Andrew Horsfall-Turner: Hi guys and welcome back to the Uncomfortable Triathon podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Andrew Horstwalter, and I am joined by my other co host who unfortunately may not be bringing the same level of enthusiasm ⁓ as previous weeks, ⁓ 'cause unfortunately he has a pretty bad news at the weekend. But as always, joined by my co host Harry Palmer. How are doing, mate? Hello, hello, hello. Yeah, I'm sure we'll go into more detail in this episode, but for those of you, mean, no one can watch this, but for those of you that are listening, the current state of affairs is I am sat here with a pint of cider and I'll probably have a few more tonight. Mm-hmm. Yep. I tell you what though, that's ⁓ there there's n you're not the only triathlete out there who does that. There's quite a few triathletes who like ⁓ who like a beer at the end of the day. ⁓ so I'm sure you're not Mate, I know a lot of endurance athletes that are pretty decent drinkers. There's a lot of us, well, I say us, I'm a terrible drinker. I'll have one and I'm already feeling this one. But there are some guys who can absolutely send it. Yes. ⁓ I know, yeah. I've ⁓ I've come across a few and I think it's it's one of those things as well, like you put a bunch of ⁓ athletes together. I always find that y I've obviously we've we've been out a few times after races, not like not to the point where we're like under the table, but like I think after the after a race especially, everyone I know is kind of up for at least a few beers. ⁓ just yeah. Yeah, good ⁓ good socializing, let's just put that way. Yeah. Yeah. It can get dangerous. So anyway, I c I wanna kinda give some context to where we're at. So hopefully everyone enjoyed last week's pod with Josh Lewis. ⁓ that kind of Road to Tembi podcast. ⁓ it we are gonna keep it every every fortnight. ⁓ so that will be coming back to you next week. It's obviously gonna pivot slightly. ⁓ and I guess like we'll talk about it straight away that Harry is now unfortunately injured, but we'll go into that in a second. ⁓ so that might take a slightly different turn in the next few weeks in terms of whether it's just Josh and I talking about training, ⁓ and obviously Harry will be coming along for that ride, or whether we kind of potentially bring a a third to to talk about it, ⁓ talk about their training. ⁓ so yeah, we I guess I'm this podcast is gonna go out, you know, pretty much straight away. So if you would like to potentially have a third new kind of ⁓ podcaster in that series you know, throw us some suggestions or yeah, or just say you'd rather just keep it me and Josh. ⁓ but always interested to hear what people enjoy and don't enjoy. ⁓ so yeah mate, ⁓ what else would I say? ⁓ final one. ⁓ obviously from last week I told big news we are officially a sponsored podcast. So I'm just gonna quickly drop drop that in again. So we are being supported by the running running algorithm. ⁓ it's kind of you know BANG! the go to app I'd say these days if you want some guidance with your run training. even if you are coached, it can sometimes kinda lend a hand because ⁓ I know currently they've just partnered with Jimmy Whelan, who is a professional runner, and he's using it in conjunction with his coaching team to kind of help guide the training because obviously the AI technology in it ⁓ is kind of above and beyond what a human can physically do in terms of mental capability. So I guess just trying to use as much information as they can gather. So this could be a useful tool for someone else, like like in that situation. Or you just might wanna, you know, get into a regular running routine and just know that you're not you're not doing too much too quickly or too much intensity or or whatever it is. So ⁓ I think the code is uncomfortable if you wanna jump on the website or I will put a link in the show notes. ⁓ and that's one way to support us. The other way to support us is you you Send it to your mates, send this podcast to mates, you know, share it. ⁓ I think you can like and stuff on Apple and Spotify. So yeah, that's the that's that's the plug done. And ⁓ now we move on to the main topic of the week. ⁓ Harry, how how how are you and how how is the injury? Let's go straight to it. Hmm Yeah, okay, let's jump straight in. So, some people listening to this may have seen my Instagram post and my YouTube video, which took a little bit more of a deep dive into what's going on. But if you haven't seen that, then essentially I am out of Iron Man 10B, which is absolutely gutting. And the reason for that is because... I have got a stress response in my femoral neck, so basically in my left hip. ⁓ And what's interesting is I think a lot of people maybe have been a bit surprised by this or you you always get surprised by the news of someone being injured, but Andy and I, talk quite a lot and I talk to Josh behind the scenes as well and... I don't think these guys were particularly surprised. I was hoping for good news. I was hoping it was just hip impingement, unfortunately, unfortunately it wasn't. I essentially have been struggling with on and off hip pain for the last probably five-ish, maybe six weeks. Before Sweden, I even had a call with my coach Rob and I was like, mate, I'm contemplating getting an MRI. