It has been a couple of months since my last post – IRONMAN WALES TRAINING: WEEK 5 and a lot has happened since then, mostly during that week actually.

Ironman Wales

So firstly, I was training for Ironman Wales. After my week 5 post, the race was cancelled which let’s face it, didn’t come as a surprise to anyone and I was glad they made the call early on. I have taken the option to defer to the 2021 race. I had originally signed up for Ironman Wales in 2019 but had to defer following my calf strain and now deferred 2020 to 2021. It’s a bucket list race for me that keeps appearing on my race schedule but doesn’t get any closer. Third time lucky??

I still had the Chicago Marathon, Ironman 70.3 Weymouth and Mallorca on the plan back then so I decided to just carry on with the training. The races may or may not happen but worse case, I build up some extra fitness so it’s all good.

Illness

The day after Wales was cancelled I felt some pain in my chest as I went to bed. I didn’t think anything of it, just put it down to indigestion. The pain woke me up around 1am, still thinking it was indigestion I went downstairs to take something for it but collapsed at the bottom of the stairs. My wife found me there half an hour later.

We ended up calling for an ambulance as the pain was excruciating. I was doubled up from it. By now it had moved down to my abdomen. Actually getting an ambulance was not easy! we were passed from 111 to an on-call doctor who told us to call 999 who said an ambulance would be with us in an hour. An on-call paramedic then called who said he was arranging a taxi rather than an ambulance. We refused and had to go back through to 999 then be put to the back of the queue again. That said paramedic called again. It was just like running in circles! I spent almost 5 hours lying on the floor in agony waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

Once in hospital, the service did improve. They quickly diagnosed the symptoms as appendicitis. A CT scan and blood test later confirmed this and thankfully it hadn’t ruptured. They said had it ruptured whilst I spent the 4hrs 45mins on the floor, there was a high chance it could have poisoned me and quite possibly killed me! So, lucky for me it didn’t.

Not so lucky was the news that they could not remove the appendix due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They would try to treat it with antibiotics. I was kept in overnight and shipped off back home the following afternoon. I was glad to be back home but still in a lot of discomfort.

The antibiotics did help and over time the pain reduced. It took around four weeks to clear.

What I did find out later was had I gone to a different hospital 8 miles away and actually closer to my home, I would have had the appendix removed. They were still carrying out surgery. I just hope I don’t get appendicitis again anytime soon.

So that illness put an end to my swim, bike and run training. Yes, swim training! I had planned to do my first open water swim of the year the day I went down ill. Clearly a sign that swimming just isn’t for me.

I went a full 5 weeks without any form of training. Since then I have gradually been building up the run and bike mileage and feeling ok with it. No pain or hangovers from the appendicitis or antibiotics. The only issue has been the loss of fitness and increased heart rate as a result. Both things that can be recovered through some good old fashioned hard work.

Chicago Marathon

So Chicago Marathon got cancelled. Again, not a surprise and I had already 99% made up my mind that I would not risk travelling to the US to race anyway so that sensible decision to cancel saved me that 1% of worrying. I have opted not to defer my entry to either 2021, 2022 or 2023. I have gone for the refund. I would love to race Chicago again. I loved the BANK OF AMERICA CHICAGO MARATHON 2018 RACE RECAP and feel like I have unfinished business with that race after, in my eyes, failing in 2018. It will just have to wait for now.

Virtual Boston Marathon

I have been training hard trying to get back the lost fitness with the plan of running the virtual Boston Marathon. I figured I may as well get something out of it after running my only BQ back in TOKYO MARATHON 2019 RACE RECAP It won’t be anywhere close to being that Boston Marathon experience that I have dreamt of ever since getting into running. I worked hard to earn that BQ and place in the Boston Marathon 2020. The last of the 6 world marathon majors for me, the race where I would have picked up that 6 star finisher medal.

Oh well, shit happens and there are a lot bigger issues going on right now. With the cancellation, there was no option to defer to 2021, we were all given a full refund and the qualification window for the 2021 race extended so that the 2020 runners could apply again, which looking at things now makes sense and that is the only fair way to do it for those who ran their BQ’s this year.

For me, my plan is to run a 26.2 mile fairly flat route near home on September 8th. I currently have Ironman 70.3 Weymouth still on the plan for September 20th so this gives me 12 days to recover the legs from the marathon distance run.

The doctors told me that there would be no chance I would be able to run a marathon 3 months after appendicitis. “You can’t do it, your body won’t have time to fully recover”. Well, I am all about proving you CAN do what you CAN’T so on September 8th I will prove that I can run a marathon 3 months / 12 weeks or 77 days after having appendicitis.

So far the training has been going well and as the ever so accurate Strava fitness tracker shows, I am on an upward trend building back up to where I was at 2 months ago.

Virtual Marine Corps Marathon

As an added bit of motivation for the end of summer early autumn training I decided to sign up to run the virtual Marine Corps Marathon. The real in person version of this race has been towards the top end of my running bucket list ever since I started running. I figured this is the next best thing to running around DC right now. No marine will hang that medal around my neck but I have a 26.2 mile challenge to meet and the hard work required to get there.

Virtual New York City Marathon

Okay, so you can probably see a theme here, right? virtual racing has repalced racing and specifically virtual marathons. Unlike most virtual marathons which other than the self-pride of running 26.2 miles and maybe a medal in the post at some point, offer very little, this one is slightly different. Yes, it will give me that self-pride of running another 26.2 miles around the empty country lanes and yes I will get a medal mailed out to me. This one, however! also gives me one of 1,000 guaranteed entries into the New York City Marathon!!! Yes, I am going back to the NYC Marathon for the fourth time!!! Hopefully in 2021 but there is the possibility 2021 maybe oversubscribed so we could get a place in 2022 or 2023. I will find out during the 2021 drawing in Jan/Feb.

I REALLY!!! wanted to bag one of these 1,000 places as the 2021 New York City Marathon falls on November 7th which would have been my fathers 81st birthday. Sadly he is not with us now after he passed away from liver cancer in 2015. My hope is I can get a place in the 2021 race and run for the local Douglas MacMillan hospice where he spent his last few days and who also gave us fantastic support during his 6 month battle with the disease.

First step is to run the 26.2 miles to get that entry then hope I am lucky in securing a 2021 place.

One good bit of news was the date range to run the virtual NYC marathon crosses over with the date range for the virtual Marine Corps Marathon so I am planning on running 26.2 miles on October 18th to cover both virtual marathons in one run. Running is all about being efficient right?

I think that pretty much brings us up to date on where we are at right now. Still waiting to hear whether Ironman 70.3 Weymouth and Ironman 70.3 Mallorca will actually go ahead on September 20th and October 31st respectively. I had a mail from Weymouth saying they are still planning to race so we will see. Until told otherwise I am training as if they are going ahead and even if they do cancel, I have the virtual marathons to keep me honest.