Following on from my 2017, 2018 and 2019 yearly reviews, it’s now time to write about all the amazing things I did in 2020. Ok, so maybe not the amazing things I did have planned but there were still good times.

Like most people, I had big plans for 2020. Running my first Boston Marathon picking up my Abbott World Marathon Major 6 Star Finisher Medal in the process, returning to Mallorca to race Ironman 70.3 Mallorca which was the race where I picked up my grade 2 calf strain in 2019. Then there were all the summer triathlon’s which were deferred from 2019 due to the injury and finishing out the year with a sub 3 hour attempt at the Chicago Marathon.

We all know what happened then so let’s not dwell on the race cancellations. Making plans is one thing but being able to pivot and refocus on something else is what keeps us driving forward.

In 2020 I really wanted to build on the progress made over the last 5 months of 2019. Coming back from a 6 week break from running whilst recovering from the calf strain to finishing the New York City Marathon in 3:18.37.

In previous years I have broken my review down into each month, discussing the races that month and training progress. I have decided to do that again this year to hopefully give a picture of how my training adapted with the various race cancellations.

January

The year began focusing on training for the Boston Marathon in April. I was still working with my run coaches Adam Clarke and Charlotte Purdue and we were pushing the speed work hard to get a fast turn over and then stretch that out over a longer distance as training progressed.

No races this month, I wanted to focus on training and really hit my full potential in April.

I was continuing with self coaching on the triathlon front. Focusing my attention to planning out the bike and swim training along with the run coaching from Adam & Charlotte, ready for the first triathlon in May.

A solid month on the bike, nothing really to write home about. Just building the base and spending time in the saddle.

Swimming was and still is my weakness. I have never been that motivated to drive to the pool and do something I seem to struggle at. This year I wanted to change that, I will never improve with the attitude I used to have.

January saw my biggest ever month of swimming and as a result, I started to see my times for 100m, 400m, 750m, 1,000m and 1,900m all come down. As the times came down, the motivation went up.

• Running – 191.9 Miles
• Cycling – 475.7 Miles
• Swimming – 32,808 Yards

February

No races in Feb but The Big Half was on the 1st March and we decided to do a 2 week taper before going for a half marathon PB, so the mileage dipped towards the end of the month. That turned out to be a good idea as I started to feel a little niggle in my piriformis. This enforced that 2 week taper and in fact brought the mileage down to just 15 miles by the end of the month.

That piriformis niggle didn’t really affect the cycling, I was able to concentrate on that as planned but also lower the intensity towards the end of the month. From February on I was planning on a weekly endurance ride each Saturday, starting at 2 hours and building this long ride up to 6 hours in the build up to Ironman UK, Ireland and Wales over the summer.

Another really good month with swimming. The newly found swim motivation was seeing me down the pool three or four times each week and a good routine was forming. I set another monthly high beating last month and actually swimming more in Januar and February than the 18 months from August 2017 – February 2019.

This new swim routine was really starting to see big improvements in my times. Swimming big PB’s in all distances and coming within 30 seconds of the 70.3 swim PB at Ironman 70.3 Mallorca 2019, which was achieved with the help of a wetsuit and saltwater.

It is probably worth mentioning that concern about COVID-19 was starting to rise during February but no thoughts about race cancellations yet.

• Running – 160.6 Miles
• Cycling – 442.7 Miles
• Swimming – 39,206 Yards

March

March kicked off with a massive half marathon PB, running 1:24.35 at The Big Half in London. I was given strict pacing instructions and run a negative split but not go flat out at any point, we wanted to run a PB but not push the piriformis too hard and risk a bigger injury or even worse, missing Boston 7 weeks later.

The piriformis niggle had cleared up and was not felt again after that half marathon so training got back on track with the weekly long run getting up to 17 miles by mid-March.

Then came the news that the UK was going into a full national lockdown, all kinds of events were being postponed, gyms closing, worries about whether I would still have a job and nursery closing meaning I had to balance training with work and entertaining a 4 year old.

Just after that, we got the news that the Boston Marathon was to be postponed to September. The run training plan went into maintenance mode for a few weeks, dropping the long run back from the planned 19 and 21 miles to 12 and 14 miles.