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then we both agreed, actually, we'd rather not know and just fight through it. And it wasn't that painful at the time. So I don't want anyone to think that I was being really irresponsible. Because at that point, I did genuinely think it was just a bit of hip flexor tightness or something like that. Obviously, now with this newfound knowledge, I basically was making my hip worse and creating like a hotspot on the bone and what is now a stress response. Ha ha Mm. which is in some sense, and it's obviously frustrating that I can't do tembi, that is very, very gutting. However, it is good that it's not a stress fracture because the timelines are very, different. So what we're looking at now, I essentially had an MRI last Friday. Doctor was really, really good. I see a guy called Dr. Guy Evans at the circle in Bath, and he's incredible. He's a triathlete himself. He... Yeah. sees a lot of the professional tennis players in the area and cricketers. And so he understands pro sport and injuries. ⁓ And so I really kind of trust in his insights. ⁓ And he basically said, there's no way medically that I can suggest you do 10B ⁓ because you probably need six to eight weeks completely off running. And I did say to him, was like, ⁓ you know, like I was thinking about finishing Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. But what if what if what what if I don't? Yeah, yeah, I was like, I mean, what's the worst case scenario? was like, could I just take two weeks off running, get back to it, do 10b and then finish my season? And he was like, I mean, supposedly you could, but there's no knowing of when that will change from a stress response to a stress fracture. And the guarantee is if you keep going, you will get a stress fracture. It's not just like if you keep going, it will just maintain like it will get worse. And so as I'm like, Ha ha Yeah. just alluded to, it's, you know, we're talking six to eight weeks off running and then getting back onto things, which is very frustrating obviously. But if you get a stress fracture in the hip, we're talking six to maybe 12 months out and a fracture in the femoral neck is really not good because that could then lead to, yeah, issues. Well, I I was gonna say you could get compli you could get complications and I think ⁓ I I wouldn't be too extreme to say that if you had a bad stress fracture in in that neck of the the femur that it could potentially be career ending in terms of your ability to run long term. So ⁓ I guess there is that l that's that there's that like air of like, yeah, you really don't wan want this thing to get worse than it is already. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, exactly. It's like, if you think of the risk versus reward, it's like, okay, the reward is I go to 10b and there's never a guarantee that you do well anyway. Like I could go to 10b and get a puncture on the bike or crash my bike or, you know, just have a stinker with stomach pain or whatever. Like there's never a guarantee that I'll do well anyway. But let's say I go to 10b and I have a really good result and I do win it. And, you know, I'd pocket, what is the prize money? 15 grand for the win. and you pick up some bonuses from sponsors and you'd finish the season on a high. Okay, that sounds fantastic. And you'd get your Kona slot for next year. Brilliant. The risk is completely ruining myself and taking 12 months out if not ending my career. It's also potentially risking... Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you may not even be able to do the race that you've qualified for. Snap, So then not being able to do Kono anyway the year after ⁓ then probably ending up spending all of that £15,000 that you've won on hospital bills because you might need hip surgery, and then probably being depressed and miserable for the rest of your life. So, it's, yeah, not worth it. ⁓ yeah. It's ⁓ when you when y I was gonna say when you when you when you lay everything like out like that it's so you know, it it sounds like it's a hard decision, but I guess really there's only one decision to be made and ⁓ you've just it's almost it's almost coming to terms with it. It is funny because even... Yeah, exactly. It's almost like the decision has been made for me by my body and I just need to suck it up. Because I did consider it the other day. was like, after a few days of not doing anything, like, you know, we're all a bit itchy, aren't we? And we've all riddled with ADHD. We just want to like do stuff. And I was like, I could just do some training now. Yeah. I was like, I'm a fucking idiot. No, I'm not going to do that. It's just not, it's not worth it. Yeah. And unfortunately. Unfortunately that's kind of the way the way that