. I want to be well prepared but I know it is stupid to work too hard too quickly, and this has been a wake up call to listen to my body and take the time to rest if needed. Its also served as a reminder to follow my training schedule, instead of trying to squeeze in extra runs or extra workouts.
Why try Ironman?
The recent journey to my decision to try Ironman has taken about 2 and a half years, though I’ve always been interested in sports. As a kid I played football for hours on end but stopped most sport in my early 20′s. I was more interested in drinking and hanging around! In 2003 I was tired of being overweight and started going to the gym and running in my free time but it wasn’t until I signed up and ran my first half marathon in Prague in 2005 with a group of my fellow teachers that I found out how rewarding it could be – and I lost a lot of weight training too – and could eat more food than ever!
After that first race I started looking for others and I still really enjoy them. I think they are my perfect event…. they take quite a long time, unlike sprinting (which I tried when I joined an athletics club in Spain in 2007) where you spend a lot of time travelling and waiting to race and not much time actually doing exercise. Running a marathon is a bit too long for me – I tried that too, and finished in 3h 15mins but found that I was exhausted for 2-3 weeks afterwards, and it took a long time to get back to training. A half marathon takes just a couple of days to recover from.
Another advantage of these races is that you can make an excuse to visit places you would never normally go – do a race and spend some time looking round after.
After reaching what I consider to be close to my best times in half marathons I started looking for other challenges and tried triathlon, after my brother did the London Triathlon. I had never considered it before as I don’t like swimming but after he did it, I thought I should also give it a go!
At the time I was living in San Sebastian and they had a beautiful beach and there was an olympic triathlon there in June which meant I had no excuse. I signed up as soon as I could and also had plenty of time to swim in the sea prior to the race, which also made me nervous as I’ve never liked swimming too far from the shore!
My first triathlon was in dire conditions, the sea was rough and it was raining very hard but the buzz was great (especially at the end of the swim) and I knew I had to do another one – and I did did another 2 in the next 2 consecutive weekends – That was it, I was hooked.
It was then a logical step (in my mind!) to try a half Ironman (1.9km swim,90km bike, 21.1km run) as I had been quite well trained for those triathlons and hadn’t found them too hard (compared to my favourite half marathon event 
)
I signed up for the Ironman 70.3 in St Polten before Christmas as I wanted to see what it would be like to run 21.1km after the bike ride – weird eh? but true! Again I loved the atmosphere and the day and maybe this is my favourite distance of triathlon too! – (now I’ve done 3 three of these, and some sprint distances too).
I was frightened of going further as the 180km bike ride put me off, and knowing how I felt after the marathon I never thought I’d go further but its always there, and I always want to push myself a bit further…. and now I know people who do these races and they say the marathon isn’t so bad in an Ironman….. (I don’t understand how!) and I kept thinking that if I didn’t try it I’d always wonder, and these thoughts made me sign up for Challenge Roth. It has a great reputation and the more I thought about it, I just had to try it……
That was last July and I still can’t believe I signed up but during my visit to Vietnam, and seeing how the people there live and thinking that these people cannot afford the luxury to do sport and enjoy their lives like I can, travelling and essentially doing everything I want. The people spend their lives worrying about making enough money to feed their families – and so many children, like those I met on my visit to Blue Dragon, are left with no future and no opportunities to grow and make something of themselves just because of the place where they were born. Unless organisations like Blue Dragon can help them to realize their potential.
It is just a triathlon but this one has become a massive dream for me and while I take part I think it’s the perfect opportunity to try to do something for people less fortunate than myself.
At the start of the article are a few photos of friends and places which have inspired me to this point.
Hanoi Highlights
Going to Vietnam? or Hanoi? I thought it was about time to write about my time in Vietnam, but today particularly Hanoi.
First of all, it’s hard to imagine how much life there is in the city. With so many motorbikes and people and noise, there is always something going on and everything about life seems different to how we Europeans view it. People seem to live in the street, by our hotel the locals even seemed to have their dinner on the street, with plastic tables and chairs! Everything is an adventure, even crossing the road – anyone who has experienced it will tell you that you can’t wait for the lights to change! You just have to pluck up your courage and walk across – or you’ll just watch the traffic go past for the whole day!
The way of life was one thing that instantly captured me. Then there was the food – the food was wonderful, everywhere we went. Sometimes I didn’t enjoy noodle soup for breakfast but at any other time of the day the food was superb. Especially if you like rice, noodles, and stir fried foods – which I do!
Then there are the sights…….
The City
The centre of town, just walking around here was amazing for me, soaking up the atmosphere and the way people live. Come back in the evening and visit the water puppet theater for a traditional evening of Vietnamese entertainment.
The Temples
Temples
Then the temples are really interesting, this photo is from the temple by the lake in the centre of town.
The Lake
And this one is looking the other way over the lake. A great place for a rest after all the sights and sounds of the city.
The Temple of Literature
Nice to see Hanoi’s oldest University and in the picture is also the symbol of Hanoi. A good tour and a very interesting place for a couple of hours (even in the rain!)
A Cyklotour
Probably my favourite hour in Hanoi
You should experience is a cyklotour of the city, just to experience what it must be like to ride your moped around town every day – and every day of your stay you’ll notice how many different things can be transported by moped.
The Old Town
And the side streets around the park and lake is a must for any travellers – even if you don’t want to buy anything, just to see what is going on and you’ll be continually surprised at how many mopeds can be in one city (well, I was).
Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and house
And finally, who could visit Hanoi and not visit Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum and his house. Unfortunately it was raining on our visit there and there were quite long queues, but even the rain is different to British rain – it’s warm! and in a way it’s quite nice….. anyway, we were expecting some rain on our trip and it turned out that it rained much less than we thought (we travelled in the wet season).
In the picture I don’t look too happy but I was enjoying the rain…. honest!
Halong Bay
And then there is the wonderful Halong Bay. We spend just two day out on a junk, but it was fantastic. Such a contrast to Hanoi, but so close. And so relaxing. And the boat was certainly not ‘junk’, the crew cooked us some wonderful fresh fish and seafood and vegetarian dishes and we were treated like kings for the time on board…. another Hanoi highlight…..
I’ve only added one picture from the morning but I have so many I could’ve put on here.
Training Progress and upcoming events
After some injury worries in the autumn and early winter my training is starting to go to plan. I have increased my time spent running every week and I’ve been doing a reasonable amount of swimming. I even went on a swim camp in Austria at the end of January – its the first time I’ve done something like that and it was great!
The years first bike rides have started (even though it’s still very cold here). It’s great after so long with snow to finally be out on the roads, it reminds me how much I enjoy cycling!
Yesterday I signed up for the first big event of the year – a half marathon in Bratislava, to test my running fitness and I also have an olympic triathlon booked in at the start of May in a small town in Austria….. so now I’m just looking forward to warmer weather.
