Hi Eric. that swim time is more like 32:10 of swimming. With my disc complications, the entire and exit were dicey and I took my time, I actuallyy removed my wetsuit on the step just before timing matt to let me back bear weight gradually. I took it really easy in the swim knowing we had 1100m of climbing on by 330m on run (in 21km so 50 percent hillier than bike relatively). With a pool 1500m at nationals of 23:35 that equates to a 29 high if I do nothing afterwards. So around 2 min slow. I find my wetsuit times never quite match my pool times (I tend to be 1 min faster in pool without wetsuit due to the way the wetsuit compresses nerve root. I would think I would do relatively a lot better to peers if it is a no wetsuit swim. Plus in this swim the last 700m is into a very slight current upstream, so that could explain some.

I have a half IM in Montreal in 12 days in the rowing basin with no current! Lets see. My target there is sub 31. Bike is flat, run is flat so I can hammer the swim harder.

Anna, I don't know how wise it was to get on the bike 3 weeks after accident, but I felt I needed to overcome fear of being on bike even though it was not much exercise reallly. I think it took me a long long time to get comfortable around cars. This May my wife got me a kickr bike and I started coming up with execuses to not ride outside and use the trainer and I realized that I am still uncomfortable aroound cars and the worry of hitting pavement when I think about it.

Yesterday was a crazy driving rain and a few times when I thought about hitting a concealed pothole and ending up in hospital it rattled me, but there is also this old air force saying about putting the pilot back in the air quickly have they had an incident where they had to eject and come down with a chute. I felt like that....I was riding solo and saying, "park those thoughts, if you are in a race think like a racer, racers don't think about going done" and it did work. I wish I could show a picture of the thick dense thunderstorms to explain. Kudos to the aid station volunteers who manned their stations in all that. They were like angels.

Oh and trying to qual for 70.3 Worlds, 2 years was from accident. One year delay to access a race due to Covid19. I did Dubai70.3 in Feb 2020 and then this was the next chance. What I really wanted to do is qualify for ITU worlds because my swim-bike are OK for age group, its the run that it bad, but 10km running is not such an issue as 21km especially yesterdays with 1100 feet of up and down just in the run.

Congrats! Great performance! That's a very inspirational recovery story after such a traumatic accident. Glad to hear it. Great job!

Ah, I see now, thanks for the detailed explain. Weird how the wettie actually makes you slower due to your nerve damage, but that's just the way things work out sometimes. I'll look forward to your report on the Esprit race!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Huge Congratulations!! So happy for you!!

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

I was the recipient of "a second slot" in age group on account of my age group being large enough (shocked but M55-59 got 2 slots). The pointy end in my age group or any age group was all tight, but if you had more people in your age group there was a second slot to be had and I got luck that a few of the guys had already qualified or are going to Kona 2022.

"That which doesn't kill us, makes us stranger."

Hi
How long did it take for you to start to swim after the accident, ie how many weeks?
And how many weeks until you felt you were swimming at a similar level pre accident ?
I’d really appreciate if you could share your experience.
I am at Week 4 from accident (broken wrist radius distal fracture)

I broke my wrist riding in 2015, 4 surgeries and a titanium plate later I finally made it back to the pool 3 months after all the surgeries were completed. My training log reminded me that it was a very hard climb back to full strength, my right arm/wrist was super weak, swimming felt very odd indeed. Everybody has a different experience with recovery but the amount of PT I had to do seriously hampered my recovery. I had to swim about 30,000 yards before my times started to resemble pre injury splits.

Thanks for sharing. Much appreciated