{"id":51,"date":"2018-05-27T17:08:10","date_gmt":"2018-05-27T17:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/?p=51"},"modified":"2020-11-16T16:50:15","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T16:50:15","slug":"swimming-preparation-2016-for-a-2017-attempt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/?p=51","title":{"rendered":"Swimming Preparation 2016 for a 2017 Attempt"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 10th 2016 saw me in a pickled heap on the verge by a roundabout nursing a broken collar bone.  It was the end of a cold and damp ride where I had continually had to work hard to keep pace with the guys. I lost them when we got back to Dorchester and should have called it a day, but ‘red mist’ clouded my eyes and my brain and I ‘went for it’ down the hill onto the roundabout in order to catch them up which proved to be much tighter than I anticipated so I chose what I thought would be a soft landing.<\/p>\n

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What a mess !<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That was three months prior to my second attempt at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.  In my first, the previous year I had come 3rd in the 64-69 age group.  Being a Moto GP fan (motorcycle racing) I was not deterred as when my hero Lorenzo had similar injuries he was back racing in less than two weeks – I had months – no problem!<\/p>\n

My specialist was rather sceptical to say the least but he did prioritise my operation for a metal plate and was much more supportive and positive when I went back seven weeks later for a routine check.<\/p>\n

Walking, hill walking, jogging, turbo training (indoor cycling) were all possible, but swimming was a ‘no no’ until the middle of September when I tentatively competed in the Weymouth 70.3 (a half Ironman) that I had already entered and paid for.<\/p>\n

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Fell walking for two weeks in Scotland after the op<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite everything the Channel swim was still on the cards for 2017 until I was in Kona, Hawaii for my second year  at the Ironman World Championships.<\/p>\n

I had trained hard, I had moved up an age group, now in 70-74, so it should be ‘easy’.  How wrong could I be?  It was my hardest race ever, I was in a very black hole on the run and swore I’d never do another.  Despite that I beat the two women who had come first and second the previous year but they were still in the 65-69 age group.  I had not bargained for a phenomenal cyclist in my age group, Cullen Goodyear,  who left me standing and I ‘only’ came second.<\/p>\n

Then serendipity took over – of all the thousands of volunteers, who should I chat with but someone who knew Sue Oldam, the then current oldest women to swim the Channel and apparently she was aiming to swim it again in 2017.  But being a year older than me – I wouldn’t get my title back – not that that was the only reason to swim it.  Well, perhaps it did help to motivate me.<\/p>\n

Also, after a couple of days I had recovered from the race and resolved to come back and beat Cullen.  Little did I know there would be a ‘new kid on the block’ to beat – and beat them all I did.<\/em><\/p>\n

In addition I hadn’t managed any long swims that summer, as I had done in the year previous to my last attempt.   So …………………..the Channel attempt delayed to 2018 with some long open water swims planned for the summer of 2017.<\/p>\n

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Cullen Goodyear the winner and myself, we parted as friendly rivals.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 10th 2016 saw me in a pickled heap on the verge by a roundabout nursing a broken collar bone.  It was the end of a cold and damp ride where I had continually had to work hard to keep pace with the guys. I lost them when we got back to Dorchester and should have … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Swimming Preparation 2016 for a 2017 Attempt”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":592,"href":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lindaashmore.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}