(Almost) Round the Island & The race that could have been…

The weekend didn't  exactly unfold how I had planned.

When I realised that our Saturday morning “bonus brick” was not scheduled for this weekend, some of my triathlon friends decided to get together for a long, steady ride around the island instead. I was hesitant because that would mean missing the children waking up both mornings this weekend. We agreed with hubby that it was OK as long as for the rest of the days I was with them for some quality time.

Friday evening our friends came for  tapas dinner with wine. It was late before I went to sleep and just over 4 hours later I was up and on my bike going to meet Tristan and Mark for a ride starting at 5am.

I was a bit apprehensive, mainly because it would be my first long ride since my miscarriage and surgery, but also because I had slept so little (and because I had quite a lot of wine the night before).

I didn't want to be exhausted or aching the next day for the Duathlon so after about 80km I signaled to the guys that I was leaving them, found a taxi, put the Neurogen in the back and was home  just after 8am for breakfast with the boys.

The rest of the day was good, playing at home, walking the dog at the beach, having the dog pull the longboard, collecting fresh coconuts, taking them home to hack them open and having a nap after lunch.

Saturday evening, once the boys were in bed, I prepared my bike, my helmet, shoes, electrolytes, recovery drink, race belt and went to bed early! At about 2 am I woke up sweaty with my heart racing. I was a little alarmed. I put on my heart rate monitor to check and sure enough my resting heart rate was at 65 bpm, about 20 beats faster than usual. Then I took my temperature, it was up almost 1°c. I thought it might just be temporary so I left the alarm on for the race. When it when off a few hours later I felt terrible, not even in a fit state to get out of bed, let alone run and cycle a race. So, the alarm was switched off and I tried to go back to sleep. I was really quite frustrated; I like duathlons, I think they are my favourite type of race at the moment. It was annoying that my plans for the “first race back” had been scuppered at the last minute, especially as I felt fine again by lunchtime... Perhaps I should not have cycled at all on the Saturday?