Having completed the London Marathon I started running on the Wednesday (3 days after the race) and the thighs were still tight but moving OK so I ran on the Thursday as well. I felt OK and just did 4 miles. On Friday I woke with severe pain in my right foot. I walked the dog and had to keep stopping to take the weight off the foot. It was very painful and very worrying. I got to the Tuesday and it was still giving me lots of problems so I went up to the hospital to get it checked out. I was told it was a damaged tendon. I rested it for a week and then it seemed better. I did a couple of 3 mile runs and it was holding up so tried 10k which went well for 5 miles but the last mile it was sore. I rested it a couple more days and tried again and it seemed OK. This took me up to the Driffield triathlon with little running since the marathon. I arrived at Driffield in a confident mood as I was sure I could swim sub 6 mins for the 400m and I was biking well in the cycle clubs TT's but was unsure how the run would go. I started in wave 10 of 12 as last year I had to slow down a couple of times to let faster swimmers past and didn't want to do that again so put a slower swim time on the registration form. This turned out to be a mistake as I was first out of the water in my wave. I didn't check my time but i'm sure it was sub 6 as including the quite long run to T1 I was 6:27. I had a great transition but new the bike was going to be hard as I had no one to chase being first out the water. The roundabout was the only place I had competition as I had to stop for traffic and a rider behind managed to get past as I set off again. No problem as we then started the climb and I soon passed him and left him behind. As we got back to the roundabout on the return leg I had chance to see how far behind others were but couldn't see anyone behind. I got back to T2 and had another fast one. I set off on the run and felt strong but knew I wasn't as fast as I should be. I think looking at the times the run was long as all of the top 5 ran 19:50 and over. I finished in 5th overall and 3rd in my age group. The 4 who beat me were in the last wave of the day. Maybe if I was in that wave I could have caught them and finished higher, but then maybe not? I will never know. I'm pleased with the result as I havn't really done the short fast stuff after preparing for an early season Ironman and then the London Marathon. Next event is the Allerthorpe sprint, this is open water so a mass start and a chance to chase the leaders knowing that anyone in front has to be caught!