Bike training was unaffected by lockdown and the race cancellations at that stage. In fact, bike training took off in a big way. The weekly endurance rides were gradually building to 3 hours and the overall mileage for March was by far my biggest month ever. I was on the bike every day and averaged 27.8 miles each day.

Swimming saw the biggest hit by the lockdown announcement. My final swim before the pool closure was on the 18th March. The swims before that had gone ok, not hitting the PB heights of February but still fast enough (for me).

• Running – 164.4 Miles
• Cycling – 863.1 Miles
• Swimming – 14,846 Yards

April

April started off bad, I woke up one morning with a really bad pain in just below my ribs which moved down to my stomach after a day. I spent 4 days in bed, not really knowing what this pain was but not really wanting to put a burden on the NHS right when they were getting battered by record COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths. I later came to realise that this was appendicitis but I managed to clear the pain through painkillers.

This meant that the first week and a half of April was a write off on both run and bike. My second run back was the Team Purdue Performance 1 Mile challenge, where my coaches were setting the team a challenge to see how fast we could run 1 mile. They were great at coming up with these challenges to keep the team motivated during what was a pretty uncertain and stressful time for us runners. Would races be cancelled? could we make the rearranged dates? Can we get refunds for rail or air travel and hotels? They didn’t want me to run the 1 Mile challenge which was sensible but I did and unsurprisingly, I didn’t run a PB.

I made the decision to stop working with Purdue Performance at the end of the month and would add the run training to my self coached triathlon plan.

Bike training went ok, way down on March’s mileage due to missing 10 days and then kind of losing the motivation a little as it became clear that we would not be racing Ironman 70.3 Mallorca in May. Despite Ironman dragging us along throughout April saying that the race will go ahead.

• Running – 156.5 Miles
• Cycling – 470.6 Miles
• Swimming – 0 Yards

May

May started with the news that Ironman 70.3 Mallorca was postponed to 31st October and that the Tour of Tameside, Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire and Ironman Ireland were all cancelled with entries deferred to 2021.

I made the decision not to defer my Boston Marathon entry to September and took the refund. I felt that with the way things were looking in the US, September would be a no go and I didn’t want the stress of rearranging flights and hotels for September. Having made the sensible decision, I then went and deferred my Ironman 70.3 Mallorca place to October rather than May 2021 and putting myself through the stress of trying to get a refund from Ryanair! this would drag on for 5 months!

With all of those cancellations, I simply refocused on the next race on the schedule. I was 99% certain that Ironman UK would not go ahead in July but until I was told otherwise, I would train for it like it was going and bank the fitness. Worst case, it is cancelled and I then refocus on the next one, Ironman Wales in September.

This was my biggest ever month of running. The weather was warm and sunny, my perfect conditions for runs, the roads were quiet with very little traffic during lockdown and I was motivated to continue building on my run fitness gained from Purdue Performance. I brought my weekly long runs up to 15 miles and was running one speed session and a longer tempo run in addition for 4 easy runs each week.

The bike motivation sort of returned now I was focusing on the 112 mile bike at Ironman UK and Ironman Wales. The weekly endurance rides remained at 3 hours and I followed these up with a 5 mile run off the bike. An area I felt I could improve on in 2020. Deep down I knew that Ironman UK would not happen which was why I did not increase the weekly endurance rides to 4 hours.

• Running – 256.6 Miles
• Cycling – 566.0 Miles
• Swimming – 0 Yards

June

June picked up where May left off. A good solid first 12 days of running with the long run now up to 16 miles and long ride at 56 miles.

I did the 5th Ironman VR race running 5k on the Friday, riding 56 miles in the garage on Saturday and running 13.1 miles on the Sunday. I finished up in 4th place in my age group which gave the confidence a good boost. Just shows what I can do when I don’t have to swim first.

Then we got the news that the Boston Marathon in September would be cancelled and run virtually in 2020. As someone who was originally registered for April, I would be able to register for the virtual Boston Marathon and at least get the Boston Marathon medal.

I went to bed on the 12th June feeling pain just below my ribs again, I thought it was indigestion and went to bed to try and sleep it off. I woke up at 1am still feeling this bad pain, went downstairs to take some painkillers then next thing I knew was my wife was waking me up on the floor in the kitchen. I must have collapsed at some point, I don’t know how long I was out on the floor for but the pain in my stomach now was unbearable and my heart rate was at 125bpm just lying on the floor. We called an ambulance which eventually arrived 5 hours later and took me into A&E.