athletes get themselves into these situations is with that same level of mentality. And I guess if we kind of take it back six weeks, we're probably like a couple of weeks out from when you had the Sweden Swansea double and ⁓ we actually went to record a podcast and I think I don't know if we had a guest that week, but ⁓ you basically said to me before we started recording don't Yeah. Mmm. Ask me about my training week. ⁓ because because you'd had a little bit of hip pain in the week and I think you like you're quite ⁓ you know, what you see is what you get with with yourself, Harry. And I and you obviously didn't want to come on to a podcast and like be like, Yeah, training's great, I'm flying, I'm doing this, I'm doing that when you know there was something underlying, so you're like, let's just not talk about it because I'm going to see a physio tomorrow. and hopefully, you know, it's nothing more than just a niggle. ⁓ but I guess Yeah. Yeah, you already had like a maybe like a bit of a seed in your head that like there was something definitely not right. And I think ⁓ you I think as athletes we know that and I think we then look for we looked for solutions, which is obviously like problem solving. I think you did that, you saw a physio and then the recommendation is actually like, yeah, there was some super tightness in the hip flexor and there was kinda like she did some like I think some release stu sort of work which definitely helped. and you obviously shown Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. you showed with both your Sweden and Swansea performances that the discomfort or pain you were getting was very much manageable to the sense that you ran what like one ten two weeks back to back off off the bike. ⁓ so and I guess that's the really difficult thing is like you know, you you potentially had the same level of stress reaction pre those races. You then Mm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. banged out two great, great performances and yeah, potentially it hasn't got any worse now, but it's very easy as an athlete just to kinda like push, you know, these niggly pains to the side. 'Cause we're so used to just enduring, I guess. Yeah. I know it's so hard to distinguish between good pain and bad pain because it just, everything hurts what we do. Our lives are just like fighting through pain really, you know, in some sense, like we're just, we're just harming ourselves. And like sometimes, sometimes, yeah, yeah. Sometimes it's just like, you, you do have to be a little bit of... Mm. Torturing. you do have to kind of, I don't know, like push down like the emotions and the pain if you want to get good and you want to see progress. you know, like you said the other day, you know, like it's one of those where I just flew a bit too close to the sun and clearly got burnt. And it's, you kind of like, you can teeter on the edge for a little bit. And sometimes you fall. Yeah, yeah. The right side, sometimes you feel the wrong side and unfortunately it was just the wrong side for me and I just pushed it a bit too far. But I guess, you know, the blessing in disguise is the fact that I've now got an opportunity to work on things that I don't normally get to work on this time in the year. I get to do things I don't normally do this time of year. I really want to see the positives in it and try and come away from this with ⁓ knowledge that can push me forward. Because that's the thing is like... shit's gonna get thrown at you, shit's gonna happen, you're gonna make mistakes, but it's like, you just wanna not repeat it again. And so that's kind of where my mindset is now, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got I kinda said to you over a message just like can't remember my exact well exactly what I said but it's like at what you know especially over the last sort of like I don't know however long you've been kinda grinding away at Tratlan but when's the last time you kinda had like an opportunity in August to take like a legitimate holiday that's like guilt free as well? Like like you know that the body needs you the body needs recovery so like Yeah, exactly. You know, normally we've always got a race in September or October or November. You like you always have something that's coming up, and then by the time we get to the end of the season, it's like Christmas. Whereas like it's very rare for a British based triathlete to actually have a gap in the middle of the year when it's the summer holidays, when you're meant to be on holiday, and actually be able to take an opportunity to holiday. Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, it is like it is something you could just mope around and I said to my dad the other day I was I went around to theirs for for dinner and I was like I've come so obviously it's taken me a while to realize this but you know, I feel like this is me just I'm gonna get very philosophical now because I've had a few sizes but it's no it's just it's just like, know I've always been the kind of person who when I have Okay, yeah, I'm waiting for it. ⁓ let's say a problem, whatever it is, or a set of problems, I'm like, well, once I sort this out, then life will be fine, or life will be easier. I'll allow myself to be happy once I get that, or once I do that. And then you realize once you get that thing, or you solve that problem, you just get a new set of problems. And it's like, your life always is gonna have things that are, there's always gonna be problems thrown your way. And so it's like having the mentality of, ⁓ I'll just, I need to focus on this, and then I'll be problem free, and then I'll be problem free. And it's like, Ha ha Yeah. you're never problem free. So it's like, you'll then never be happy. So I'm like, I'm trying to just see it as like, it is what it is, take it on the chin and just try and see the positives in it and learn from it. And yeah, I'm not gonna be all, I'm trying not to be a wishy washy, but I kind of am. Yeah. No, I I I I definitely think you it's I think in in a sport where you're constantly striving for more and more success, whatever that looks like in terms of performance, output, you know, accolades, medals, whatever it is, you ⁓ you always do think there'll be there will be a moment where you're like, Yep, I'm content kind of thing. But you know, you speak to speak to anyone who's ever kind of raced especially at like the top level in elite sport. Mmm. And I would say very, very few ever really get to that point where they like they kind of hit that pinnacle and they were truly, like, truly, truly satisfied. And I think actually those who are able to take a step back earlier in their career and understand that, you know, I'm probably never gonna feel like I've completely cracked the code or achieved everything I want to achieve or whatever it is, but kinda take a step back and go, Well, actually I'm just gonna try and Hmm. Yeah. Hmm. enjoy every step. And I guess again I take you back to when you when you won Challenge Champs and we spoke on this podcast and I said, look, mate, you've you've won a massive race this year. If the season ends now, it's a good year. And and then obviously post that you've then obviously had the Sweden and Swansea performances and like, you know, not that many professional athletes or not many bat not many pro triathletes can say that they got two wins in a single season. Like that's Yeah, yeah. Yeah. in itself is pretty yeah, I would I don't know the exact stats on it, but there's not that many pro triathletes out there that do that. ⁓ so I think yes, it's frustrating finishing a year in you know end of July. However, I guess in two, three, four years time you might look back at the season and go, Well actually, yeah, okay, I had that stress reaction, but it was still a really good season. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's what I want to, I don't, yeah, I don't want to be all mopey and grumpy because it's also like, it just, it just pisses off the people around you. And so, yeah, I do feel, I don't know, the emotion is kind of strange. Like I'm certainly through the like pissed off and annoyed emotion. I think I'm a little bit embarrassed. I don't know really why I think I'm a little bit embarrassed that I'm finishing my season early and I feel like Ha Mm. I don't know, feel like was stronger than getting a stress response. Like getting a stress response, I'm like, ⁓ man, I'm just a little weak pussy. ⁓ But yeah, that will pass. ⁓ I think just, yeah, trying to see the positives and really focus on, so right now I'm gonna just really focus on the swimming side of things. Obviously before that. Ha ha. ⁓ like Andy alluded to, I'll take some time away, recover, reset mentally, physically. Then it gives me an opportunity while I'm still not able to run, focus on the swimming, can do some easy mileage. I'm very lucky in the fact that today I picked up a new gravel bike from BW, the new Argon Antimatter. I'm very much looking forward to some gravel rides on that, which would be good fun. Nice. I'll probably stack it and break my collarbone, but you never know. Add add another ⁓ bone related injury to the May as well. We may as well fuck me up. ⁓ But yeah, I feel like I've put a downer on the pod, mate. ⁓ man. I guess No, no. I I think it's gonna be interesting 'cause like I guess it is the reality of of what we are of what we're doing. Like, yeah, we y we as professional athletes are trying to utilize our bodies to earn money and make an income and it's the harsh reality of like as you said, like I think I I text you saying flying flying like you flew a tiny bit too close to the sun this time and I think I guess that's the question I was I was gonna lead to now, which is Yeah. Yeah. And I guess it's probably still very raw and and still very fresh and you probably still haven't finished fully kind of going through it. ⁓ but I guess like I'm guessing with yourself, with your coach, you're probably looking at, you know, run volume, you know, complete like TSS load over those weeks where the