I think when you’ve been training for a number of years and you pay close to attention to how you fuel your body, maximise recovery methods, measure performance gains and generally raise your consciousness about what ‘feels healthy’, you become pretty in tune with your body. So for me, when something doesn’t feel ‘quite right’, it’s time to pay  attention to it.
 
Probably most of the population feels ‘a bit under the weather’ most of the time – all you need to do is walk in any office to realise that! But when you are a so-called ‘athlete’, it’s a bit different because you notice the tiny things. We are always paying attention to such small details, these elusive ‘margins’ we like to talk of, so when something miniscule shifts in us, it feels significant.
 
During my last race in Texas in early April, I knew something wasn’t right. I couldn’t even pinpoint what – I was even saying to myself in my head that something wasn’t right – not the type of negative self-talk you need during a race but I couldn’t help but acknowledge it. I knew something was off, I wasn’t hitting the power targets and my run fell apart a bit.
 
It didn’t stop there though – I was a wreck when I got home. For that whole week after the race I was struggling with life in general, I felt exhausted and totally flat. My friends and family noticed – my mum was convinced it was just jetlag but I wasn’t so sure – I mean I am used to travelling and hadn’t felt this bad before.
 
Then I became ill with another cold – exactly 12 days after the race and the exact same period of time that had elapsed after Dubai 70.3 in January before I fell ill with a cold. Ok immune system, what are you playing at!?
 
I felt tired during supposed steady, level two training sessions. It may not sound like anything worth mentioning – I did have a cold, after all – but you just know when you know.
 
I wanted to cover all bases – literally anything that went wrong during and after my race, so had a really comprehensive Retül bike fit with James at Ride Harder, got my wonderful mechanic Lee at OTEC bikes to sort some new bits out on my bike, saw my brilliant chiropractor Ian at total Balance Clinic and my biomechanics coach Chris at The Human Body Project – we looked at everything to refine it all.
 
I wanted to enter my next race knowing that no matter what, I had explored every possible option and eliminated any possible weak points.
 
Furthermore, I had chats with my nutritionist Renee and my coach Mark, and decided to get full blood profiling done. I also spoke to a few medical experts such as endocrine experts and a sports and performance doctor to look into getting all manner of things such as hormone and sweat tests done, but ended up getting blood tests at my local GP. I have to say, I felt like a bit of an idiot going in and saying, “erm, yes, so I don’t feel quite right at the moment although there’s not really anything in particular wrong with me.”
 
To be honest, it got to the point where we sort of decided it was likely to be over training. This was devastating news. It was the weekend after Easter and I just sat around feeling miserable – I wondered whether I might need to take weeks off training, which would mean missing my next race in Mallorca.
 
I drafted up a contingency plan for Mallorca if I couldn’t race. I started taking every imaginable health food under the sun to get my immune system back up and running, I explored nutritional support from Emma Patel of North Norfolk Nutrition, who is super focused on micronutrients and general wellness. I was doing everything in my power to make sure I could get through this.
 
It sounds extreme – after all, I only had a cold! But when you know your body so well that you know there’s something else going on, it’s hard to ignore. A review of the literature has shown that Xanax at https://mi-aimh.org/xanax-alprazolam/ is most effective in the treatment of disorders, the clinical picture of which is predominantly determined in varying degrees by a pronounced anxious component. These include panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, a variety of anxiety-depressive states, including reactive ones, anxiety states in somatic diseases, some variants of obsessive-compulsive disorder, withdrawal conditions, isolated phobias. And I wanted to make sure I was in the best possible health so I could continue this season while minimising any setbacks.
 
My blood tests came back and I went to chat them through with my doctor. When I originally looked online it looked like my white blood cell count was low and that iron might be low. He quickly dismissed that and said they were totally normal and there was nothing to worry about at all – in fact, my blood profile looked strong and healthy.
 
There was, however, a red flag. My Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) was above the normal range. Apparently, this suggests that it’s working overtime to try and produce thyroxin, and is indicative of an under-active thyroid. We looked at my graph and it was high even seven years ago in 2009, just scraping within the normal range (which it had now breached).
 
It explained a lot – I was tired, sometimes (although not always), and very often cold with poor circulation. I also seem to struggle to lose weight, even when I am making every effort to do so. Plus, my mum has hypothyroidism and it is genetic.
 