I was diagnosed with “most likely” appendicitis. The MRI and CT scans didn’t appear to show that it had ruptured which was good news. If it had ruptured whilst I had spent that 5 hours on the kitchen floor waiting for an ambulance, I could have died!

Due to COVID, they were not carrying out any routine operations. This meant that they would only treat my appendicitis with antibiotics. This was both good and bad news. The good news was the recovery time from antibiotics would be a number of weeks as opposed to months from surgery but also bad news in that I will most likely get appendicitis again.

I didn’t run or ride again after the 12th June.

• Running – 84.1 Miles
• Cycling – 330.1 Miles
• Swimming – 0 Yards

July

This month kicked off with the news that Ironman UK and Ironman Wales were cancelled. No big surprise there and given the illness, I wouldn’t have been able to race Ironman UK anyway so that saved me some money. I managed to bag a place at Challenge Roth in 2021 which is due to be on the same day as Ironman UK so I made the decision to transfer my Ironman UK place to Ironman 70.3 Weymouth in September.

After a 6 week break from training, I started back running. 1 Mile at first, then two 2 mile runs and increased gradually. The heart rate was really high during these short very easy paced runs. Weeks of antibiotics and no exercise had taken its toll.

I was able to get back on the bike a little earlier by doing some Peloton Spin classes on my wife’s bike. These low impact rides were a good warm up for some 60 and 90 minute rides on Zwift towards the end of the month.

• Running – 89.0 Miles
• Cycling – 347.9 Miles
• Swimming – 0 Yards

August

I “officially” started the virtual Boston Marathon training in August. I gave myself 6 weeks to get ready and gave myself zero expectations on the time. It’s only a virtual marathon anyway so doesn’t really count.

My running plan was to do speed intervals on a Tuesday and a longer tempo run on a Thursday with the traditional long run Sunday starting at 2 hours, 2:15, 2:30 and 2:45. The other 4 days were 1 hour easy pace runs.

The long runs started off at 7:45/mi pace but felt really comfortable and very low heart rate, I increased the pace to 7:20/mi for the 2:15 and longer runs. This gave me a good boost that I could still run the distance and fairly fast.

Racing returned at the end of the month. A local 5k in COVID secure conditions. The Mid-Cheshire 5k was where I had set my two previous 5k PB’s but this time I turned up not knowing what I could run. It was just a flat out effort from start to finish. I was over the moon to have clocked a 17:34 PB and again another massive confidence boost.

I biked 6 or 7 longer outdoor rides in the warm summer sun. Well, the final one was cold and very wet and involved 3 punchers.

We also got the news that Ironman 70.3 Weymouth in September and Ironman 70.3 Mallorca in October had been cancelled. That left me with no in-person races remaining for 2020. I just had the virtual Boston Marathon. I then decided that I would up the challenge a little and signed up for the virtual New York City Marathon which would give me a race place in either 2021, 2022 or 2023 as well as signing up for the virtual London and Chicago Marathons all in October.

• Running – 247.5 Miles
• Cycling – 484.2 Miles
• Swimming – 0 Yards

September

The month began by running 3:03.43 in my virtual Boston Marathon around Scholar Green. I didn’t push the pace too hard early on and felt good in the last 10 miles so picked it up to run a nice controlled negative split and my second fastest marathon off the back of just 6 weeks training. A HUGE confidence boost.

In the week before my virtual Boston, I started to feel some pain in my left knee but this only showed up when walking up/downstairs. It was fine whilst running, so I carried on with the training and ran a marathon with it so it couldn’t be that bad right?

I took a week of recovery after Boston, just running easy pace all week and a steady 10 miles the Sunday after the race. The legs felt good and not overcooked so my pacing must have been spot on. I had 4 weeks between the virtual Boston and the virtual London marathon. After that week it was back to 1 week of training and a 2 week taper again.

I joined City of Stoke AC, a local running club. In the 5 years I have been running, I have always trained alone and always ran by myself. The only times I have run with other people has been on race day. I wanted to run with other, faster runs who can challenge and push me to run even faster going forward.