niggle started to happen. ⁓ also like obviously I know it was like six weeks ago now, but like potentially like Mm. Yeah. nutrition, like were you under fueling for those couple of weeks? Or or was there like is there like a reason 'cause it it's almost easy. If there's a reason that you know that it happened, for example, like you like, ⁓ I just fucked up. I didn't eat enough for a few weeks. I probably got a little bit too lean. Did loads of training. Yeah, my fault. Or I guess the other opposite of like I just ramped up my run too quick or I pushed a few sessions and yeah. It's easy if you got an answer kind of thing. But s I guess there's sometimes there's not an answer, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I think it's one of those where it comes back to like, ⁓ it's fine to have an injury or a problem as long as you learn from it and you evaluate it. And so that's the next part of, and obviously that's what I've been doing behind the scenes is thinking, how did I get to this point? Cause it's all well and good being like, ⁓ you're injured, you need to take time off. But if you don't understand why you're injured. you'll just it'll just be a repeat offense and that's really what you want to avoid because you you'll see it in triathlon and other sports the athletes that do the best or progress the best are athletes that avoid getting injured so they can be as consistent as they possibly can year on year on year ⁓ and people will pick up little niggles here and there but if you're someone who's going to get injured and take long periods of time out you're never going to be able to progress even if when you're working you're working harder and more efficiently than someone else if they're able to be more consistent than you because they're not getting injured, they're not taking eight, 10, 12 weeks out. You just can't keep, can't, you can't catch up with someone like that. So, we've very much been looking at the reasonings behind this and I guess there's probably three reasons why you would get a stress response or a stress fracture. number one would be like an underlying health issue, whether you're deficient in something. So I guess you'd do some blood tests and figure some things out. ⁓ Yeah. Number two would be low bone density. you've got, let's say you've got an eating disorder, you're not getting in enough food, whatever your bones are going to be fragile. Number three is just like volume of running and load through the body. So whether you're over training and you're doing too many run sessions, whatever it is, and it's kind of like, I guess you could have a mix of all three or you could be Yeah. offender of just one of those things and I've kind of, if I look back honestly on the last six-ish weeks when I started feeling this pain, I think the main offender would be load and volume, like too much running basically, over training. ⁓ The reason why I say that is because whenever I've had health scans before and blood tests, like nothing's come up, maybe something's changed but I doubt it. The other thing is ⁓ Yeah. Okay. eating, I definitely don't have an ⁓ eating disorder. I don't ever have any issues with fuelling. However, what I would probably say is then was maybe a tiny amount of that because when we were going through that really, really hot phase in the UK where it was like disgustingly hot, I really struggle to fuel in the heat. I just, I'm... ⁓ Yeah. Yes, yeah. I'm not hungry in the mornings. I struggle to eat big meals. So maybe there was a part of that. Maybe I just under fueled ever so slightly because I'm still always cautious and conscious about it. But yeah, maybe I was a bit depleted and I was really on the rivet with the run volume and the run intensity. And so I think maybe those two things hand in hand could have been the issue basically. That's kind of what I'm. Just depleted, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's what I've sort of realised. think if I look back on it honestly, I do think it's probably those two things, mainly the run intensity and volume. But if I'm going to be completely honest, I'm not very good at fuelling in the heat and that's something maybe I need to consider if we're going to continue to get hot weather like this. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, definitely, definitely. And I g it's a it's it's an easy one as well, 'cause I guess you you can look at that period, you know, it probably isn't just even that necessarily that week into it, but the the two, three, four weeks leading into that point where you started to feel any discomfort and you could probably say, All right, well, that is, you know, whatever that number was. I think you you know, maybe like six hours of running, six and a half hours of running, whatever the number was. Mm-hmm. And you could say, well that's that's my that's my upper capabilities and I guess moving forward with how you pr how you program your training with your coach, it's like, well, let's you know, we can push other envelopes to get performance out. Maybe let's just stay on the safer side of that one for the next, you know, couple of years to make sure it doesn't become a reoccurrence. 