Xterra here we come!

Inside blog from athlete Lucy, who has had a challenging year to say the least, overcome many hurdles, and achieved a lot of goals throughout the process. Really looking forward to continuing the journey!

I have done some scary things in my life but lining up on the start line for my first ever cross country mountain bike race, at the tender age of 51, has to rank fairly highly.  You would be forgiven for asking why I thought this was a good idea.  I was certainly thinking that at the start (and during most of the race).  The answer is that I am a little bit crazy, I like to challenge myself and I needed to prove to myself that my body could still do hard things.  Also, my goal for this year is to complete an Xterra off road triathlon so this seemed a reasonable way to prepare. As it turned out, there wasn’t much “reasonable” about it!

As I stood on the start line, alongside a significant degree of terror, I actually felt pretty proud of myself for even getting there.  The past 6 months have not been easy.  I started 1-2-1 coaching with Fran a year ago.  During that time, I have seen huge gains in my performance and had some really good results.  But more importantly, I have had to learn to listen to my body and trust the process.  I confess that throughout most of last year, I was very bad at this.  Having had careers in the forces and the NHS, I have worked in environments where I have had to subjugate my own physical and emotional needs in order to do my job.  This results in a degree of mental “toughness” which can bring great results in a sport like triathlon for a while, until it all starts to unravel.

At the end of last year, I had what should have been a fairly straightforward operation on my shoulder.  As it turned out, this was a tipping point for my body which was completely broken from years of doing an extremely stressful job, some very difficult personal life stressors and then a year of putting huge amounts of pressure on myself to achieve in my chosen sport. I did not recover as planned.  I tried to go back to work, in the busiest winter the NHS has ever seen and was off sick again within a week.  At that point, I could barely walk up the stairs.  I was pretty much bed/sofa bound with pain everywhere and zero energy.  Any form of exercise was beyond me, even walking was a challenge.  Everything felt very dark and a bit pointless.

Throughout this time, Fran was hugely supportive.  My recovery has been hard work but she has stood by me throughout.  We have focused on what I can do and worked really hard on understanding what my body needs to work properly.  A lot of time has been spent in the gym, changing my movement patterns with 1:1 Pilates and optimising my diet to be as anti inflammatory and nutritious as possible.  I have been able to gradually build up my cycling to the point where I was able to contemplate entering a race.  Swimming has also recommenced and running hopefully in the next few weeks so now the Xtrerra event looks possible.

So, back to the race!  The practice lap informed me I had potentially bitten off more than I could chew.  I nearly put my bike back in the car and went home but an encouraging text from Fran and my own stubbornness got me to the start line.  The majority of the women doing it looked very professional and I quickly abandoned any aspirations of doing well! Using it as a skills session and just trying to stay alive and in one piece seemed like a decent approach for me.  It was a technical course, with some very scary descents, some ridiculously steep climbs and a jump which almost killed me on the practice lap. The start was brutal – full sprint uphill and I was not well enough warmed up.  I lost a lot of the field at that point but was encouraged to pass a few on the next climb.  Tucking in behind the better riders really helped me on the technical sections and I certainly learnt a few skills during the race. An hour and 15 minutes of adrenalin, fear, burning quads and a lot swearing, I finished in one piece.

Somewhat surprisingly, I managed to come second in the novice category but to be honest, I would have settled for simply getting through it.  As I drove home, my sense of achievement was not a result of getting to stand on a podium, it was knowing that I had managed to come back from a point in my life where I felt I would never exercise, let alone race, again.  It’s interesting how perspective changes when you’ve been at rock bottom.  I have to give huge credit to Fran for standing by me, believing in me and teaching me some very valuable lessons which were about much more than knocking minutes off a PB.  Bring on Xterra!