I did two sessions with the Stoke AC guys before the virtual marathons in October and really enjoyed them. I ran harder than I would have back home so this is something I am really excited about in 2021.

Just a steady month on the bike, nothing to train for now with all races cancelled.

• Running – 244.0 Miles
• Cycling – 235.5 Miles
• Swimming – 0 Yards

October

So the knee pain on the stairs continued for the first two weeks of October, I was still running pain free so I continued with the 50 mile weeks and three virtual marathons in 14 days. It wasn’t until the week of the final virtual marathon, that I felt some discomfort when starting my runs. This went away after a mile or so.

First up was the virtual London Marathon in what turned out to be the wettest day in the UK since records began. Needless to say, it wasn’t as fast as last months virtual Boston but I did manage a 3:05.05, in fact, my 3rd fastest 26.2 miles. I did set off at a faster pace than last month but faded in the second half. A good lesson learned about pacing there.

7 days on it was the virtual Chicago Marathon. I ran 5 times between London and Chicago to keep the legs turning over. This time the weather was perfect. I set out at the same pace as last week but was able to pick up in the last 8 miles this time for another nicely controlled negative split and came home in 3:01.12 for 26.3 miles. Just 3 secs off my marathon PB, I could have stopped the watch at 26.2 but I didn’t want to beat my PB in a virtual marathon that doesn’t count so I ran on for 15 seconds before stopping at 3:01.12.

Last up was the virtual New York City Marathon. As mentioned above, this was the week the knee pain crept into the running. Had it been any of the other virtual marathons this weekend, I wouldn’t have run but as it was the NYC marathon, I had a guaranteed entry into a future year riding on this one so I had to do it.

As you can imagine, the legs were far from 100% after running 3:05 and 3:01 marathons in the past 14 days but I wasn’t fussed about the time on this one. I did set out at the same pace as last week to test the body and see what it could handle but once it got tough I slowed it down and just did what was needed to earn that future marathon place. 3:25.05 in the end. Which, until this series of virtual marathons, would have been good enough for my 4th fastest marathon.

After the virtual NYC marathon, I had always planned to take a full 2 week break from training to let the body recover. This was hopefully what my knee would need to recover.

I didn’t ride the bike at all in October.

• Running – 144.4 Miles
• Cycling – 0 Miles
• Swimming – 0 Yards

November

That 2 week break in October came and went, the knee still hadn’t improved so I went to see the physio early in Nov. She confirmed what I had suspected aka googled, in that it looks like tendonitis in the knee. The advice was to avoid running for a while and to ice the knee to reduce the swelling and alternate a hot pack to flush it out. She did say that it could be anywhere from 3 – 6 months to fully recover or in some cases, it doesn’t fully recover.

So no running this month.

I did some bike sessions as these weren’t causing any pain or grief on the knee but nothing major. Just something to keep the aerobic fitness.

As I can walk fine I decided to attempt a challenge of walking 100,000 steps in one day. This ended up taking 14hr 40mins and covered 49.71 miles. A really long day but it was pleasing to tick off a challenge whilst I am out injured. Us endurance athletes need to get their fix somewhere!

• Running – 0 Miles
• Cycling – 318.6 Miles
• Swimming – 0 Yards

December

This month started off with my wife testing positive for COVID and then my daughter and myself. I initially thought I got off lightly with just mild symptoms which cleared in a few days. I have had a high heart rate and my breathing has not been right in the weeks since. Something I will monitor as the weeks go by.

No running again this month and very little progress with the knee recovery. Still not pain free despite going past the 2 month mark of no running.

After my 10 days off with COVID, I returned to the bike and had a really good month, all low impact and low power rides across Peloton and Zwift but my 2nd highest monthly mileage of the year.

I did return to the pool for 7 swims before Christmas. The technique wasn’t great after 9 months off and the breathing has been very hard post COVID-19. I did, however, make some progress and swum my 3rd fastest 1,900m distance which is promising.

At the end of the month, Cheshire went back into lockdown which means the pool is closed again now. No more swimming probably for 3 or 4 months and with the knee injury looking likely to drag into February and March, the start of 2021 is not looking good for the training.

• Running – 0 Miles
• Cycling – 568.7 Miles
• Swimming – 15,037 Yards