So, medication for life. Well, hormone replacement, as it’s not truly ‘medicine’. I was so relieved I practically danced out of the clinic – I was so happy that I had found out what the problem was, that I wasn’t being perversely paranoid or would have to spend months worrying about what was wrong with me and whether I was doing the right thing. It was a simple solution to a problem which could have strung out for months, as these things can sometimes be very difficult to identify, especially when the ‘symptoms’ are pretty non-descript!
 
It’s that funny thing when you just have a feeling that something is up. In my humble experience, it’s better to catch these things when they simply present themselves as something which doesn’t quite add up – before it becomes a full blown issue and you really are forced to rest or reassess your training.
 
Maybe it’s also the reason I haven’t been injured in four years of competing in triathlons – I listen carefully to what my body is telling me, then adjust, readjust, and refine until we have a solution and can move confidently on.
So now it’s time to wait and see whether the Thyroxin will have a positive effect – we are having blood tests retaken in six weeks’ time to monitor and measure, plus I’ll be looking out for any of those strange feelings of ‘not rightness’ that we all get from time to time.
 
In the meantime, head down and back on it as I have another race to tackle in just a short few weeks!
 

Robert Twells April 27, 2017

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Almost immediately after coming home from Dubai 70.3 in January, I realised that my next planned race in May was too long to wait. My pro friend Kim Morrison was convincing me that the course in Ironman Texas 70.3 would suit me well, and asked if I would like to join up with her for the race.
 
It didn’t take much convincing. One flight booking later, and I was chatting through the plan with my coach now we had added in a ‘bonus’ race to the season’s calendar.
 
The problem was that almost straight after Dubai, I had a week’s easy training to recover then a duathlon. Then an easier recovery week and then a half marathon. This period felt like a constant recover-taper-recover-taper cycle and basically culminated in me feeling perma-tired.
 
After the half was out the way, though, we could focus on some decent training. And let’s not forget the training effect and adaptation from all the micro-races. That week we incorporated some of my favourite (cough cough) key sessions which combined intensity and endurance, but all was looking good. Mark, my coach, said to me I was in great form so we were feeling positive for Texas.
 
As such, Texas came around unbelievably quickly (don’t all races do that!?), and we were off. We decided to make it a bit of a flying visit by heading out on the Thursday, racing on the Sunday and flying home on Monday. Who said jet lag was a thing anyway!?
 
A course recce two days out from the race went extremely well. I was having to hold back and was feeling really strong on the bike, enjoying the wall-to-wall sunshine and sea views. If only I wasn’t getting completely freaked out.
 
I am a fairly frequent racer so it wasn’t the race itself which was bothering me – it was the weather forecast. Known for my aversion to bad-weather training and racing, I was more than a little perturbed by the projected storms, gale force winds, heavy rain, lightning, and “the chance of some mild tornadoes”.
 
So ensued two days of constant weather checking, trying to find every weather forecast website imaginable in the hope of a favourable forecast. It wasn’t looking good.
 
I had a panic chat with my coach about the fact that I’d only brought a disc wheel with me. Projected winds of 45kph with gusts of 60kph, even my training in Lanzarote wouldn’t put me in good stead in those conditions, especially on a disc.
 
There were whispers of a race cancellation or course change, so it was all very up in the air until the day before the race, when we attended the briefing in the afternoon for clarification on what was happening.

We were told of a backup plan to change the race to a duathlon if the swim course was unmanageable – the organisers remained pretty elusive about what would happen if the bike course was un-rideable, but they assured us that there was a plan in place to maximise our safety and preserve the integrity of the race. In essence, it was business as usual.
 
I racked anyway hoping my bike wouldn’t blow away overnight, and off we went to have a pre-race dinner and glass of wine to calm the nerves.
 
On race morning the weather looked as expected. Grey, extremely blowy, and a forecast of heavy rain throughout the morning. There was no mention of a swim cancellation and although the water looked a little choppy, I had seen (and indeed swum in) a lot worse!
 
I was in a female age group wave roughly 50 minutes after the pros went off sop after a bit of hanging around, I was making my way off the jetty and into the warm water, ready for go time.
 
The swim was annoyingly slow – not only because of the expected chop but also because we were catching slow swimmers from the previous waves – there seemed to be an awful lot of them, as well, and I’m hardly the fastest swimmer!
 