'Cause I think not that, you know, I think you haven't got a stress fracture in this situation. Mmm. Yeah. But from what I've heard, and again, I'm not medically trained at all, ⁓ but what I have heard in the past is that people who end up having bad stress fractures tend to get like another fract stress fracture within a year or two because if it's a bone density thing, it's kinda like, well, you don't ever fix it straight away. ⁓ and maybe as you said, maybe it's not maybe it is the heat, the underfuel it the underfueling potentially slightly Yeah. the training load, but maybe there is like, you know, you know, y in a c in a complementary way, you've been grinding away for the last, you know, as as long as I've known you for the last sort of five, six, seven years. ⁓ so you've got to believe that potentially there is a a slight toll on term in terms of bone density potentially, even if it's just a a few percent lower than you want it to be. ⁓ so maybe that's again something that you can Mm. Yeah. Yeah. work on over the the next few months of like, you know, what what can help promote, you know, stronger bones, I guess. Yeah, yeah, just smashing the act now, mate. Drink is drinking six pints of milk a day. ⁓ Mate, I'm having the gold cap milk. I'm sinking that shit. I'm turning up to a swim. Yeah, mate, I'm turning up to a swim with a litre bottle of pH and it's just gold cap milk. Imagine seeing someone sip on some milk in a swim session. Truck it truck it out. And then just chuck a ⁓ chuck electrolyte tab in that, yeah? ⁓ mate. Right, I'll I appreciate you taking the time to jump on. ⁓ as you said before we start recording, you haven't got much much else to do now, you're not training, so proper frothy. it's disgusting. Mate, I got fuck all else to do. You're a full-time athlete, a full-time dad, you do coaching. I'm I'm sat here not knowing which way's up. ⁓ Ha ha ha But I also do appreciate that yeah, it's never fun to talk about ⁓ as you said, like yeah, you said you feel a slight level of embarrassment. I guess it's never fun to it's always easy and fun to talk about things that are really positive and going well. And I think it's always a little bit more difficult to, you know, have open and honest conversations when you're like things aren't going well and it'll be interesting as well 'cause, you know, we have got Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. that road to to ten B with Josh and stuff like that. So it'll be interesting to hear you over the next few weeks obviously ⁓ going through your like recovery phase but also kind of like how how you're finding that mentally. ⁓ like I guess like as you said, like you're trying to be as positive as you can throughout this whole process. So as friends, as your friends, hopefully we can help kind of keep you on that kind of like good mental space and kind of Yeah. get you more excited for next year. I think I dangled the carrot of saying, Well, you always said you wanted to nail the pro series next year so now you've just got the best build up for the pro series 'cause you've got six months clean to get yourself in shape. You Exactly, mate. No, exactly. Yeah, no, I really appreciate it, I think, yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing you boys continue to rip it in the training and, yeah, see all the inside bits you guys are doing. And then whether I'll be in Tempe or not, I'm not 100 % sure. Part of me, that's another thing that I need to figure out. Part of me would love to go and support and see you guys smash it and be there and really, like, be hands-on with it. Mm-hmm. Then the other part of me is mentally, I think it'd be quite difficult to be there and witness a race that I really wanted to do and know that there will be a lot of people that won't then they won't be doing this in a bad way, but just asking loads of questions about why I'm not racing and stuff like that. probably end up having to repeat myself quite a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fo ⁓ FOMO and and and also I guess like that that I guess annoying question of like ⁓ Harry if you were racing like do you think you could have won it? Do you ⁓ right like you know who whoever whoever w whoever wins the race, yeah. Just be like, ⁓ doesn't matter who wins it, it's just like ⁓ yeah, I reckon reckon I can put them away. No Yeah, it's just so easy from the sidelines to be like, yeah, of course I would have won it. Yeah, yeah. So it's, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, we'll see. We'll see how I feel about that. But regardless, I'll be tracking it anyway. Right mate, yeah, no, I appreciate that. And yeah, let's ⁓ I'll tune in next week. But ⁓ yeah, guys, send send Harry some love, give him some clicks on YouTube, ⁓ and ⁓ yeah, we'll catch in with you guys next week. Appreciate it mate, see you in the next one. Have a good one. Cheers.