OK so I’m not much of a baker – especially given that I’m avoiding gluten at the moment (cutting out bread especially is a real help for me to get to race weight as I have a tendancy to eat a loaf a day during heavy training periods… not good!) – but I LOVE this recipe for a bit of a treat…

GLUTEN FREE BANANA BREAD

3/4 cup sugar (OR 3/4 tsp powdered stevia)

1/2 cup margarine (you can use butter or  oil)

2 eggs (OR 3 tsp egg replacer mixed with 4 TB water OR an extra banana)

1 cup mashed bananas

2 Tb milk (soy or rice milk also works)

1 tsp baking powder

1 3/4 cup rice flour (you can use wheat flour – white or brown, spelt, or include some flax meal / oat bran mix too)

pinch of salt

Takes about 45mins at 180 degC.

LOVE IT! Would post a picture but I made it yesterday and ate it all already :/

Toby

My Dearest Wife,

I am deeply sorry for the last 9 months when I’ve been moody, grumpy and injured. So much worse than those days when I roll in bonking from a long ride in the rain or too smashed to complete a day’s training. Those are one-offs, occasional glitches. What I’m apologising for now is the consistent gloom that you’ve put up with in the background, the ups and downs when I think I’m near to a solution only to have the pain back a few days later.

While I can’t apologise enough for how being unable to run has made me behave, I hope that this is some small explanation.

I love running. Throw in a chronic but manageable case of shin splints over the last few years which turned from low grade annoying to ‘I can’t even run for 2kms’ – from 70-100kms a week to ’20kms on a good week, zero on a bad one’ – and you have the start of my recent predicament. Perhaps the most frustrating part of the injury was not just the fact that I couldn’t run, but that there was no clearly defined mechanism which could be adjusted simply to relieve the cause of my troubles.

Clearly I have bad foot biomechanics, but this combined with a changing of footwear, changing of running technique, invariably sub-standard stretching, inappropriate training loading, variable diet (pro-flammatory) and several rounds of orthotics, different physios meant that pulling out the actual issues and dealing with them systematically was going to take some time. 8 months of focused, systematic, issue by issue elimination to be exact. (Let’s not count the previous few years of ad hoc adjustments and novelty solutions).

And now, touch wood, its all fixed. How sunny life is again! No more complaining about the NHS sports referral system; no more toys out of the pram moments on the front step after an unsuccessful run; no more taking change for the bus out on a test run for when I get into trouble and have to get home somehow.

Thank you for always saying the right thing, for putting up with my moodiness, for tolerating my bad humour.

I love you even more than I love running.

Toby

Here’s a short video from a training camp we did back in January in the Algave, Portugal. Good times!

Toby talks triathlon 2:
 
Why every triathlete wants to be a honey badger

A few years ago at an ice breaking session, the delegates of the conference I was attending were asked what kind of animal they felt like and why.
 
I was dreading having to answer this as, thanks to early am training pre conference I was tired and already nodding off. The first thing that came to mind was a sea cucumber. I wanted to be left alone at the sea floor to just lie there, a glorified intestinal tract, just sleeping and eating. Not a suitable answer.
 
Why couldn’t I remember all the animals i’d been told to visualise over years of  coaching, reading tri mags and books? I could have been the dolphin – gliding through the water with ease, the cheetah – making it round that track so quickly and smoothly, or the circus best atop that clown bike for show after show.
 
But now I realise that the only animal that every triathlete secretly wants to be is the honeybadger! Fearless, with a rudeboy haircut, and fully awesome, these animals are so hard they make Chuck Norris look like a sissy.
 
So, be the honey badger – attack your cobra straight on – whether it’s your ironman race, training or a long standing injury – face it and keep getting up after it repeatedly bites you!

Hurt lockers are for short hard sessions such as a hard swim squad or another super intense workout. Over-users of hurt lockers can sometimes leave things in them, such as empty sports drink bottles and bar wrappers; trash such as this is usually from olympic distance triathletes. Occasionally fast food trash and remains (such as chicken bones) will be left, usually by junior swim squad members. Getting into such a hurt locker is known as feral hurt lockering and is highly unhygenic.

“IN THE BOX” – The box is a one day deal. You can buy the box at Ikea or similar and get into it pretty much any time you want given enough commitment to hammering yourself into it. Usually an implement such as a cricket bat is needed to get one’s self properly in the box. Best done by beating rapidly and repeatedly.

 
“IN THE HOLE” – Unlike a hurt locker it he box, a HOLE is something that can’t be dug in just a day. It takes days or weeks of toiling – usually outside under the unforgiving sun of warm weather training camp (cue wild west whistling and tumble weeds). Days of hard work are required before your body finally decides that it’s staying in the hole and no getting out any time soon. Due to the severity of the hole, generally the only upside is that it’s difficult to bonk in the hole, as you’re already too far gone. Also unlike bonking, getting in the hole can happen at any stage of a session, not just far into it, as you’ve been digging for days.
 
“IN THE BEAR TRAP” or “BEAR PIT” – similar to being in the hole, except that it is dug by one athlete for another – usually a training partner or rival. For example, you take your favourite rival out for a ride and push just a little too hard for him in order to dig him into the bear pit. Also unlike being in the hole, bonking in the bear pit is allowed. This is when you’ve dug the bear trap but accidentally go too far yourself and before the bear (other athlete) gets into the trap, you bonk early and fall into pit. Hence bonking in the bear trap.

And yes, this was Part 1… that means that there’s more to come!