As the NZ tri-season looms closer I’m pleased to announce that finally I have got to the bottom of my knee injury sustained in December whilst preparing for the Mt Half. Following an appointment with the living legend Dr Matt Brick, I had an MRI scan to establish what exactly was happening in the knee. It turns out I have ripped a chunk of bone away from the Patella. Totally different than first thought and if I want to run again will require surgery to repair it. I am booked in to have this procedure done with Matt on the 31st August in Auckland . It will force me to have 2 weeks away from any Swimming or Cycling, the running a little more difficult to predict, anywhere from 3 weeks to 12. This does not bode to well for the running races I had planned to do between now and the summer but I will still be able to complete most of the cycling events I wanted to do. All going to plan I will be ready for the Taupo Half IM and the Mt and then onto Ironman. I will take my time with the ramp up following the surgery with IMNZ as the main focus.

It is great to have finally found the real issue, a little disappointing that all the work I had done to fix other diagnosis was a waste of my time. I had worked really hard to correct Patella Femoral Syndrome, not wonder there was no improvement! No matter, time to look forward and get excited about the summer.

I have been training well in the pool and on the bike over the last month. A PB 1km TT in the pool and some time in a Flume (see pics) were the swimming highlights.

On the bike I raced the Craters Classic MTB race (40km 95% single track) that was my first real MTB race. Good fun and I surprised myself over a very technical course being closer to (and also beating some) talented riders. My 29 inch clunker was not the ideal “steed” for the course but great for strength work. I ended up 9th overall and 6th in the Open Men’s Division.

I have also done 3 of the local Tuesday night races. We are lucky enough to use the Taupo Motor Sport Track with A-Grade doing 7 laps (approx 20km all up), and B-grade 6. This is in the dark so good lights essential! The 2nd and 3rd races were very solid for me being the fasted on track with week 2 the best soloing 4 laps to catch the B-Grade with a lap to spare. Good fun and excellent top-end training. I’m planning to do the Waka-Roc 3 race series....

http://res.nz.eventdirector.net/WAKA/SITES/1423/

...this month and finishing it off with the King of the Crank, a 40km Road, 20km MTB double...

http://www.taupocyclingclub.org.nz/2010/06/23/its-coming-start-training-now-king-queen-of-the-crank-race/#more-469.

This should be a really fun event, there’s only one tactic for me and that’s to go from the gun to get as much time in as possible over the MTB-ers before we hit the single track. This race is two days before my surgery so I will be suitably toasted and ready for a good rest.

Tune in next month for an update on my surgery:)

Cheers
Duncan