I was surprised to see a swim time of 35 minutes but it was apparently a slow swim (all of my races seem to be slow swims these days!) and I exited the water 16th in my age group – out of approximately 130.
 
Transition was a novel experience because it was just a ‘kit by your bikes’ policy which is unusual for Ironman races! As such it was a faster transition than normal – no bags, no racks, and no change tents. Just get it done by your bike.
 
Heading out on the bike, I felt pretty good, despite the raging headwind that treated us in the first 10km or so. When we got out onto the coastal road, it turned into a raging sidewind. That was that for the next 70km then.
 
I was surprised by how many people I was passing, and not just gradually overtaking either – I was travelling about twice the speed as a lot of them! I don’t think this is necessarily testament to my cycling ability – more like the calibre of participants at the race combined with a good bike position – plus I saw barely any women with disc wheels, so that will have helped!
 
I was a bit down on where I wanted to be power-wise but pushed on anyway. Amazingly, the wind really wasn’t that bad – it felt like a normal day in Lanzarote so it’s a good job I’m used to cycling there. I didn’t even find the bike twitchy because I had a relatively slim front wheel on – the disc was absolutely fine.
 
Even more amazingly, it didn’t rain! I was extra happy about that.
 
Half way through the bike my power started to drop off a little. I was feeling really thirsty – more than usual during a race, so when I got to an aid station on the return stretch, I just filled my front bottle with water so I could try to satisfy my thirst. I was taking gels in my gel bottle and salt sticks so wasn’t relying exclusively on water, but realised at the end of my bike leg that I’d left my other bottle of energy drink untouched.
 
I was also extremely uncomfortable on the bike – I had chronic lower back pain, which was forcing me to sit up every now and then – not what you want in gale force winds! I couldn’t wait to get off the bike, and make a mental note to book appointments with my chiro, biomechanics coach and get another bike fit! Although I wasn’t quite where I wanted to be, I finished the bike in 2:35 which did equate to my second fastest 70.3 bike split ever.
 
Off the bike and I knew immediately something was wrong. I had already felt something was wrong on the bike as my power was around 15 watts off where it should have been, but as soon as I started running, this hit home like a hammer in the face.
 
It was so bad, in fact, that I seriously contemplated pulling out at 5k because I had no clue how I was going to manage to get round a half marathon. All I wanted to do was lie on the grass – it looked so appealing. My legs just felt like lead, I felt completely sapped of energy.
 
I think, on hindsight, this is what they call ‘bonking’, and incredibly, I’m not sure I’ve experienced this many times.
 
My pace was appalling – it was roughly the same as a long slow chatty run I had completed a week before and around 45 seconds per km off my target run pace! I was grimacing, praying for every kilometre to be over.
 
My thirst was weird – I was grabbing two cups of water at every aid station and downing them – I couldn’t seem to get enough water in me. I had a few gels and they were gradually making me feel marginally better but I knew by then that it was too late, I was a goner. The time slipped by, my target time was lost and I no longer cared – I just needed to get through it. It was no longer a time target, it was just survival.
 
It felt like forever but I finally went down the finish line. Kim, who had won the race, hugged me and I burst into tears, disappointed and upset at my extremely under-par run.
 
I did realise, however, that it was still my second fastest 70.3 time ever – at 5:05. But because I knew I had a much better run than that in me, and all the numbers in training had confirmed it, I was still really disappointed in myself at not having reached my true potential during that race.
 
Over the next day or so, while revelling in Kim’s glory and enjoying all the celebrations, we did also chat through what happened during my race in quite some detail, concluding that I hadn’t taken on enough nutrition on the bike. In fact, I consumed half the volume of carbs that I should have. Coupled with possible dehydration, it just wasn’t happening. I had nothing.
 
I needed to give myself a good talking to to appreciate that it wasn’t as bad as I was making out – I was 8th in my AG out of 130 and something like 22nd non-pro female overall. But I knew I could have done better and that’s what’s frustrating.
 
You have to take the positives and learn from the negatives – in this game, and in the game of life in general, there will always be things that don’t go 100% to plan. I am now making appointments with all those people who can help me reduce the friction in my racing, to help eliminate some of those negatives and make sure I have a more positive race which better reflects my true potential.
 
It’s quite exciting as I am making a few tweaks to my race system – that’s what it’s all about I guess, constant refinement: even when you’re at the very top of the game. Whether it will make a difference, time will tell…

Robert Twells April 5, 2017

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