There is no doubt that the most important of these has been the creation of a partnership between myself and Complete Health.
Complete Health basically specialise in a load of things which are of benefit to me, hence why I initially wrote to them at the end of last year. For those that have been following the blog for a while, you'll recall the whole trials and tribulations of getting to the world champs last year and how things hung on a knife edge for ages while I struggled with a knee injury. At the time, I was getting a lot of physio etc and although this did help and I was able to race, the ultimate aim has to be to stay injury free rather than the treatment of injuries....especially for me as I tend to get pretty annoyed when I am injured or something stops me from training to my ability.The thinking behind the deal that I have with Complete Health is that their main focus is going to primarily be on keeping me injury free and hence allow me to do what I want to this season. As such, I am going to be seeing an osteopath/sports masseuse, Lucy Rayner, pretty much every week and that should allow me to go through any problems that I have or any things that want to have checked. I have already been to see Lucy and she has identified some problems with me that we need to work on...all of which should ultimately make me go faster - anything that does that, I'm well up for! I've also apparently got asymetric muscles in my legs....woops!
Anyway, the whole deal I have allows me to have a number of treatments with various therapists at CH which should keep me fighting fit for the rest of this seasons. One of the most important people I have to look after me is probably Sune Connell who is going to advise me on my nutrition. Over the past year or so, I have basically just used my weight as a guide as to my eating...all wrong I know, but I basically did not know what to eat and when really. It is pretty hard as it is, especially when you think that on some big days, like last Sunday, I was out training for about six and a half hours - basically, that involves a lot of food, so it needs to be right stuff. I am in the process of filling out a food diary now which Sune will look at and then tell me where it is all wrong I would imagine...when I was describing what I ate in our first meeting, she did give a fair few dissaproving nods.
The last and most interesting therapist I am going to see is an acupunturist...don't get me wrong, I had no idea that it would be able to help with my training but from what I have heard, there are some big potential benefits. Will be interesting to see if they can do anything to make me panic less in the melee at the start...not that I am that bad, but I would like to be more comfortable with the whole 200 people splashing in water thing.
The other sponsor, BlueSeventy, make wetsuits and it is only by some random chance that I happened to get sponsored by them. I was at a Triathlon Expo a couple of weeks ago and was mainly there to purchase a new suit...my old one is made for people who are about 10kg heavier than me, hence it was not the tightest of fits and these things need to be like a second skin....as seen at Windsor last year...I was a bit heavier then...
Anyway, after I tried the suit out and decided that it was worth parting with £330 of my hard earned cash, my previous coach suggested that I have a word with the BlueSeventy chap who was there. Thanks to Terry and his "bigging up" I managed to secure a wetsuit for this season...am well chuffed...even after the short swim I had at the show, I could feel that it was a lot faster...just need to get the training in now so that I can get out the water near the front now...
