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MAKING LEMONADE (Vichy 70.3 race report of sorts)

KARL BONNERKARL BONNER
in Races & Places 🏁⛺

So as the saying goes “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”


Brief History:

Back in June, 2 weeks out from my “A” race, IM Austria, I was on my last long bike ride and 95mi in, when I crested a hill and just as I was changing positions from bulls to aero-bars I hit an unseen pothole, next thing I know Im thrown off to the side with my rear wheel coming over my head and me still attached to the bike. To cut a long story short, I ended up with a separated shoulder (grade 1-2).

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(Just been told that Austria will not happen)

Making Plans:

With Austria now not happening I started to think about the rest of my season, I still had 2 more races booked up (IM Vichy 70.3 Aug 25th & Challenge Peguera Mallorca (70.3) Oct 20th), would I still be able to do these ??, Vichy was unlikely but Peguera I thought was a realistic target to aim for, so I thought, lets put myself in the best possible position should I be able to compete.


With this in mind 3 days after the accident I started to get on my bike again indoors on Zwift, very gently at first & still wearing a sling for the first week, my plan at the time was to try and not lose too much of the bike fitness I gained whilst training for Austria.

I was advised against running for at least 4 weeks, so instead of running I walked, I walked a-lot, every day & at a good pace, we have a dog so this was easy but even he struggled with some of the longer ones (I did a couple of 8 mile walks at a good pace & he's a greyhound, built for speed not distance :-))

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(Ted, cooling off after another long walk)

I was told not to swim for at least 6 weeks, but I had a plan in my head, my kick is so weak, Im going to use this as an opportunity to work on it, so after 3 weeks I got back in the pool and with my masters swim coach set about doing kick sets of around 1000m total, some with fins & snorkel, some with a combination of toys or none. 


Some may say “ but your a triathlete, you don't need to kick, save your legs etc etc...”, sorry but I don't agree, you’ve only got to look at the best swimmers in our sport, they kick, they kick ass in fact, the swim kick is your metronome, without it I personally just get faster & faster with my arms without actually going any faster, anyway, I digress, I enjoy swimming & enjoy the technical aspect of it, It wasn’t always this way, I used to hate swimming, buts thats because I was crap at it, & nobody likes stuff they suck at right?, I'm not great now, but I'm average.


After a few weeks I was able to put a little bit of weight on my arm and Zwifting a lot for me, (5-6 days a week), this was a mixture of hard Zwift group workouts (I’d choose workouts that would alternate between short Vo2 type stuff & longer Z4 efforts) & group recovery rides. Without the training stress of running I pretty quickly started to see some gains/PR’s flashing up on my training peaks W/O summaries (bonus).


After 4 weeks I started to add some running into the mix, all 20-40’ at Z1 or TRP, nothing flash, think run durability (I messaged Coach P to ask if he thought this was the right approach & he confirmed, saying that “ you have the run fitness, it just needs waking up”).


After 6 weeks I tried my first outside bike ride to see if my shoulder could handle the vibration, it was ok on my road bike, this was huge mental boost, Zwift is great but I would always choose to be outside in the fresh air... before :-0


As my run frequency & slowly duration started to increase I started to dial back the cycling a bit, I tried a couple of weeks of maintaining the cycling but my body was really struggling to recover, on one run both my legs muscles just froze & locked up (google muscle casting), I hobbled home, warning I thought, take heed.


As I started to add in weekend rides outside and eventually on my TT bike I stuck with the Zwift workouts during the week, as much as I hate to admit it, I was getting far better quality done indoors than outside, especially on erg mode where I was (just) holding Watts I wouldn't have even attempted before.


After 9 weeks (1 week before Vichy) I tried my first open water swim, Id been doing 100s, 200s and even 1 set of 500 in the pool, but with fins mainly, I was struggling with the recovery phase of the stroke bizarrely, my muscles were so tight it was painful to perform this action, my physio had been working wonders but every time I swam, I’d be good for 1 swim, then try again in a couple of days and back to square 1. The O/W swim went ok, I was wearing a wetsuit and that really seemed to compress the shoulder muscles Id been having problems with, I had a couple of “re-sets” at some buoys but got race distance done in about 40’ so was confident if it was a wetsuit swim Id be ok but, Vichy is normally a non wetsuit swim. 


On the Tuesday before Vichy I tried a pool swim (non wetsuit) of 2000m straight, this went ok, again about 40’ (this is why I say “ok”, I'm not happy with 40 but I’ve got to be realistic & swimming 99% pain free is a result), so I decided, it’s on, Im doing Vichy.


IM Vichy 70.3 - 5:03:26


Swim: 41:57

Bike: 2:31:29

Run: 1:40:43


Swim - frustrating but pain free, I stayed well out of the way which meant I didn't get knocked about but also meant I got next to no draft benefit. I had a massive cramp attack in my calf with about 5-600m to go, this kind of set the tone for the next few hours.


Bike - Legs didn't feel great from the beginning, I took a salt tablet almost straight away because of the cramp I’d had in the swim, I had 3 more cramp attacks on the bike & took 2 more salt tabs. 


I had the debate of could v should going around in my head, the frustration of the swim (& the last couple of months if I'm honest) meant I wanted to “go smash” the bike, I was aiming for 220-215w NP (could) but this was taking a-lot of effort, I'm pretty sure it was achievable but at what cost?, so in the end sense won out & I dropped my power a bit to 210w NP(should) to try to hold out for a better run. This was all an unknown as I was aiming for numbers I've never tried in a race, they were based on my training results, however I didn't know if I could run after producing those kind of figures, obviously my training in the lead up had been somewhat compromised so I didn't do any proper race rehearsals.


Run - Legs felt heavy, but I was super disciplined for the first 3mi, I’d checked my av HR for the bike (146) & decided there was no way using those numbers for the first 3mi was going to work, so I stuck with my training numbers (140-143/8;30min mi), then upped until mile 10 (+10bpm/7:50-8 min mi) & then upped again as fast as I could go whilst still maintaining as best form as I could for the last 3mi.


Absolutely stoked with result, thats a PB 70.3/ half time for me, I know I have a sub 5 in me somewhere, but I guess I’ll have to keep waiting for that one. For now, I've got a weeks holiday in rural France where I'm going to eat cheese & drink red wine......... and maybe some lemonade ;-)

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(So happy to be back racing and finishing in a PR time, as always with my no1 supporters, Abbey (Taking pic) & Ted)

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