Tough times ahead.

Well the decision has to be made and I have finally succumbed. I need to stop cycling and running totally in order to let my feet heel.

I haven't run now for 6weeks approx and I've cut back my cycling volume by 50%. So over the last 4weeks I've only been doing around 10hrs PW, yet my feet seem to be getting worse and worse. Sitting here at the computer I'm experiencing a constant burning sensation in my toes and I keep getting pins and needles shooting through my toes on both feet at the most sporadic times throughout the day. I just can't seem to put down any definite pathology to the problems I'm experiencing. Maybe I just need to give the new orthotics more time (2 weeks so far) to do there thing.

So I've made to the decision to stop cycling now to see if I can experience any sort of improvements without training for a while. My massage yesterday was a disaster, The masseuse was barely able to touch the problem areas. Why would this be? I have no idea as I hardly did any training last week, but I guess now any training might be too much until I fix this problem.

On a positive note I'll be able to fully dive into a swim focus period. My goal being to do a PB over 1500m. At the moment my quickest ever has been a low 21min. I would just love to break 20min one day. I would also love to be able to do 30-100m on a 1:30 base again. It would also be cool to be able to do around 6-100m on a 1:20. To break 30second for 50m would also be another cool target to aim for. At least this should keep me sane while I'm having a break from cycling and running.

I'm hopping that this is the right decision I'm making as I have been constantly injured since my first IM back in 2004. I'm making the firm decision now that I need to get my health sorted out first before I can even consider entering another IM. Even then I need to be able to put together at least 6mths of injury free IM training before I even think about entering a race. I've done 3 x IM's and 2 x HIM's since 2004 and they all have been on injured feet. It's time to make the change as I'm still highly motivated and very keen to do alot more IM's and HIM's yet.

To Dave C, Mike and Steve. Goodluck with your races, your bloggers really help me to stay in the game.

Anyway here are a few more photos from my camping trip away.

fluro