Inspirations and Innervisions

Highlight of the week is without doubt last Monday’s Stevie Wonder concert – his first UK live appearance in over 10 years and I woz there!

From the opening number – 'All Blues' (a Miles Davis cover) – to the close with the fabulous 'Superstition', we were mesmerized by the man’s talent and showmanship. It was easy to forget that he is blind, such are the wonder (no pun intended) of his songs and musicianship.

Stevie Wonder was blinded from complications at birth and so has no concept of what the world looks like, other, I suppose, than what he can make of it from his other senses and in his imagination. Despite this, or maybe because of this, he developed an amazing talent for song-writing and performing at a very early age. His breakthrough came at the age of 12 when he had a major hit with ‘Fingertips’ (with a young Marvin Gaye on drums). Such an inspiration to us all.

How can one not also be inspired by our fantastic paralympians? We thought that our able-bodied team did well (and they did), but what about their less-abled counterparts? The medal board currently shows that we are in second place – behind China but, more significantly, ahead of the Yanks, with 40 golds, 22 silvers and 25 bronzes. Wow!

There has been a noticeable increase in disabled triathletes at races at which I have participated recently. At last week’s miserable Vitruvian (see previous blog post) there were athletes who were cycling on their specially adapted wheelchairs (blinged up with Zipps!). A couple of weeks prior to this at the Bedford Olympic they were there too. And the same goes for this week’s race – the Dorney Orca Olympic distance at Dorney Lake, the same venue as the very popular Eton Super-Sprints.

All this has been very humbling. I am honoured and priviledged to be racing with these phenominally gifted and determined athletes and to line up with them on the start line provides fantastic inspiration as the season nears its end.

So, to this week’s training and racing – training was put to the back burner in order to recover from the Vit and also to taper for the Orca Olympic, but here is what I did (don’t laugh!):-

Monday – recovery day
Tuesday – recovery day
Wednesday – recovery day/tapering
Thursday – run – Ashridge XC with Alex – 5’ish miles – as fast as possible at 177 strides per minute
Friday – tapering
Saturday – tapering
Sunday – race – a very enjoyable Dorney Orca Olympic (1500m open water swim, 40km bike, 10km run) – 2:31:04 (just missing out on my second sub-2:30 of the year!) - see photos below (copyright the lovely Anne-Marie – thanks A-M, the best supporter
in the world!)





A big well done to Jev who, returning from a post Ironman Austria period of easy training and racing, posted a fantastic 1:10 in the Dorney Orca Sprint distance. Results not up yet so don't know his placing, but you can bet it'll be up there with the big boys.

This coming week I need to get back into the swing of things. The last two weeks have been a bit of a washout because of the Vit – the first week tapering, the second recovering – and so I will be increasing the intensity for my next (and final) race of the season – the Bedford Autumn Sprint on 5 October.

Another inspirational song by Mr Wonder last Monday was ‘Visions’ from the 1973 Grammy award winning album ‘Innervisions’ (a must-have for any self-respecting music fan). A beautiful song which brought the house down - all about the hope that a world of peace might one day exist. For me, my current vision is less dramatic (and a lot more selfish), and is my hope that I can emulate those fantastic less-abled athletes with a similar display of determination when I compete in those much-anticipated World Championship qualifying races next year.

Cheers, and bye for now.

C