{"id":2251,"date":"2013-11-26T15:32:32","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T14:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/?p=2251"},"modified":"2013-11-26T15:35:53","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T14:35:53","slug":"2013-triathlon-comeback-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/2013\/11\/26\/2013-triathlon-comeback-year\/","title":{"rendered":"2013, the triathlon comeback year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"avatar\" src=\"http:\/\/ravenfamily.org\/sam\/avatars\/waaat.jpg\" alt=\"avatar\" title=\"Colour me surprised yellow\">I injured my foot back in 2010. According to the person posting to Runner&#8217;s World social media at the time, what I did wasn&#8217;t possible: I&#8217;d ruptured my plantar fascia. For 9 months I was reduced to hobbling and limping. I was signed off field work \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I couldn&#8217;t drive; could barely get from my desk to the staff canteen, never mind walk far enough to do my routine work. I could just about cycle, as long as it wasn&#8217;t for more than 30 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>As far as I could tell, my racing career was over. And I&#8217;d just bought a TT bike. It wasn&#8217;t cheap.<\/p>\n<p><i>Malheureusement<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Late that year, while camping, I discovered I was just fine when barefoot. In fact, I was just fine when I was wearing a pair of neoprene booties that formed part of my wetsuit. This got me to thinking, and so, although I did seek the advice of both a private podiatrist (rubbish AND expensive) and the NHS biomechanics specialist (brilliant and FREE), what I ended up with was a set of Vibram Fivefingers.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, after spending about 2 years re-learning how to run, having suffered swine flu and ended up with exercise-induced asthma (but <strong>of course<\/strong>), I went back to racing.<\/p>\n<p>And it has been my most successful year ever.<\/p>\n<p>My first race of the year saw a PB in the run. I DNSed one, because of illness, and completed four. I&#8217;ve won prizes worth 40 quid (which isn&#8217;t a lot, but is more than I&#8217;ve won in all my previous races). In my last race, I suffered a 3D failure, fell flat on my face, and fractured my wrist (which is why the blogs have been lacking in updates of late).<\/p>\n<p>So imagine my surprise when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.triathlonscotland.org\/\">Triathlon Scotland<\/a> published the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.triathlonscotland.org\/files\/2013_Legends_Ranking_Series_v3.xls\">rankings<\/a> (MS Excel spreadsheet) for 2013 and I discovered I&#8217;d come top in my age group for the North Region Sprint series. I was more surprised to discover I had the second highest points accumulation at Sprint distance in the whole of Scotland for my age group.<\/p>\n<p>I am, needless to say, chuffed to bits. In 2007 I did my first race, for a bet. In 2013, after a 3 year break for injury and illness, I <strong>won<\/strong> my first race. And here&#8217;s the joy of triathlon: yes, the elite racers are untouchable by most of us Age Groupers, but that&#8217;s no barrier to success. You might think you could never do a tri, that it&#8217;s too hard or you&#8217;re too unfit. Give it a go. There are plenty of events aimed at beginners, nice and short to give you a taste for it. Or, indeed, any other sport. It&#8217;s never too late, you&#8217;re never too unfit to start. Everyone starts somewhere, and everyone, ultimately, is competing against themselves. Just taking part, whatever your chosen sport, means you&#8217;ve achieved something fantastic.<\/p>\n<p>You never know. You might win something. It might even be a prize.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/knockburnT1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/knockburnT1-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"Knockburn Loch T1\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2252\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/knockburnT1-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/knockburnT1-1024x678.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/knockburnfinish.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/knockburnfinish-300x172.jpg\" alt=\"Knockburn Sprint finish line\" width=\"300\" height=\"172\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2253\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/knockburnfinish-300x172.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/knockburnfinish-1024x589.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I injured my foot back in 2010. According to the person posting to Runner&#8217;s World social media at the time, what I did wasn&#8217;t possible: I&#8217;d ruptured my plantar fascia. For 9 months I was reduced to hobbling and limping. I was signed off field work \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I couldn&#8217;t drive; could barely get from my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,12],"tags":[130,10,9],"class_list":["post-2251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-reports","category-triathlon","tag-goforit","tag-race","tag-tri"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>2013, the triathlon comeback year ~ Singularity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"2013 was my best triathlon year yet. 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