I thought having the trots was bad enough.....

My week started well and having taken Monday off of work to recover from the stomach upset I got right back into things. On Tuesday I got out on the bike for 4 hours, followed by a leisurely re-fuel and a 90 minute run. Wednesday started with a solid upper body weights session and then out on the bike for 3 hours with some longer hill intervals. Thursday the weather was nice enough to ride in shorts so I got in a nice 5 hours............ Oh how I lie, if only I could write down such accounts without them being totally made up.

I ventured back into work on Tuesday and felt pretty strange. Having had 4 days of illness and low food levels I was a bit low on energy levels. Unfortunately a full day at work, a staff meeting and then a Year 11 parents evening made for a very long first day back. I rode in on Wednesday and felt fine on the bike, I refereed a Football match in the afternoon and felt ok, just a little light headed. Then the fun started.........

On Thursday I got in to work with a sore ear. My self diagnosis was an ear infection, (genius I know, should have been a GP), so I booked a doctors appointment for later that afternoon. By lunch time my head was very painful, and my hearing fuzzy. The doctors confirmed an external ear infection and gave me some antibiotic drops. By tea time my head had exploded, and my ear was discharging a mixture of blood and fluid.....nice. I got through the night on a combination of ibuprofen, paracetamol and cocodamol, waking to find the insides of my head soaking into my pillow. I went back to see my doctor who now diagnosed a perforated ear drum as a result of the infection, I got a course of 7 days lovely yellow and red antibiotics, a huge box of tissues to mop up my ear as it continued to discharge the contents of my head.

So it's Monday morning, I've had 3 days of antibiotics and do I feel fighting fit and on the road to recovery? No I do not. My left hand side of my head is thick, humming and seriously painful, my ear resembles a dripping tap, and I'm consumming painkillers at an alarming rate, I'm back to the docs tomorrow if things don't get much better.

I have not opened my training diary for what seems like an age now. I haven't done a serious run since the Brass Monkey (15 days ago) and I haven't ridden the bike properly for a similar period of time. I was intending to train hard through January and a week into February before easing off for a week before flying to Tuscon to join my best mate Ben on his Training Camp for a really big week of overload. Now it looks like Tuscon could be my first proper training week for a while.

It's hard to be positive at times like this. Consistency is such a big part of training and with IM Lanzarote just 16 weeks away, it is starting to seem awfully close. However one saving grace is even if my head wasn't exploding and I could train, with close to 6" of snow on the ground riding the bike, and running is not going to be easy. I am trying to be positive, I keep telling myself that I'm getting a good recovery, that I won't lose that much fitness and that when I return to training I will be super motivated to hit it hard. It's also important to remember that it's only a triathlon. I think the first thing to do is shift this infection and get my health back, I hope this time next week with only 5 days to go to my Tuscon Training Camp I will be back..............