Cleveland Steelman

I’ve never really fitted in. Either too far ahead of the curve, reveling in the newness of it all, or waaay behind - a laggard unable to fix something that ain’t broke just to keep up with the cool kids. So it is with riding bikes. Am I a Cycle Chic proponent of the Slow...
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The injuries I picked up last year in training for the Steelman just aren’t healing by themselves. Basically my plantar fasciitis and achilles tendonitis - both typical running injuries - are getting agrevated / prevented from healing by cycling. And we can’t have that! So today was time for desperate measures - the experienced hands...
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Reading a couple of pieces over the last few days by Magic Roundabouts and Padded Pants, and Treadly and Me, and even this piece in the New York Times, I’ve been struck at the way we see differences in our fellow human human beings rather than the similarities. There’s some switch inside our brains that...
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So I fanally got back to see my doctor about the nagging injury I picked up in my right foot this year. Basically, I think it’s an over-use strain of the plantar fascia (the tissue connecting heel to the the ball of the foot area), that I picked up when my running training took...
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The provisional results are out for the Cleveland Steelman are now available from the Cleveland Triathletes’ home page. They show that of the 166 starters, I came in 142nd - which is 85.5% of the way down the field, and near-as-damn-it at my dreams-come-true goal of finishing out of the bottom 15%. I was...
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. . . a reproduction from an email summary I sent to a friend this evening: I finished with a time of 6hrs 2 mins - and not in last place. Splits: Swim (2000m) 55mins - last out of the water T1: 2:30 or so Bike (58 miles) 3h 22mins. Freezing cold rain for all but...
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The run was interesting. I hadn’t banked on it being such a cross-country affair, nor on the weather being so wet. I also thought that the route was a simple out-and-back, so within 200m of what I thought was the end of the first lap, when the route headed off for a circuit of the...
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T2 went more or less according to plan. Bearing in mind how far down the field I was, there was a little awkwardness getting my bike back into its slot, and I managed to drop one of the bottles out of my belt while putting it on . . . but my legs felt...
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The bike leg was all about the weather and the food. My big fear was bonking - either through dehydration / electrolyte problems (a speciality of mine), or blood sugar. So my plan was to drink Zym every ten minutes (~750ml per hour), and to eat 300 cals / hour. On top of that, for...
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OK, so as I got out of the water, they announced my name, and that I’d brought shame on the NE31 Triathlon Club by being last out of the water. OK - so no one mentioned shame, but that’s how I felt. Our coach, Peter was there to see how his (daughter? and) protegees...
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